AT LEAST one and possibly two clerical child sex abuse cases at the heart of the recent Cloyne Report were not notified to the Vatican in line with a direction in 2001 from Pope John Paul that details of all such cases must be submitted to Rome.
The finding suggests that in addressing clerical child sex abuse matters within his diocese, the Bishop of Cloyne, Dr John Magee, did not comply with guidelines of the State or of the Catholic Church in Ireland, or with a directive from the Vatican.
Recently The Irish Timeswas reliably informed that neither case addressed in the Cloyne Report had been notified to the Vatican, as was required since 2001.
Asked whether this was so, a spokesman for Cloyne diocese – on investigating the matter – initially said both cases had been reported to the Vatican. Pressed as to whether this had occurred prior to publication of the Cloyne Report last December, he said that it was so where one case was concerned.
He could not say when the other case had been reported to the Vatican, but insisted this was done “at the appropriate time”.
He was unable to say whether this was during the past year (since the cases emerged) and then suggested the matter was best left to the State Commission which is investigating child protection practices in the diocese. It is due to report by July next.
The Cloyne Report, published on December 19th last, was prepared by the Catholic Church’s National Board for Safeguarding Children, a body set up by the Church but independent of it. It found that child protection practices in Cloyne were “inadequate and in some respects dangerous”.
It reported that in one of the two cases it investigated, gardaí were not notified until November 2005, six months after the diocese first became aware of the name of the alleged perpetrator. It also found the diocese did not name the alleged perpetrator to gardaí, but did name the alleged victim, also a priest of the diocese.
It further found that it was policy in the diocese to give “minimal” information when reporting such cases to the civil authorities.
In the second case, the diocese was contacted about the alleged abuser priest in early 1995 but did not contact the gardaí about the complaint for a further eight years, until January 2003.
Further abuse allegations emerged against the same priest in the intervening years. In November 2003 a woman alleged she had been raped by him from the age of 13 until she was 18.
In June 2001, at the behest of Pope John Paul, every diocesan bishop in the Catholic Church was written to, in Latin, by the then prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now pope.
They were instructed that, where complaints of clerical child sex abuse were concerned, these were first to be referred to Rome and it would decide how they were to be dealt with. The CDF document was accompanied by a letter, also in Latin, stipulating that the instruction was to be kept secret.
In October 2006 when the Irish bishops, including Bishop Magee, visited Rome on their ad limina visit, Pope Benedict spoke forcefully to them on the issue of clerical child sex abuse.
He told them: “In the exercise of your pastoral ministry, you have had to respond in recent years to many heart-rending cases of sexual abuse of minors.
“These are all the more tragic when the abuser is a cleric. The wounds caused by such acts run deep, and it is an urgent task to rebuild confidence and trust where these have been damaged.”
He said it was important to establish the truth of the past, “to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent it from occurring again, to ensure that the principles of justice are fully respected and, above all, to bring healing to the victims and to all those affected by these egregious crimes.”
What he said was quoted this week in a foreword to the church’s new child protection guidelines, Safeguarding Children, published on Tuesday. The foreword was written by the Irish Bishops’ Conference, Cori, and the Irish Missionary Union.
