Bishops lied and covered up abuse but are unlikely to face prosecution

The horrifying contents of the Dublin Archdiocese report and the sheer scale of the cover up have shocked Irish society even after the Ryan report last May and the Ferns report in 2005.

Bishops in Dublin colluded with child abusers, protecting them and hiding them, enabling them to prey on the innocent. Children were deliberately sacrificed to protect the Church and its money. In all, fourteen bishops were found to have failed in some way in the handling of cases of child abuse by priests.

Worst of all, it was the most vulnerable children who often the victims. Dublin’s poorest communities, places where people were less likely to challenge the men who called themselves spiritual leaders, were used as sanctuaries for abusers.

Priestly abusers raped and assaulted countless children, destroying lives, devastating families and the communities they were meant to support and guide. And yes, once again, Bishops knew, and did nothing.

Those who carried out these unspeakable atrocities can’t be allowed to get away with it. The Irish people, especially their victims, need to see them in a courtroom. They must face justice. Sadly it would appear that there is little possibility of those who covered up such crimes, who lied to and misled the public, who failed to report child abuse and rape to the police here in Ireland and who callously put self-interest and their own wealth ahead of the protection of children facing any criminal sanction in this state. It is another glaring example of failure on the part of our legis;ature that this is the case.

In 2005, when working with One in Four Ireland, I successfully campaigned for new laws that would criminalise such willful disregard for the protection of children  by people in high positions of responsibility. But the law we won will not result in prosecutions of any bishop who covered up child abuse in the past. No law can be applied retrospectively.

The response of the Catholic Church to the report has been a complete failure of leadership. The only thing the bishops seem to know about responsibility and accountability is how to avoid them.

But this goes beyond Ireland. The Vatican and the Papal Nuncio, the Pope’s ambassador to Ireland, ignored requests for information from the inquiry. They have been largely silent since the report was published last week but our own Government seems unable, or perhaps unwilling, to challenge them.

If this State is no longer the servant of the Church, and if the days of deference to the Church by politicians and civil servants are truly over, then the Pope’s ambassador must be summoned by the Minister of Foreign Affairs to explain himself. If he was the Ambassador of any other State which had questions to answer about the rape and abuse of Irish children this would already have happened.

But we cannot pretend that this was all the fault of the Church. We must not point the finger at the clergy and say they, and they alone, are to blame. While we punish the guilty we cannot continue to avoid our own responsibility.

From Breakingnews.ie:

In a three-year inquiry, the Commission to Inquire into the Dublin Archdiocese uncovered a sickening tactic of “don’t ask, don’t tell” throughout the Church.

“The Commission has no doubt that clerical child sexual abuse was covered up by the Archdiocese of Dublin and other Church authorities,” it said.

“The structures and rules of the Catholic Church facilitated that cover-up.

“The State authorities facilitated that cover-up by not fulfilling their responsibilities to ensure that the law was applied equally to all and allowing the Church institutions to be beyond the reach of the normal law enforcement processes.”

We don’t protect our children in Ireland.

More than three years ago the Ferns report revealed that the HSE has no powers to prevent abusers outside the family from having contact with children. Nothing has changed despite all the handwringing that followed Ferns.

When she was Minister for Education Mary Hanafin announced that the State, our Government, has no legal responsibility for what happens to our children in our schools.

This must change. In this State, if a company director breaks the law, he can be barred from being a director, but it seems that a Bishop who has been found to have covered up the rape of children can remain the patron of state funded schools and be left responsible for the safety of tens of thousands of children.

This is not about driving the Church out of our schools; this is about the State living up to its responsibilities and taking seriously its duty to protect our children.

Where the State fails to defend the rights of children then abuse and exploitation are often the result. Our children are our responsibility, and not the responsibility of any agency that places itself above the law. We can see now the consequences not only of cover up on the part of the Catholic Church, but also of the State’s failure to guarantee children’s rights and child protection.

 So what are we going to do about it?

 It is over ten years since Fianna Fáil came to power promising a referendum to put children’s rights at the heart of our Constitution. They said it was “a key priority”.

 It was promised again in 2002 and again in 2007, and again when the revised programme for government was agreed with the Greens.

 But the rights of children are not on the agenda in Government Buildings and won’t be until we force our politicians to put it there.

Unless our most fundamental law demands that we put children’s rights at the heart of the decisions we make they will remain targets for abuse and neglect. Our Government will simply wash its hands of them.

And it will be our fault, because we let them do it.

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