MARIE COLLINS made news all around the world this past week. Her passionate and graphic description of what it is like to be abused by a priest, and then to find religious authorities dismissive and obstructive when she revealed the crime, seems to have stunned some bishops into finally understanding the depth of harm caused by sexual abuse.
She spoke at the “Towards Healing And Renewal” conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, and says that she found it a “huge changing point” for her, because she could see real commitment to reform and accountability.
I don’t think there is a person in the country who doesn’t fervently wish that the conference will mark a huge changing point, not just for Marie Collins, but for the church in general.
Clerical sexual abuse of children, and the handling of it by the church, has been a gangrenous sore, a horrifying scandal in a church supposedly representing the ideals of Jesus Christ.
Msgr Charles Scicluna also made headlines, when he spoke of the “deadly culture of silence, of omerta” being the enemy of truth and justice. Strong words indeed, from this generally diplomatic Maltese priest. Scicluna was appointed as the Promoter of Justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was in charge.
Internationally, Scicluna is probably best known for the fact that he was an investigator into the truly bizarre case of the founder of the Legion of Christ, Marcial Maciel Degollado.
Maciel’s life could not have been invented. This founder of a thriving, conservative religious order was involved in ongoing relationships with two women, and had children with them. He was also guilty of depraved sexual abuse of boys and young men.
According to the Vatican, his guilt was “confirmed by incontrovertible testimonies”. His was “a life without scruples or authentic religious sentiment”. Due in no small part to Scicluna, Maciel eventually was removed to a life of “prayer and penance”. (He was not tried, due to old age and declining health.)
Ultimately, though, Scicluna may be better known for his strong statement this week that the means already exist to censure bishops who fail in their duty to children.
Scicluna bluntly said it is simply “not acceptable” for bishops to ignore anti-abuse protocols established by the Vatican or by their bishops’ conference. He said the church in Ireland, to take one example, “has paid a very high price for the mistakes of some of its shepherds”.
Is it possible, that the church is finally turning a corner, and there is now widespread support from the very top for the clear message that child abuse is a crime, and that bishops must co-operate with civil authorities?
Any fair-minded person would have to acknowledge the amount of work that has been done in Irish dioceses, to the extent that some parents are now beginning to mutter about the “ridiculous” amount of paperwork involved in any trip or activity undertaken by a church group.
Better to have ridiculous amounts of paperwork, I say, than have children at risk.
It is never possible to be complacent, or to believe that all that needs to be done, has been done. However, there is also the very real fear among priests that things have moved so far in the opposite direction that any priest is presumed “guilty as charged”. One does not have to invoke the disgraceful treatment of Fr Kevin Reynolds by RTÉ.
At a recent meeting of the Association of Catholic Priests, Fr Brendan Hoban spoke of the “grave concern around the protocol for standing down clergy”. Unacceptable variations in practice exist. He also spoke of “the number of priests found not guilty, who are still not reinstated into ministry, and the huge injustice that exists here”.
There are some bishops who are very hardline, who believe that it is impossible for a priest to return to ministry even when it is clear that a priest was falsely accused. Other bishops accompany the vindicated priest to celebrate Mass with him on his reinstatement. This level of variation from diocese to diocese is unacceptable.
But if the church gets its act together, however belatedly, that does not mean that as a society, all is well. The best figures available, and far more research needs to be done, show that the vast majority of abuse is not carried out by clergy.
I found the recent report on the Garda and the HSE in this paper quite shocking. Apparently there is a “turf war” between the HSE and gardaí, with the HSE unwilling to report child abuse until the child has received therapy. So much for mandatory reporting.
According to a report by Conor Lally, the Garda “inspectorate requested paperwork to be checked in all 112 Garda districts. The disparity that emerged between the paper records and the Garda computer database of crime rates called into question the integrity of all child abuse figures.”
While the Garda now says that it has rectified the problems with recording child abuse, what about the cases that were not properly recorded before reform?
In Ireland, we have a massive problem with sexual abuse. If the Catholic Church was outlawed in the morning, we would still have that problem.
It could be a huge changing point for our society if we could properly acknowledge, and begin to deal with, that fact.