The God Squad

Any attempt to hit the faithful for a bailout for the crimes of priests is horrifying, writes Emer O’Kelly

Sunday March 07 2010

An email letter came to the Sunday Independent last week. It was headed ‘Completing the work of justice and healing in Ferns Diocese, and was signed by Rev John Carroll, Diocesan Communications Officer. The tone was injured, the gist that every organ of media in the country had got it wrong: that when Denis Brennan, the Bishop of Ferns, was reported as saying last Monday that the diocese may be forced to sell properties if it cannot raise enough “donations from parishioners” to fund compensation arising from abuse claims, he didn’t mean that, at all, at all.

In fact, when Brennan said that a request for financial help from parishioners was not about sharing blame, but about “asking for help to fulfil a God-given responsibility”, he didn’t mean that he was going to ask for it. It was only, according to John Carroll’s letter, that the diocesan authority was “continuing to consult with members of the diocesan family” . . . a process that “happens each year at the annual Finance AGM”.
In fact, a decision “will only occur after the conclusion of consultation over the coming months, and perhaps years, with churchgoers”.

Could one reasonably infer from that that the business of handing over some monies as a small recompense for what was done to innocent children may take years? If there was confusion, Fr Carroll’s letter has only served to add to it.

At least Bishop Willie Walsh has the decency to be straightforward in his suggestion, as disappointing from him as it is horrifying, that in his diocese too there may be an attempt to hit the faithful for a bailout for the crimes of his priests.

They’ve done it again: they have confirmed that they really believe that they can close the door on this monstrous crime and sin. There is no comprehension that there can never be closure on such monstrous evil and injustice.

So let’s look at some other views of what Denis Brennan said/meant. David Quinn runs the Iona Institute, a sort of Catholic think tank, and not what passes for a liberal one, even in Catholic terms. (Its website currently headlines an article which begins ‘The Civil Partnership Bill will mean that belief in traditional sexual morality and traditional marriage will be treated as a form of prejudice to be punishable by law under certain circumstances’. Really?) He was interviewed by Pat Kenny on radio the day following the Brennan remarks. Quinn said it was either raise money from the parishioners or go bankrupt, as far as Ferns was concerned. He also said that he has always believed that if a bishop is found guilty of a crime, that bishop should go to jail. He was agreeing with Pat Kenny on the analogy between Church culpability and banker culpability. But: since the reporting of child sexual abuse to the civil authorities was not mandatory for the period dealt with by the Ferns report, the failure to report “wasn’t strictly speaking a crime,” he opined.

The late Cardinal Cahal Daly said, when the shame of his priests was revealed, that they protected them because they (the hierarchy) didn’t know just how deep-seated the urge to molest children was.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote that it was difficult to understand why good people could continue to go to church without feeling sick on entering the doors. There was a barrage of outraged letters to the editor, defiantly defending church-going, while declaring horror at “the minority” of child abuse. It was very clear that I had touched a nerve in a lot of people.

Colm O’Gorman, the man whose courage and determination set in motion the matters which have ended in the Ferns report and other reports, pointed out to Sean O’Rourke on radio on Tuesday, that 80 per cent of the projected costs of the whole Ferns affair have nothing to do with monetary compensation for the victims, but have been incurred by legal costs for the diocese in defending itself. In other words, defending the indefensible.

In the same slot as his interview with David Quinn, Pat Kenny asked Mary Raftery, the journalist whose television documentary cast so much light on the overall issues, what would happen to other Church services if a diocese was made bankrupt. He named “Accord”, the marriage advice service. (Some might believe that the kind of advice offered by the Catholic Church on marriage might not be worth having.) But Raftery suggested that parishioners making contributions could specify that it went to such services and not be designated in any way to pay the child abuse debts.

She clearly trusts the Church to obey such an injunction. It’s no accident that the Church is, as Colm O’Gorman pointed out last week, one of the wealthiest institutions on the planet. (I have certainly been told by wealthy Irish business figures in one diocese that they are called in each year and told by a man in purple what their separate expected contributions will be for the year. It always runs into a minimum of six figures. The shame is that most of them meekly write the cheques.) There is apparently a mortgage on the bishop’s house in Ferns since the scandal emerged. It yielded €1.8m, and costs €120,000 per annum to service. Just think what a mortgage on the contents of just one of the Vatican museums would yield.

Sunday Independent