The Irish Times – Friday, December 18, 2009
PATSY McGARRY Religious Affairs Correspondent
The word ‘inexcusable’ in the Murphy report sealed the fate of the bishop of Limerick
THERE WAS an inevitability about yesterday’s announcement by Bishop Donal Murray and the Vatican. His resignation was not in doubt following publication of the Murphy report.
The only uncertainty was when it would happen.
One word in the Murphy report sealed Bishop Murray’s fate and made it impossible for him to remain on as Bishop of Limerick. That word was “inexcusable”.
It was the report’s description of Bishop Murray’s handling of an allegation about Fr Tom Naughton (coincidentally jailed for a second time for child sex abuse at Wicklow Circuit Court in Bray on Wednesday) when an auxiliary bishop in Dublin.
Concerns about the priest were expressed in 1983 by parents at Valleymount Co Wicklow, where Naughton was then curate. These concerns were conveyed to Bishop Murray by those parents, who told the Murphy commission the bishop dismissed them.
In 1984 Naughton was moved to Donnycarney where he abused more children. It was when this abuse came to the attention of church authorities in 1985 and Bishop Murray failed to reinvestigate what had gone on in Valleymount that the commission found it “inexcusable”.
Seeing the word “inexcusable” when reading the Murphy report on the day of its publication, November 26th last, most recognised it as the end for Murray’s tenure in Limerick. So when it was announced that he was to hold a press conference in Limerick that afternoon it was assumed by those less familiar with Church ways that he was planning to announce his resignation there and then.
However instead of resigning, he expressed his “deepest regret” over the abuse of children in Dublin and insisted he did not intend to resign. He went on to put up a doughty defence of his time as an auxiliary bishop in Dublin from 1982 to 1996 on several occasions.
However, when he delivered the homily at Mass in St Joseph’s, Limerick, the following Sunday, November 29th, his stance had begun to soften. His resignation was a question of whether his presence was “ a help or a hindrance to the diocese”.
Two brother bishops spoke in his favour. Bishop John Kirby of Clonfert said he did not support calls on Murray to resign. Bishop Willie Walsh of Killaloe warned against calls for resignation and said they were based on a “gross misreading” of certain parts of the Murphy report.
But pressure to go was increasing. Speaking on BBC Radio Ulster’s Sunday Sequence programme on November 29th Bishop of Dromore John McAreavey said he would resign if he found himself in the position where his “ability to deal with these matters with credibility and integrity” was challenged
That night on RTÉ’s The Week in Politics Limerick TD and Minister for Defence Willie O’Dea said Bishop Murray “will make the appropriate decision”.
We now know that on Tuesday December 1st Bishop Murray had decided to resign. That was the day he told the vicars general of his diocese he intended doing so.
That same Tuesday night Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin went on Prime Time in unequivocal mood. He was not happy with the response of bishops named in the Murphy report, he said. “I believe that the people of the archdiocese of Dublin, where this abuse took place, have a right to have these questions addressed today.”
He added: “Everybody has to stand up and accept the responsibility for what they did.”
His point was clear. Maybe that is why yesterday Bishop Murray only thanked Cardinal Brady in his statement.
The cardinal “was unfailingly supportive and helpful to him during this time”, he said.
It might also explain why Cardinal Brady was so sure when he said on Saturday, December 5th, “Im confident that Bishop Donal will do the right thing.” It seems clear now that he knew Bishop Murray had by then already decided to resign.
Bishop Murray, as we know, flew to Rome on Sunday evening, December 6th, and offered his resignation at the Congregation for Bishops the following day. One week later, last Monday, he was told it had been accepted.
Yesterday, three weeks to the day following publication of the Murphy report, it was announced. What remains a mystery is why something which was decided 16 days beforehand should have taken so long to be made public?
David Quinn Irish Indpendent 19 dec 2009
More prelates must go to restore trust in Church
A Cult Of Ignorance
David affirms his view what reasonable people are in his latest piece. Like most of his opinions they are written in the fine print to mask his real intentions. This time even his timing is out. Restoring trust rather than justice is Quinn’s latest policy along with the belief that only reasonable people can decide this, the others it seems have a far more sinister agenda.
This lot is hell bent on getting rid of the Holy See, Catholic hospitals, schools along with religious influence, even though they support the right and freedom of worship, and this by his own admission. Un- reasonable then changes into being rabid anti-Catholic, pro-communist, Brit –bashers, Anglo phobic, and irrational. Then David shows us his rational point of view.
Trumping that he wrote previously that Bishops in the manner of Murray should resign, he now writes that not every Bishop should go. He then refers to his friend, Drennan, as an example. His employment in 1997 is cited as proof along with the astonishing claim for the time that ‘the diocese was beginning to deal with abuse allegations properly’. Acting ‘correctly’ it must be pointed out in the Murphy Report is not the same as acting properly for the Bishop at the very least was privy to the facts, and is no more than trying to mitigate the rape of a minor by claiming it to be consensual. Restoring trust is left for David’s conclusion.
Here he tells us that only another six to eight bishops resignations is needed to satisfy reasonable people, reflect accountability, and the lessons fully learnt. By this atonement the Church can restore it’s reputation, and take solace from Americas handling of similar ‘learning curves’.
