The Irish Times – Tuesday, January 12, 2010
PATSY McGARRY Religious Affairs Correspondent
LABOUR DUBLIN City councillor Mary Freehill has insisted that she has not called for the name of Archbishop Ryan Park, better known as Merrion Square in Dublin, to be changed.
She said yesterday that she had proposed a motion at a meeting of the city council on December 7th last inviting comments from people on the name of the park. Her motion was agreed and the council is to place advertisements in the media inviting such comments. She agreed she was prompted to propose the motion following findings of the Murphy report about Archbishop Dermot Ryan.
Archbishop of Dublin from 1972 to 1984, he transferred ownership of Merrion Square to the city in 1974. At one time the Catholic Church in Dublin had hoped to build a cathedral there. The issue of name change for Archbishop Ryan Park was discussed on Joe Duffy’s Spirit Level programme on RTÉ 1 last Sunday.
However, Ms Freehill felt the park might be more appropriately named after one of the many literary figures who had lived at Merrion Square.
She instanced Yeats, George Russell (AE), Sheridan Le Fanu, Oscar Wilde, as well as Daniel O’Connell.
The Murphy report was very critical of Archbishop Ryan. On abuse allegations, it found that he “failed to properly investigate complaints, among others, against Fr McNamee, Fr Maguire, Fr Ioannes, Fr X, Fr Septimus and Fr Carney. He also ignored the advice given by a psychiatrist in the case of Fr Moore . . . subsequently convicted of a serious assault on a young teenager”.
It found he had “a deliberate policy to ensure that knowledge of the problems was as restricted as possible. This resulted in a disastrous lack of co-ordination in responding to problems.”
His handling of the Fr McNamee case was “an example of how, throughout the 1970s, the church authorities were more concerned with the scandal that would be created by revealing Fr McNamee’s abuse rather than any concern for the abused”.
The archbishop “should have taken immediate action” when he received reports about Fr McNamee. That he “allowed him stay in Crumlin for a further 15 months was wrong”.
As for Fr Ioannes, “the handling of the initial complaint in 1974 was quite simply disastrous and typical of its time”. Parents alleging abuse of a son in 1974 spoke to a priest who wrote to the archbishop.
On the Fr Thomas Naughton case, the report found that church authorities, “particularly Bishop Murray, the Valleymount parish priest and archbishops Ryan and McNamara let down those families who, because they were good Catholics, trusted the church to do something about this man.”
It found the handling of allegations relating to Fr Bill Carney was “nothing short of catastrophic”. The archdiocese “was inept, self-serving and, for the best part of 10 years, displayed no obvious concern for the welfare of children”.
The Paddy Doyle Park
thumbs up
A huge thanks to R Barry for this vital information. I’d be interested in pursuing this so I’d be grateful to you if we could connect up? Paddy could give you my contact numbers or alternatively, I could call you.
I’m with Emer on this one!
Survivors here in the South East have always visited the graves of our dead compatriots and place wreaths or flowers (depending on the season) and I have often wondered why our ‘Group Leaders’ never bothered to show their respect. We have a documentary on this issue in the pipeline and they will be castigated for their inertia and their inaction. Funding was never provided for us. We dug deep into our own pockets and shall continue to do so. This is just one of the issues in a long list of questions to be put to these people. Should people forget their history they are destined to repeat it – now who was the wise person who said that?
A TSUNAMI OF OUTRAGE
Regarding Gerry O Sullivans article on the 12 of January 2010 titled RITE AND REASON I wonder does he write for a pay cheque alone or does he really believe in what he writes. If nothing else his views and those of Dermot Martin are worth exploring starting with Dermot:
Dermot believes you need a qualitative leap to a different ‘view’ of the church rather than a different church. Then church groupie Gerry wades in telling us that the Dublin Archdiocese itself has child protection laws that goes further than the civil law itself, and here I was thinking that only the civil law mattered. Gerry even believes that the archdiocese can be the national leader in child protection, Just like David Quinn he then trumps out a few statistics from a group called SAVI regarding clergy abuse figures from 2002.
Back then according to who you believe, clerical child abuse was only four per cent leaving the other ninety six per cent quite vulnerable to the clutches of the laity. Looking up that report SAVI also said that half of all abuse that occurs is never reported which pushes Gerry’s figures up to eight per cent and that was almost eight years before the Ryan and Murphy report. The other abusers that were no less guilty by their conspiracy and complicity of silence pushed that figure to even greater levels but we cannot let that get in the way of a good old yarn from Gerry. He trumpets on regardless of the reality of both those reports. Dermot we are told is going to renew the gospel and faith in the church and recommend the child protection laws from them to us. Now it is not all a clear road to sainthood for Dermot for Gerry has discovered that he has feet of clay. Even some priest believe this too for they opine if Dermot can treat Bishops a little bit rough what is he capable of doing to them. Does Dermot not realize yet that all this abuse would never have happened anyway if was not for a breakdown in communications. There is even further hope for the future.
The first step is a call to reform for a renewed church by the pope perhaps on Ash Wednesday. If the sheep are still not happy he will tell them thanks for all the wool they gave them in the past and the present. If the flock are still ungrateful he will express his complete abhorrence with regards to child clerical abuse and perhaps a call to proper sexual health. This may include the warning that from here on sex with children is not only a sin, but it might now be a crime.
Okay, okay, if they are still a bit pouty Gerry tells us, Ratfinger may also issue a re-statement of the church’s position on healthy sexual morality. I heard that!! Stop sniggering at the back you or you will be excommunicated. At last Gerry gives us the good news for 2010.
