The church has rightly been excoriated for not applying guidelines – but will State be censured?
‘THEY JUST don’t get it.” Aside from comments not fit to print, it’s the most repeated comment from people weary and disgusted at the emergence of yet another report on clerical sexual abuse.
It may seem strange to pick one line out of the mire of the Cloyne report, but I can’t stop thinking about that statement from the Murphy commission that Bishop Magee displayed “little interest” in child protection issues until 2008.
What planet was he on? Clerical sexual abuse of children was like a corrosive acid, burning and scarring the lives of victims, and destroying the faith of thousands. It is impossible to over-state the damage.
Did he not attend emergency meetings in Maynooth? Did he not read newspapers or watch TV? Did none of the victims he met cause him to develop an interest? He must have known that Msgr O’Callaghan had no time for the church’s child safeguarding policy, yet he delegated child protection issues to him. Was it a genteel two fingers to his episcopal colleagues who were desperately trying to do the right thing, or just bizarre, inexplicable indifference?
Perhaps it is minor in comparison, but John Magee also lied on a regular basis. Perhaps the fact that he lied about being the first to find pope John Paul’s dead body was an indicator that the commandment “Thou shalt not bear false witness” was just for little people. How are ordinary people supposed to rear kids with a respect for the truth with role models like that?
There are a couple of faint signs of hope. Alan Shatter and Frances Fitzgerald were very impressive at this week's press conference. However, as Geoffrey Shannon pointed out on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, the legislative changes are way overdue.
Remember Mrs Justice Catherine McGuinness’s report on the Kilkenny incest case, which is exactly as old as this year’s Leaving Cert students? It recommended inter-agency co-operation. It is still not happening. Not just between parts of the church and agencies, but between agencies of the State.
The revised standards for child protection are welcome, but is it not shameful that the Cloyne report said that “the standards which were adopted by the church are high standards which, if fully implemented, would afford proper protection to children. The standards set by the State are less precise and more difficult to implement”. In other words, the utterly disgraced church made a better fist of drafting standards to protect children than the State.
The church was undermined by people like John Magee and Denis O’Callaghan. Their failures have allowed people to allege the sterling work of the National Board for Safeguarding Children is fatally flawed because a bishop might lie about his diocese.
This, despite the fact that the brief of the Murphy commission would not have been extended to Cloyne without the work of the board.
In July 2008, a report on child protection services presented to the office for the minister for children stated: “Although the [Children First] guidelines set out clear responsibility, some HSE areas are implementing them in full, others are implementing some parts, while others are not operating the guidelines at all. We have been informed that this is due to lack of resources and lack of capacity.”
Yes, 2008, when the diocese of Cloyne woke up, due to an almighty kick from the National Board for Safeguarding Children.
The church has rightly been excoriated for not implementing its own guidelines in Cloyne until 2008. Will the State receive equal opprobrium?
Alan Shatter spent his time in opposition pointing out with remarkable fairness the systemic failures of the State and the HSE as well as in the Catholic Church. Now that he is a member of Government, it is heartening to see him setting out to remedy those failures.
But he and Frances Fitzgerald have a long, uphill battle. After Geoffrey Shannon pointed out that legislation was very late in the day, he emphasised the need for resources to completely overhaul current practices. In this recession, the will may be there, but the necessary money may not.
No doubt, the usual detractors will say that I’m only mentioning the State failures to distract from the failures of the church. To which I can only say, people currently working as child safeguarding advocates in other settings would love a fraction of the public attention given to church catastrophes.
Nor can those same detractors deny that the State’s failures continue even when the church is not involved at all, as in the Roscommon case, or the death of Daniel McAnaspie. Geoffrey Shannon and Norah Gibbons are currently investigating nearly 200 deaths of young people in the care of the HSE from 2000- 2010.
The failures within the HSE happened because of people. Yet no one within the system has been personally highlighted as Irish bishops have been. Not that I think demonising social workers or managers is the answer, either.
It is hard to feel pity for any bishop today, but I do feel sorry for the bishops who have complied since 1996 with child protection guidelines and have recruited hundreds of dedicated and well-trained lay volunteers.
Even Cloyne has been exemplary since 2008. Even the Vatican now insists that dioceses and religious orders report to civil authorities, but will anyone believe that? Not while bishops and senior clergy are willing to undermine the efforts of everyone else, simply because they take “little interest” in such matters.