Protecting children - A last throw of the dice

THE Catholic Church in Ireland, through the National Board for the Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church (NBSC), yesterday published revised guidelines on child protection following the recent scandal over allegations of child abuse by clerics in Cloyne.

These are to be the only child protection guidelines in operation in the Catholic Church in Ireland.

They recognise that the Church has a responsibility to pass on a concerns about child protection to civil authorities even when the matter does not concern Church personnel directly.

This may seem an obvious obligation but far too many churchmen have behaved as if civil society was no more than an irritating intrusion that could be ignored if it jeopardised the status or security of their institution.

Let us hope that this policy represents a real change in the way these matters are dealt with by the Catholic Church. Just as there is a deep desire that politicians lead on other matters, there is an equally deep-seated hope that, even after all the scandals that have so undermined Catholicism in Ireland, the Church will behave as it should in these matters.

It would not have been easy to get agreement on these guidelines and considerable determination would have been required by the advocates. If there is a similar determination to implement them, then we may have crossed a rubicon. However, the Church should not imagine that this is anything other than a last throw of the dice.

Another failure in this area cannot be contemplated.