Here he cites Bernard Laws resignation as proof of this in 2002, while omitting that afterwards Law was promoted to the lofty and now scary position of electing Bishops himself. The present lot of Bishops over there, David beams, do not shrink from secularist counter- fire.
I would safely conclude at this stage that even if these secularists were being reasonable in that they did not believe in abortion, believed in religious freedom separate from education, and health for everyone in an all inclusive society, this would not be reasonable at all.
On a final point I can leave David with this thought: Scandal alone will not destroy the Catholic Church but the cult of ignorance will within it. Not understanding the difference between the two along with sympathetic scribes like Quinn are helping sow the seeds of it’s own destruction that now faces a more enlightened and learned society.
Barry Clifford
Oughterard
Galway
E mail: bgclifford@iol.ie
ONE bishop has gone. How many more will follow? As many as it takes to restore some measure of trust and confidence in the Catholic Church in Ireland, as many as it takes for reasonable people to be able to say, justice has been done.
Not everyone is reasonable, of course. Some people won’t be happy until we’ve severed diplomatic ties with the Holy See, destroyed Catholic schools and hospitals, eradicated the influence of Catholicism from the land and imposed on Ireland the type of secularism that existed in East Germany circa 1975. Catholics, under this dispensation, will be left with the right to go to their places of worship, and not much else.
In truth, this kind of rabid anti-Catholicism is the modern equivalent of the Brit-bashing and Anglo-phobia that was so prevalent in Ireland for so long and that most of us are now embarrassed by even if, in the wake of the likes of the Black and Tans, it was understandable in its day.
The current wave of anti-Catholicism is also understandable given the abuse scandals, but that in no way lessens its essential irrationality, nor does it mean that public policy should in any way be led by it.
But let’s leave aside unreasonable people and consider again what will satisfy reasonable people. To repeat, the answer is more resignations. As I wrote in this column two weeks ago, any bishop who knows that he dealt with abuse allegations in the same manner as Donal Murray did ought to go.
This means that not every bishop named in the Dublin report should necessarily have to resign. But it also means that some bishops not named in the report, and not subjects of the report should go as well.
For example, I’m not convinced Bishop Martin Drennan in Galway should have to go. He did not become an auxiliary bishop in Dublin until 1997 by which point the diocese was beginning to deal with abuse allegations properly.
In the Dublin report, Bishop Drennan is mentioned in connection with ‘Fr Guido’, but the Murphy report’s assessment of this case is that “the archdiocese acted correctly”.
On the other hand there are undoubtedly bishops elsewhere in the country who would not survive if the Murphy commission turned its attention to their dioceses and it is only because RTE hasn’t yet made a documentary about those dioceses that the commission has not done so.
They should not wait for an investigation. They should not hang on hoping there will never be one. They should ask themselves whether they dealt with allegations in the same “inexcusable” manner (to use the word of the Dublin report) as Bishop Murray did, and if the answer is yes, then they should go.
Of course, Bishop Murray should have resigned the day the report came out.
We now know that he decided to go on December 1, only four days after its publication. It took another 16 days for us to discover this, 16 days in which yet more damage was done to the Church’s reputation and during which the anger of the victims continued to burn.
But if another six or eight bishops were to resign, under no immediate pressure, it would persuade reasonable people that at last there was accountability, at last the lessons of the past had been fully learnt.
IF this were to happen, then the Church can begin to restore some of its tattered reputation. In this regard it can take some hope from the example of the Catholic Church in the US.
Back in 2002, American anger at the sex abuse scandals peaked resulting in the eventual resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston. There are still bishops in place who should not be in place. Despite this, American Catholics have continued to go to Mass in numbers almost unequalled in the West.
One reason for this is that the American Church has its share of impressive bishops, for example, Francis George in Chicago, Charles Chaput in Denver, and Timothy Dolan in New York. They provide great leadership to American Catholics. They fearlessly and capably articulate the Church’s position on a whole range of issues and they don’t shrink back from secularist counter-fire.
Recently, the American bishops helped organise a lobby that stopped Congress approving public funding of abortion. So the scandals did not destroy the American Church and the example of people like George and Chaput and Dolan shows what can happen when leadership is shown.
Pope Benedict XVI has said he will clearly indicate the initiatives that are to be taken in response to the abuse scandals in a pastoral letter to be written especially for Ireland.
The two best initiatives he can undertake would be to force the resignations of all those bishops who acted as Donal Murray did, and then to replace them with as many strong, fearless and capable bishops as he can. That would help to re-energise the Irish Church very quickly indeed, restore morale, and allow Christianity to be properly proclaimed in Ireland once again.
dquinn@independent.ie
– David Quinn
Irish Independent
Paddy. All of these Bishops should be given the sack and not allowed to resign on big pension. They have bled Ireland dry for the last 100 years
May
The Bishops should all go.
What purpose is the Catholic Church really serving in Ireland anyway?
All it does is brainwashes children from birth into believing men dressed in frocks and funny fish hats are Gods and desire to be kept on pedestals.
If these men of “God” were that evolved- They would not be on this planet.
The evidence speaks for itself.