Cardinal reiterates plea for forgiveness to abuse victims
Giving his Holy Thursday Homily at St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral yesterday, Cardinal Connell asked pardon “of all whom I have offended”.
And in particular he sought the forgiveness of “those who suffered unspeakable abuse by priests of the diocese and experienced a lack of the care that ought to have been provided”.
He prefaced these remarks by saying “the confession of sin is better made in the silence of the heart than spoken aloud”.
He expressed hope that “the steps now taken will ensure that the future will see no repetition of what happened in the past”.
He defended himself by saying that when he was criticised for his seeming lack of action and apology on behalf of the Church, he was unable to respond owing to the fact that he had already submitted his record of events to an independent inquiry.
“As I ask pardon of those whom I have offended, I freely forgive whatever has seemed to be unfair to me,” he said.
In February 2001, the Archbishop was made a cardinal. Dr Connell was among 37 senior clergymen who received the honour at an open air ceremony in the Vatican.
That same week he angered Church of Ireland bishops with remarks about Catholics receiving communion at Protestant church services.
He was first involved in controversy over the issue three years earlier, when President Mary McAleese took communion at a Church of Ireland cathedral.
Two years ago the Archbishop was the focus of an investigative documentary by RTÉ. The expose set the stage for a battle between the church’s adherence to canon law and its obligations under state law.
The Prime Time report disclosed that six bishops in Dublin had reassigned at least eight priests from one parish to another even though the bishops knew the priests had been sexually abusive. In most cases, the bishops did this without alerting the new parishes, fellow priests, or police.
The report, titled “Cardinal Sin”, focused on Cardinal Connell. It detailed, for example, how he appointed a confessed child abuser, the Rev Noel Reynolds, to the National Rehabilitation Hospital, thus violating the very guidelines he had established for dealing with priest sex offenders.
In Ballyfermot, the Rev Tony Walsh raped young boys in the 1970s and 1980s.
Dr Connell eventually stripped Walsh of his clerical title but did not notify police until years later.
