Cardinal’s intervention - Abuse files must be released

MANY parents who complained to Catholic Church authorities because priests were abusing their children were betrayed by the inadequate, cowardly and morally reprehensible response of the Church.

In what was the darkest episode in the Church’s long history in Ireland too many offenders were simply swept away to a new parish to continue their attacks on children. This was done with the criminal collusion of a hierarchy who imagined themselves above the law.

During the intervening years many of those parents must have asked themselves why they did not go to the gardaí with their complaints so other children might have been protected from the paedophiles offered shelter and protection by the Church.

They may ask themselves why they trusted the organisation that sheltered the evil that came so appallingly into their lives rather than the civil authorities.

Those parents may regret their actions but theycannot be blamed as no one, least of all a Catholic with a strong and active faith, could have imagined how badly the Church would have responded.

Cardinal Desmond Connell’s attempts in the courts this week to limit the Dublin Diocesan Commission of Investigation’s (DDCI) access to church files dealing with these matters can only deepen that sense of betrayal.

No matter how Cardinal Connell, who will be 82 next month and who retired four years ago, tries to dress up his actions he must face accusations of attempting a scandalous cover-up.

That this court action flies in the face of the stated and admirable policy of transparency and co-operation practiced by his successor, Archbishop DiarmuidMartin, can only add to the sense of outrage.

That Archbishop Martin only heard of the court action on the night before it was taken makes it difficult to accept the suggestion, made yesterday afternoon by Bishop Eamon Walsh, that the two men are as one on this issue and that the court action is being taken merely to resolve a point of law. Dr Walsh’s clear promise that the diocese will cooperate full with the DDCI is reassuring and very welcome.

The relationship between two senior churchmen is, in the full scale of this tragedy, ultimately irrelevant.

The reality is that Cardinal Connell has initiated an unprecedented challenge to the Government’s inquiry into clerical child sexual abuse in the Dublin diocese.

He is trying, by what ever circuitous route he can, to assert his belief in the pre-eminence of canon law over the law of the state. He is challenging the assertion by former Justice Minister Michael McDowell that Roman Canon Law — the Catholic Church’s legislation governing its internal affairs — has no more status in Irish law than the rules of a golf club.

The DDCI was established by the Dáil when Mr McDowell was minister for justice and it was to have unfettered access to files of the Dublin diocese, where more than 400 actions against clerics have been initiated. Indeed, the minister declared that errant clergy would face prosecution. “I am not afraid of the bang of a crosier from any direction,” declared Mr McDowell.

It seems that Cardinal Connell has decided that the time is right to administer the “bang of the crosier”.

It is to be hoped that the position advanced by his successor, one that has acknowledged the great wrongs done to so many, the great betrayals and deceits and tragically, the great evil at the centre of this scandal, is the one that prevails.

Without establishing the full truth, the absolute and complete truth, this deep wound will continue to fester.

That is why the Dublin Diocesan Commission of Investigation must have access to whatever documents it deems relevant to its mandate.