Ferns Report an important step in work to prevent child sexual abuse

“This is not the end. It is not the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps the end of the beginning.”

Winston Churchill's wartime quote is of some relevance, maybe, to Irish society and the Irish Catholic Church in the wake of the publication of the Ferns Report.

What is in the report is profoundly distressing to anyone concerned with the welfare of children or with the mission of the Catholic Church in Ireland.

Yet it is an important step in helping all sections of Irish society, including the Church, to work to prevent child sexual abuse.

The report sets out in a direct manner the abuse experienced by the children of Ferns. It assesses the handling of matters by diocesan authorities, the gardaí and the South Eastern Health Board.

It is critical where it needs to be. It also gives credit where credit is due. It acknowledges the growth in awareness and competence of both Church and State authorities over the years.

Judge Murphy and his team have put down a marker for all by making judgments that are measured but unflinching.

It will take time to fully absorb the contents of this report and the questions which need to be addressed on foot of it. But by far the most obvious place to start is the catalogue of shame that was child sexual abuse in the Ferns diocese from 1962 to 2002.

The modus operandi of Judge Murphy was to look at all allegations of abuse made in the diocese and to examine the handling of each. He does not make findings of guilt or otherwise, but there is no doubting the reality.

The number of allegations against individual priests varied enormously from single complaints in the case of nine priests to 26 complaints against one individual. The total is deeply shocking: more than 100 allegations against 21 priests operating under the aegis of the Ferns diocese over a period of 40 years.

How could this happen in a church which has always regarded the abuse of minors as deeply sinful, the 'sexual corruption of young boys' being long thought of as one of the most serious offences against canon law?

There cannot be full understanding, it seems, without turning the spotlight on St Peter's seminary.

In a place where priests should have been serving young people selflessly, an evil culture appears to have taken hold. But there are harder questions, not falling within the remit of the report, which will test the minds and attitudes of both 'conservatives' and 'liberals' within the Church.

The challenge for conservatives is to accept that the emphasis by church authorities on celibacy, holiness and obedience is not enough to protect children from those who have an inbuilt or acquired propensity to abuse.

There is a need for thorough vetting of candidates for the priesthood and ongoing priestly formation and assessment. There must be an acceptance that the insights of modern psychology and of the social sciences should be incorporated into decisions concerning personnel.

The challenge for liberal commentators may be to accept that the problem of sexual abuse by clergy may not be entirely separate from concerns in the Vatican and elsewhere about lax standards in the Church regarding sexuality, and particularly homosexuality.

Homosexuality is not the same as paedophilia, everyone knows, and this fact was emphasised by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin recently during the discussion of an alleged Vatican plan to order candidates with a homosexual orientation to be excluded from the priesthood. But certain issues are worthy of consideration.

Was sexual abuse particularly prevalent in the late 1960s, 70s and 80s, the period when there was widespread rejection of the Church's teaching on sexuality? During that time, homosexual subcultures emerged in some seminaries in the US and elsewhere. Was St Peter's seminary such a place? And while most homosexual people would deplore the abuse of children, there has been tolerance, on occasions, of sexual behaviour involving older men and younger boys. In the all-male world of the St Peter's seminary, did some priests develop just such a tolerance?

The truth is that more research is needed on all of these topics before we can draw safe conclusions. But the Sexual Abuse and Violence in Ireland (SAVI) report which found that 3.2% of reported abuse was perpetrated by ministers of religion, also found that three times as many boys as girls were involved in such cases. These figures may or may not apply to Ferns, however, where some notorious abuse related to young girls.

One of the guiding phrases in the report is "adequate and appropriate response". It is against this yardstick that the actions of various Church leaders and civic authorities are judged. The report presents a comprehensive set of factors which militated against a proper response and allowed abuse to continue in Ferns. These factors include the failure to properly assess men during seminary admission and training, the failure of the management system in the diocese and the failure of successive bishops to keep proper records of abuse.

"The absence of proper records together with the acknowledged reluctance of priests in the diocese to report inappropriate behaviour to the bishop meant that bishops were often presented with an allegation on one hand and a denial on the other and no other information that might have helped him come to a decision," the report notes.

Criticism of the Vatican is not a key feature of this report, but the failure of Church authorities in Rome to educate bishops about the growing awareness of child sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic priesthood during the 1970s and 1980s is noted.

This left individual priests poorly equipped to understand or confront the situation when they encountered it.

In Ireland, there was sometimes a failure by Church authorities to listen sensitively and sympathetically to allegations and this in turn prevented complainants from disclosing the full horror of what happened. The last of the factors listed is "a culture of secrecy and fear of causing scandal" which, the report notes, "informed at least some of the responses".

If there is a positive in this report for the Catholic Church it is the acknowledgment of best practice now in Ferns. Contrary to some newspaper reports, the diocese of Ferns under Bishop Eamonn Walsh's stewardship co-operated fully with Judge Murphy and his team. There is also praise for the 'Inter-Agency Review Committee' in Ferns.

This involves regular high level meetings between the diocese, the gardaí and the Health Services Executive and allows the diocese to advise other agencies about the circumstances and whereabouts of priests asked to step aside from active ministry pending investigation.

Tragically, it is not possible for anyone to say that an Irish child will never again be abused. But the Church's Framework Document, published in 1996, goes further than the law requires by calling on bishops and religious superiors to report knowledge or suspicion of abuse to the civil authorities.

A national child protection policy has been agreed by the church and awaits recognition from Rome. The Ferns Inquiry declares that "the current practice of the diocese of Ferns operates to a very high level of child protection" and that it will provide a model "not merely for other dioceses but for other organisations facing allegations of child sexual abuse by members".

Perhaps it really is the end of the beginning.