Church donations used to stop abuse inquiry, group claims

Victims of clerical sexual abuse today staged silent protests outside cathedrals throughout Ireland.

Protestors handed out leaflets in Dublin, Cork, Armagh, Limerick and Galway, urging parishioners not to put money into church envelopes or donation plates.

Survivors of Child Abuse said congregations were not being told how money collected by the Catholic Church was being used.

They claimed donations were being used to “stagnate” the Laffoy inquiry into clerical abuse and to fund legal expenses and accommodation for paedophile priests.

Irish SOCA spokesman John Kelly said the group wanted representatives from within the community to become involved in the distribution of donations.

At the Dublin protest, he said: “In short what we wish to do is to make parishioners aware that the money they donate for good causes is being spent to pay the legal fees to stifle and stagnate a lawful inquiry set up by the government.

“Most of this money is not being spent on good causes which people thought would happen.

“We’re hoping that people in the future will have a say in how the running of the church is, especially with its finances.”

Around 20 SOCA representatives gathered outside Dublin’s Pro-Cathedral, holding a banner with the slogan No Representation No Donation.

It came a day after the release from prison of a retired Roman Catholic clergyman at the centre of one of Ireland’s most notorious church-linked child sex abuse affairs.

James Kelly, also known as Brother Ambrose, of the Brothers of Charity order of the church, was yesterday freed from the Curragh prison in Co Kildare after serving three years of a 36 year sentence.

Kelly, 77, was jailed in 1999 for sexually abusing boys in his care back to the 1950s.

SOCA protesters today claimed money from donations was used to help Brother Ambrose gain freedom and to hide him from public scrutiny.

However a spokesman for the Dublin Archdiocese said there was a misunderstanding amongst members of the group over how donations functioned.

He said parishioners knew exactly what each donation would go towards, and that this varied from parish to parish.

“The donor’s intentions rule,” he said. “Funds from collections have to be spent on very specific things.”

He said there was no possibility that money could have gone towards stagnating investigations in any way, and that it would not be used to help free a convicted paedophile.

A spokesman for the Catholic Church said it was not issuing a statement on the subject of today’s protest.

Priest Pat O’Donoghue, who conducted today’s mass in Dublin, said afterwards that money from one collection helped support working priests, and that money from another helped support those who were sick and retired.

“We have a responsibility to look after everybody,” he said.

“I can assure you that everybody who is a priest is looked after regardless of his circumstances.”

He added that priests who were convicted and who were no longer practising were not covered by funding.