Safeguarding children

Open Letter to Cardinal Gerhard Müller from Marie Collins

Marie Collins resigned the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.
Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, gave an interview shortly following Collins’ resignation. Marie Collins has written an open letter to Müller in response to that interview, which she asked NCR to publish.
“I would ask that instead of falling back into the Church’s default position of denial and obfuscation, when a criticism like mine is raised the people of the church deserve to be given a proper explanation. We are entitled to transparency, honesty and clarity.

No longer can dysfunction be kept hidden behind institutional closed doors.”

Irish bishops have reverted to regime of ‘secrecy, aloofness and unaccountability’

Sean O’Connaill deplores the bishops’ lack of transparency on the funding and independence of the national body for child protection that they set up (the NSBCCC), and hopes for the day when bishops will be accountable to their people.

ACP report on Yvonne Murphy investigation published

About eighteen months ago some priests of Dublin Archdiocese approached the ACP Leadership with the proposal that a study of Judge Yvonne Murphy’s Investigation of Clerical Child Abuse in the Archdiocese be conducted.

Retired High Court Judge from Hong Kong, Mr. Fergal Sweeney, was commissioned to do this work.

We here publish his report:
Commissions of Investigation and Procedural Fairness Report
(40 pages, PDF)

In conjunction with this, Fr. Padraig McCarthy of the Archdiocese has just published a book on the same subject. This does not duplicate Fergal Sweeney’s work but includes further areas of analysis of the Murphy Report. Padraig’s book, An Unheard Story (published by Londubh) will be available in most bookshops.

 

Government should reconsider Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill

Pádraig McCarthy asks the government to reconsider before adding the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill to the statute books. He presents a specific case where gender selection is the reason for a mother threatening suicide, noting that abortion for the purpose of gender selection is illegal in England and Wales.

Sin of clericalism is at heart of sexual abuse crisis

Scott Appleby believes that at the heart of the sexual abuse crisis is the sin of clericalism — a constellation of ideas and practices rooted in the conviction that ordination to the priesthood confers a special and privileged status that places the priest above the non-ordained baptized by virtue of the sacrament itself

Select a category in the sidebar for more posts

Select a category in the sidebar for more posts