The priests can go back to all that life and death stuff they were ordained for, and for the rest of us I’m afraid, it will be business as usual. Our tsunami of outrage will be a distant memory by then. What are you doing about it?
Barry Clifford e mail: bgclifford@iol.ie
Ownership of ‘Church’ Lands
Land held by dissolved/bankrupt religious/derelict orders may be deemed to be the property of the community and legal cases in the USA have been successful in establishing that religious property cannot be sold by religious without refunding the community with the gain, this goes back to 1960 when a land mark assessment was commissioned by the RCC to establish to whom ownership actually belonged.One basis is that alms from the poor provided the means of purchase and that charters of purchase were made on preferential terms by the community with explicity reference to the charitable nature of the religous occupier of the land. The specific covenants of purchase therefore expire in many cases on attempt to resale the land thereby returning it to the community or individuals from which it originated.
Ownership of church lands can be challenged successfully by a community.
IN any case, as history has shown in Ireland, the land commission has been most active in re-distributing estates including Mercy Sisters estates up to the 1970’s. My home was built on such land.
What would stop such a commission reforming and redistributing again? It is only the will of the people that can empower.
It did so before, it can do so again.
What about “The Field”!
RITE AND REASON: Archdiocese has better structures in place than civil institutions
THE DUBLIN archdiocese got child protection spectacularly wrong as the Murphy report and the tsunami of outrage and disgust that followed it demonstrated.
However, there is an opportunity to position the archdiocese by this time next year, January 2011, as a national champion for children and propose that every other civil institution would be held to its standard.
At first glance this might seem hopelessly optimistic. Yet it is clear that Archbishop Martin in his comments on New Year’s Day has a vision of where he wants to go in 2010. Renewal will happen in more than just child protection structures he said “because when you have seismic moments you need a qualitative leap to a different view of church”.
It will not be too difficult to make a qualitative leap in terms of child protection; the Dublin archdiocese has structures in place that are beyond anything any civil institution currently has.
By establishing the archdiocese as a national leader in child protection Archbishop Martin would position himself as a champion for Irish children and challenge the State and its institutions to follow suit at a time when the State is cutting resources to social services..
If 4 per cent of abusers are clergy or religious (SAVI Report 2002), then who is championing the rights of the children affected by the other 96 per cent?
Reform of the archdiocese is actually a more difficult task however. The first step in this leap to a renewed church will be the pope’s letter, most likely on Ash Wednesday. It will acknowledge the tremendous contribution of the Irish to the church worldwide from the time of the golden age of monasticism to the modern missionary movement. The pope will express his complete abhorrence at clerical child sexual abuse. There may well be a call for a proper understanding of proper sexual health among clergy but also in society and a re-statement of the church’s position on healthy sexual morality.
He will commend the child protection initiatives taken to date and ask that they be brought to fruition within the church. Finally, he will call on the whole Irish church to sit in fellowship and ask that the Gospel be preached by clergy and religious, working together with the laity in order to bring about the renewal of Gospel values and faith in the Irish church.
In other words, there are great people in the Irish church, so face up to your problems, don’t run away from them but solve them, stop bickering (bishops and Cori) and make the Irish church accountable to the Holy See and civil society.
Archbishop Martin will push ahead with reforms in the Dublin archdiocese based on his experience of the church in Europe, removing the failed structures so clearly identified in the Murphy report and distancing the archdiocese as fully as possible from those priests who were “collectively responsible” for what his administration agrees was a “cover-up”.
He may go to each of the deaneries as he did before and try to rally the priests around a vision of the future. To bring his priests, indeed the archdiocese with him, he is going to have to overhaul the communications structure that so failed the diocese in the past.
His own communications style at present needs polishing; it is being openly criticised by his priests and indeed by many bishops. The handling of the auxiliary bishops is seen as being rough and priests are asking themselves if a bishop can be treated so, how would they fare.
That said, while priests are quick to point out that their archbishop has feet of clay, they are by no means demoralised.
Change is being talked about; the albatross of mismanagement is finally being removed, and the diocese will be positioned to expend all its energies in reaching out and ministering to people in the challenges of their daily lives, the life and death stuff that they, priests, were ordained for.
For the Dublin archdiocese and the Irish church, in 2010, at last, there will be good news.
Garry O’Sullivan is managing editor of the Irish Catholic newspaper
Cllr Mary Freehill might appreciate some messages of support. It’s at least encouraging that some of our politicians are prepared to stand up and be counted:
freehill@eircom.net
http://www.labour.ie/maryfreehill/
Jeez – and what else does this menagerie of public representatives do to waste time and resources. …(Having paid nearly €2000 to support this body this year)
We know what its name is – we know what to call it and what everyone has called it for years….Merrion Square.
Get a grip and DO SOMETHING positive before you all get carried away and start calling it something like you did with the bridge on the Liffey – where when you, the Dublin Councillors could not agree after many person hours of discussion – it ended up having a combination of 2 names. Its just down the road from me – and I still don’t know its full “official name”
The something/someone or other, memorial rd bridge..what a waste….I think the guy it was named after was some form of religious nut who tied himself up in chains and became a relatively recent church hero…. someone believed to be significant to Dubliners.
Where do we get them from!!
Get useful – or even better resign, if you have nothing better to do than talk about this sort of rubbish… and distract people from dealing with real issues and concerns.
Mary, you could start by reading this list.
Is it really be possible that people get the government they deserve?
Regards,
Martin Russell Sheridan Le Fanu Wllde O’Connell (Dublin Bay)…etc.
How about
Peter Tyrell Park