Even-handed response to abuse: Consistent standards must apply

ARCHBISHOP Diarmuid Martin’s no-wriggle-room reassertion last week that all allegations of clerical child sexual abuse must be reported to gardaí is very welcome, even if he had no alternative but to restate that policy, one he fought so hard to have implemented. Any other position would have been untenable and out of character.

Archbishop Martin was responding to a Vatican training guide for newly-appointed bishops that suggested it is “not necessarily” a bishop’s duty to report clerics suspected of child abuse to civil authorities. The guide suggested that only victims or their families should make the decision to report abuse to police. The document emphasised that, though they must be aware of local laws, bishops’ only duty was to address such allegations internally.

This Vatican document, written by controversial French monsignor and psychotherapist Tony Anatrella, seems to give primacy to religious codes over civil law and celebrates the culture of secrecy and denial that has effectively changed the character and position of Catholicism in Ireland.

This policy contrasts with that of Pope Francis who called for the church to exhibit “zero tolerance” of sexual abuse by clergy and that “everything possible must be done to rid the Church of the scourge of the sexual abuse”. Despite this, the training course, devised by Anatrella, who has expressed very strong views on homosexuality, has been running for 15 years and has been taken by about 30% of Catholic prelates.

Thankfully, a report published by the Catholic Church child protection watchdog in Ireland last December on an audit of 20 congregations found that allegations of sexual abuse are being reported promptly in almost all cases to the relevant authorities. Like any oversight system this one cannot be absolute, but this represents a considerable advance on what was, and still can be, a cancer in our society. At that time Teresa Devlin, chief executive of the Catholic Church’s National Board for Safeguarding Children, said the safeguarding of children had now become “a reflex” and a “first consideration” with religious congregations.

When the historial predations of paedophile clerics were revealed, and the great concerted efforts the Catholic Church made to conceal them, Irish Catholicism rightly endured considerable public opprobrium. Many, many good Catholics felt betrayed and their Church lost its leading role in society and struggles to rebuild credibility. Society’s outraged reaction was justified but it has left us with a serious challenge, one we must resolve or accept charges of hypocrisy and dishonesty.

In recent months a series of abuse scandals have come to light involving, one way or another, HSE staff and a small number of gardaí who either did not do their job or did it appallingly. Some showed a level of detachment that bordered on the criminal and facilitated the continued abuse of most vulnerable people. Why should different, less demanding standards apply to these lay people than those imposed on deviant clerics? Tragically, it seems we have yet to learn the core lessons of all of the abuse scandals that ruined so many lives and shamed this society.