BS: The Cloyne report on clerical abuse

Subject: BS: The Cloyne report on clerical abuse
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 14 Jul 11 - 09:19 AM

It seems to be a never recurring subject: another official report on clerical child abuse in Ireland. The diocese of Cloyne this time.

The main findings of the report:


The response of the Cloyne diocese to complaints and allegations of clerical child sexual abuse in the period 1996 to February 1st, 2009 was inadequate and inappropriate.

All the allegations were made after 1996, when the church had put in place procedures for handling child sexual abuse complaints.

The reaction of the Vatican to these procedures was "entirely unhelpful", and gave individual Irish bishops the freedom to ignore the procedures that they had agreed.

The Vatican's stance also gave "comfort and support" to those, like Msgr Denis O'Callaghan, who dissented from official church policy.

The response of the Garda was, with a few exceptions, adequate and appropriate.

The response of the health authorities was adequate and appropriate "given the information available to them and limited powers which they have".

The commission is not convinced the State's laws and guidelines are sufficiently strong and clear for protecting children.

The Bishop of Cloyne, John Magee, was ineffective and appeared to take little real interest in the implementation of existing church guidelines on child sexual abuse for 12 years.

Msgr O'Callaghan, charged with investigating abuse claims against priests, was "uncommitted" to the guidelines, frustrated their implementation and acted in what he perceived were the best interests of the church.

The report describes the handling of "allegations, complaints, suspicions and concerns" about child sexual abuse in respect of 19 clerics.

One of these, and the only person named, is Bishop Magee.

Nine of the complaints that should have been reported to the Garda were not reported.

None of the complaints between 1996 and 2008 was reported to the Health Service Executive.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cloyne report on clerical abuse
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 14 Jul 11 - 09:29 AM

Apologies, the previous post shot away long before it was finined.

The main points were copied from this Irish Times article and should have been in italics.

Now, why post here about yet another abuse scandal? The litany of abuse and denial, the evasion and moving around of priests is something we have all seen before. There's a difference though: as has been pointed out by commentators of all sorts, including government ministers, this is not a report on a situation as it existed long ago, soemthing of the past. The Cloyne report covers a situation as it was found to exist up to 2008. This report is about the Catholic Church and how it handles child abuse in present day Ireland, after the earlier reports, after guidelines for handling situation like these were put in place. Did it make a difference? The majority of cases reported to the diocese were not reported to the gardaí, priests were moved around, the diocese did not implement the official guidelines, the Vatican did all it could to not cooperate with the inquiry.

Has anything changed?

Two government ministers have now declared publicly it is not possible to take the word of a Bishop on these matters, that the church essentially cannot be trusted to handle matters. It's a sad and sorry state of affairs.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cloyne report on clerical abuse
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Jul 11 - 10:34 AM

"Has anything changed?"
It remains to be seen.
We have yet to see how the Magdalene Laundries scandal will be handled.
Up to now the government have adopted a "nowt to do wif us" attitude.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: The Cloyne report on clerical abuse
From: mg
Date: 14 Jul 11 - 11:15 AM

Of course the church can not be trusted to handle this matter. Surely we know that by now. They have to be watchdogged. There is too much pathology going on for thousands of years. Same with other religions. There have to be outside eyes and penalties for outside eyes not reporting or taking action. mg

Subject: RE: BS: The Cloyne report on clerical abuse
From: GUEST,MarkS(on the road)
Date: 14 Jul 11 - 11:20 PM

Let us hope that the church has learned how to handle this now, given that the staggering incompetent response to the problem over the past few decades has led to a large drop in revenue and membership. Not to mention loss of respect and the ability to have other teachings taken seriously.
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: The Cloyne report on clerical abuse
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 15 Jul 11 - 03:20 AM

But that's the problem here Mark. The diocese did not implement the church's own guidelines and procedures to deal with matters. The Bishop had little interest in dealing with allegations of abuse, complaints were still not referred on to the gardaí or the health boards, the Vatican still did everything in it's power to remain non-cooperative.

The difference in this case is that the present Irish government is going to take the hard line, they seem to be trying anyway, by putting legislation in place that will compel the church to change it stance.

Coverage in the Irish Times

Subject: RE: BS: The Cloyne report on clerical abuse
From: MartinRyan
Date: 15 Jul 11 - 04:17 AM

The long-term impact of all this will be on the control of education in Ireland.

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: The Cloyne report on clerical abuse
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 15 Jul 11 - 11:32 AM

Abuse will continue because NOTHING is ever done about it, another cover up another slapped wrist, and so on it will continue.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: The Cloyne report on clerical abuse
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 15 Jul 11 - 01:38 PM

I don't agree that nothing is ever done. I think our tendency is to pretend not to see or hear, worry that we will be abused somehow ourselves if we report stuff or take action. The secret is to make sure those in power know that there are rules they must obey, such as not being alone with children ever...and that everyone is obligated to report events and there will be criminal punishment if they fail to report in certain circumstances, such as schools, foster homes, hospitals etc. There need to be way more medical inspections of all children, especially those in orphanages and foster homes, to catch some abuse earlier. THis should be done by medical personnel in medical facilities and not done by social workers. It should be part of ongoing, regular medical checkups. Some stuff would definitely be caught and the fear of being caught would prevent more stuff from happening. Part of an intake in a medical facility could just ask certain questions of all children. Some will say yes, this has happened to me. Some will look terrified that their secret is on the verge of being discovered. Of course, you have to be aware of the possibility of false accusations. mg

Subject: RE: BS: The Cloyne report on clerical abuse
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 08:35 AM

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has today expressed his anger at some quarters of the church who fail to implement the safeguards against child abuse. He acknowledged comments that the Church had not learned the lessons and called for all who failed to act on allegations of abuse to assume accountability.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cloyne report on clerical abuse
From: GUEST,999
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 09:55 AM

Ranks up there with police forces investigating themselves. Yeah, right!

Subject: RE: BS: The Cloyne report on clerical abuse
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 10:05 AM

In fairness, the church has put guidelines in place on how to deal with allegations of abuse. The guidelines are clear when emphasising the need to report allegations to the gardaí and health boards. the archbishop is right when he calls on each diocese to implement these and he is expressing his anger at those who haven't. The official report on the situation was don by the Murphy commission so in this case there's no matter self investigation or self policing.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cloyne report on clerical abuse
From: GUEST,999
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 10:13 AM

Fair enough, Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: The Cloyne report on clerical abuse
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Jul 11 - 10:23 AM

===The secret is to make sure those in power know that there are rules they must obey, such as not being alone with children ever*......
Of course, you have to be aware of the possibility of false accusations**. mg ===

*This rule is absurd ~ I could never have done my job as Head of Upper School if I had not ignored this advice for 12 years, tho I had been frequently given it thru a 30-yr teaching career. But I suspect I would not get away with that nowadays, which was why, seeing the way things were going, I took early retirement 25 years ago. Glad, from all I hear of today's schools, that I am now well past retirement age, and will never have to go in a school again.

**Oh, have to be 'aware of it', do we? Well that's all right then. & suppose, just for sake of argument, that such an accusation might be made for all one's 'awareness': what about all the suspension, publicity, ostracism, & all the other such exceedingly disagreeable spinoffs, even if accusation eventually shown to be false? Not the least of which will be living all that time with the apprehension that it might not be.

I mean, mg, I am not disagreeing with the main part of your post, which gives an ideal to be followed. But I think there are counter-indicative-factors which might inhibit those actually concerned from following your template of what should be done, which you have skated over a little too glibly.

~Michael~