Cloynes Report, Christianity, etc etc

Dades wrote: »

Well it would be interesting to clarify, as if there was no actual provision in law then it would be an odd anomaly that only priests were suddenly obliged to report crimes.

robindch wrote: »

Well, more precisely, pretending the law doesn't apply to you seems to do the trick:I'd like to hear Mr Clifford explain exactly why he thinks that Irish Law shouldn't apply to an Irish Citizen for events that took place in Ireland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-jXe0x4YdM

Ghost Buster wrote: »

Ah Mary Kenny. Just be thankful that she is too old to breed with David Quinn:eek::eek::eek:

koth wrote: »

Article in the Independent as to why the confessional seal must remain.

The writer makes it sound like if the law goes ahead to require mandatory reporting that priests will announce it to angry mobs. And that the law is the first step on the road to state fascism :rolleyes:

You might be encouraged to go to the law -- but that would be for your own conscience to decide.

If paedophiles abuse a child, certainly they have broken the law and should be charged.

Yet, individuals with a paedophile orientation also need treatment.

eoin5 wrote: »

Is there a risk of some priests becoming heros/martyrs to a large element if they refuse to disclose their info?

Ghost Buster wrote: »

Oh but there will be some. There a lotta hard core Catholic out there.......:eek:
I can point you in the direction of some on Boards

Church's solicitor guarded every angle
A NAME that crops up with conspicuous frequency in the Cloyne report, when it comes to “restraint” on the part of Catholic Church authorities in co-operating with State inquiries into child sex-abuse allegations, is that of solicitor Diarmuid Ó Catháin.

This is the same Ó Catháin who advised Cardinal Desmond Connell when in 2008 he initiated High Court action against his successor as Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin. That was an attempt to restrain Archbishop Martin from handing over documents to the Murphy commission which the cardinal deemed confidential to himself personally. Cardinal Connell later dropped the action and the documents were handed over.

This is the same Ó Catháin who attended a controversial meeting in Limerick on March 30th, 2006, as a member of the interdiocesan case management advisory committee of Cloyne and Limerick dioceses. Set up in 2005, this committee advised then bishop of Cloyne John Magee and then bishop of Limerick Donal Murray on handling allegations of clerical child-sex abuse.

At that meeting Ó Catháin and two priests representing Limerick diocese met 37-year-old Peter McCloskey, who alleged that in 1980 and 1981 he was repeatedly raped by a priest in Limerick. Bishop Murray later issued a statement saying he “completely accepts the truth” of McCloskey’s allegations.

Deirdre Fitzpatrick, then of the One in Four group, accompanied McCloskey at the meeting and recalled he was “very distressed and disappointed” afterwards.

She was critical of Ó Catháin for suggesting the diocese could sue McCloskey for costs should he proceed with court action. Three days later, on April 1st, 2006, McCloskey died by suicide.

Ó Catháin was solicitor for Cloyne diocese. Msgr Denis O’Callaghan was child protection delegate there. Both were on the interdiocesan case management advisory committee of Cloyne and Limerick dioceses, set up in 2005. This, the report said, “was not appropriately constituted” as Msgr O’Callaghan and Ó Catháin’s other roles “made it virtually impossible for them to give the sort of independent advice which the bishops needed”.

A member of this committee said the meetings were dominated by Msgr O’Callaghan, Ó Catháin and the priest delegate from Limerick. “It was not permissible to express a contrary opinion,” he told the commission.

The Cloyne priest delegate from 2008 to June 2010, Fr Bill Bermingham, told the commission Ó Catháin “did not agree with the procedures and policies underlying the [Bishops’ 1996 Framework] document”, as the report put it.

Ó Catháin told the commission he had reservations about the mandatory reporting element of the document the bishops had adopted “despite his expressed views to the contrary”. He said he saw no conflict in his being a member of the case management advisory committee while acting as solicitor for the diocese in clerical child sex-abuse cases.

An indication of Ó Catháin’s approach can be gleaned from the case of Fr Drust. An allegation was made in 2002 by “Ula” that she had been sexually abused by the priest between 1967 and 1971. In 2003 gardaí sought a statement from Bishop Magee. Ó Catháin told the commission he explained to a Garda sergeant investigating the case that “if a matter was discussed in confidence with a bishop, the bishop could not disclose the confidence without first getting, obtaining, the consent of the person who had reposed the confidence”. He told the sergeant, as he recalled it for the commission, he believed “it was in the interests of the common good that Magee should not be asked to make a statement”.

When, later, the sergeant met Bishop Magee, he was assured of total co-operation. It was not to be the case. Through a solicitor, Bishop Magee declined to make a statement or to supply a copy of Ula’s handwritten account. His solicitor said the document was “a church document and hence confidential”. Bishop Magee would not make a statement “in consideration for the public good and the maintenance of the confidentiality of the church”.

In the case of Fr Brendan Wrixon, accused of abuse by “Patrick”, Bishop Magee gave two accounts of a meeting he had with the priest on September 22nd, 2005. An accurate account, where the priest admitted guilt, was sent to Rome and a fictional one, where he denied the allegations, was for diocesan records. When asked by the commission why he prepared two accounts, Bishop Magee said he had inquired from Msgr O’Callaghan and Ó Catháin about his correspondence to the Vatican and “was assured it was a privileged relationship and. . . would not be discoverable. . . ” He found out later this was not so. According to the report Ó Catháin told the commission he had “no recollection of Bishop Magee consulting him directly about this issue. . . ”

In the summer of 2008, the case management committee reacted vigorously to draft findings of the church’s child protection watchdog – its National Board for Safeguarding Children – that child protection practices in Cloyne were “inadequate and in some respects dangerous”. On July 9th, 2008, it sent a forcefully-worded letter to the board saying: “If you issue this report in its present form or include its distortions in your forthcoming annual report, we shall have no choice but to seek remedies in either ecclesiastical or secular courts or both.” Among the signatories were Msgr O’Callaghan and Ó Catháin.

Barrington wrote: »

Oh yeah, there'll always be some (And Hello if you're reading this), but hero/martyr? There'll still be far more who would see him as a villain than a hero

antiskeptic wrote: »

Just read the transcript of Inda's address to Rome. Who'd ever thought a politician could plain-speak for that length of time and hit the bull between the eyes whilst doing so.

Ex-communication to follow?

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

An excommunicated person is still Catholic and is still expected to go to mass but can't recieve the sacraments. It is basically the religious equivalent of flying Ryanair, worship without the frills.

Once they seek forgiveness for their wrongdoing they get bumped up to first class on Etihad Airways.