Church guilty of injustice to accused priests

THE Catholic Church is compounding injustice by forcing priests at the centre of child sex abuse allegations to stand down, it was claimed yesterday.

Nuala O’Loan, Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, told a conference that innocent clerics were being tarred with the same brush as abusers. And she insisted accused priests were left with a cloud of suspicion hanging over them for the rest of their lives.

“Effectively he (a priest) is condemned immediately in the eyes of the public. If a criminal investigation finds nothing - what happens?” she asked.

“The Church cannot do anything - he is left in limbo for the rest of his life.

“The Church got things very wrong in the context of child sex abuse and its handling of it and, in the attempt to address that, they are perpetrating another injustice.”

Ms O’Loan was addressing a conference in Dublin on teachings and practices of the Catholic Church. She said the Church and authorities should approach each case on its own merits, but she urged them to respond to allegations proportionately. Ms O’Loan also noted the dangers of people making false claims. “If you have a situation where you have one complainant making allegations, and those allegations change in the first two or three tellings, you have to say, ‘is this credible?’”

She agreed that all allegations had to be investigated, but warned: “As soon as you say ‘stand aside’, questions start being asked.”

Ms O’Loan also urged the Church to sit down with the media to discover their needs and respond to them.

She insisted the feeling among lay Catholics was that the Church hierarchy was far behind the thinking of ordinary people.

Ms O’Loan was one of a number of high-profile speakers invited to the conference at Croke Park, including Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Lord Chris Patten of Barnes whose report into policing in the North brought about radical reforms in the force. Mr Ahern and Lord Patten had a brief discussion as the conference got underway.

Archbishop and primate of All Ireland Sean Brady opened the event organised by the Irish Bishops Conference to discuss the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.