The Irish Times – Wednesday, December 30, 2009
PATSY McGARRY Religious Affairs Correspondent
THE AUGUSTINIAN priest who walked in atonement from Cobh to Dublin for clerical child sex abuse victims a year ago says the Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan “must have known something” about the the handling of clerical child sex abuse allegations in Dublin while there as auxiliary bishop between 1997 and 2005.
Beginning his walk on December 29th last year, Fr Michael Mernagh said he believed the Bishop of Cloyne Dr John Magee should step down after it emerged weeks earlier that child-protection measures in the diocese were “inadequate, even dangerous.”
This was revealed in a report by a Catholic agency, the National Board for Safeguarding Children.
Since then Dr Magee has stood down from governance in the diocese, which is currently being investigated by the Murphy commission.
Fr Mernagh maintained a three- day vigil outside St Colman’s Cathedral in Cobh, seat of Dr Magee, over Christmas 2008 in protest at the revelations.
He ended his 300km walk at Dublin’s Pro Cathedral on January 6th last, where he was applauded by a waiting crowd and embraced by Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin.
The archbishop described him then as “a man of principle. I respect anybody like that. I appreciate very much his gesture, but it’s his day and it’s a credit to him”.
Yesterday Fr Mernagh said: “If we are truly to atone it must be a public act and it must be a significant act and it must be an act of community.
“The old concept of atonement was for serious sin and sin in those days was actually considered to be a public matter committed by office holders. So they had to do penance in public.”
Dr Drennan, he said, “is claiming innocence, but this issue is greater than any individual bishop. This crime is an abomination, the most serious of crimes, so there must be no half-measures of sorrow or atonement. He must have known something.”
Fr Mernagh called for “a loud cry of protest” from the laity about what had been revealed in the Murphy report. There was a need “for more justified anger from the laity calling all priests and bishops to account.” The laity “must stand up and say No”.
This is the same fool priest who wanted to hold a “day of atonement” for the victims. Of course who would be presiding over this “day of atonement”……only the same Catholic Church that carried out these abuses. So there they’d be still up on the platform as the leaders of society. There to commit the crime and there to officaite over the penance.
Where and when did this fool priest call for proper monetary compensation for the victims?
To Patsy McGarry:
I applauded Fr Mernagh’s walk last January but was utterly dismayed by the lack of Involvment and Commitment from his boss Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin; his response in the Pro-Cathedral was typical of all that went before, and most of what has gone on since (the Murphy Report). And there, Fr Mernagh’s response was as meek, mild and subservient as that of everybody else: Clergy, Government, Press and Population.
And as for the Sense of Outrage, well I am still waiting for it! Michael O’Brien’s (see Youtube) outburst was, and still is the most and best I’ve seen. We are SO afraid to be angry. We have been SO conditioned and brain-washed.
Thanks for the website on the Catholic Church’s methods of Torture: it was “refreshing” to see that we are not crazy at all after all, and that we have very good reasons to be angry and revolt.
Sense Of outrage
I hope our ‘sense of outrage’ coming into the New Year is complete for there is not much left to be outraged about, though I am sure that a few organizations or individuals will not fail to disappoint. On this last day of the year and the centuries first decade, one individual was bound to stand out before the final bell tolled. Batty O keeffe. He leaves us with more confirmation of who he is and what I have being warning about on Paddy’s website for some time, all about him. I can rest assure readers that the worst is yet to come from this man in 2010. In the closing of 2009, this is Batty’s last throw of the rocks at survivors of institutional abuse and the best man so far that the Government can put up against us.
On September 4 2009, Batty stated that: “The situation in relation to children who were taken into the Magdelene launderies is quite different to persons who were resident in state- run institutions”. With this statement they were excluded from redress. By December 17 2009 in an attempt to get away from his earlier lies he attempts a U turn with this statement: “New Information wasn’t available when he rejected a distinct redress scheme for Magdalene Survivors.” Batty must have had an eureka moment somewhere in the interim, or has as much powers as altar boys or auxiliary bishops when it comes to decision making or cover ups.
All of the above with the continuation of damage control by Batty and his handlers, and the Catholic church, along with scribes like David Quinn, Ronan Mullen, and vicious hate letters from Horseman Hogan, the New Year can well be ours. For this to happen can only be measured by our sense of outrage and what we are prepared to do about it.
Please make this year count like no other before for you have many that wish to stand with you and beside you. Happy New Year.
Barry Clifford
Email: bgclifford@iol.ie
Hi Paddy ……. Since November the press and communications office of Drumcondra, along with other diocesan press offices have accomplished a major feat in keeping the horrific abuse of children in the background whilst they fed the public appetite to the spectre of a few neanderthal bishops being cast to the wolves ………We have now reached an impasse whereby the bishops have become the issue in lieu of the abused children.
This has to be rectified , and emphasis be returned to clerical sexual terrorism. A more worhwhile pursuit may render more credible results if we were to look in more detail at these monthly meetings which were held by bishops and their co-horts, in particular in the Dublin Archdiocese. A point in question maybe the case concerning Noel Reynolds, who admitted to the obscene use of a crucifix to grossly abuse a young girl by inserting it in her vagina and back passage . The public , and world NEED to know who were the bishops at that particular monthly meeting in the Dublin Archdiocese, the monsignors, and anybody else wearing a collar who were privy to the admissions of Noel Reynolds in regard to that inhuman act of obscenity on a young girl , and who typed up such reports at these monthly meetings of bishops . The scenario is utterly disgusting when one considers that “”princes”” of the church could COLLECTIVELY agree to the suppression of such a vile act on one so young , and further , COLLECTIVELY agree that the protection of such a vile abuser of innocent children should be awarded blanket protection while the child, and the abuse she endured, went ignored, in favour of AVOIDING SCANDAL TO THIS CHURCH. A case exists for many more than five of these neanderthals to go . For every bishop that goes places a further heavy onus of undue and unwarranted stress on parochial funds , in that those going suffer no financial burden , and the incoming neanderthals enjoy the previous benefits of the parish , car , driver, secretay, “”housekeeper””, so it is in effect , double jeopardy for the hard pressed parishoners to retain these neanderthals in the luxury which they demand …. A case in question is Desmond Connell, living a life of unadulterated luxury courtesy of the hard pressed parishoners of Dublin. The only sufferers in this sorry saga ARE THE ABUSED CHILDREN , NOBODY ELSE. And we should return focus and emphasis to survivors and the clerical sexual terrorism responsible for their present plight, and plights .