Fr Paddy Banville asks if the leadership of the Catholic Church in Ireland is willing to sacrifice unjustly-accused priests on the altar of child protection, in his article published in The Irish Catholic, 15 March 2012

Since we put Sean O’Conaill’s critique of Dave Pierre’s book up as a post on the website, it is only fair to give the same prominence to the response from the author himself.

Sean O’Conaill (Derry) responds to a review of Dave Pierre’s book reproduced a short while ago on this website.  Sean has a contrary point of view, and is critical of some of the facts presented and the conclusions drawn

This article is an excellent reflection on the policies of Child Safeguarding currently practiced by the Irish Catholic Church, raising many of the questions that we in the ACP have been concerned with. It is reproduced with permission from The Furrow.

On Thursday April 12th, the ACP will be holding a press conference at 10.00am in Buswell’s Hotel to present the findings of our major opinion poll on religious attitudes in Ireland.  It has many very interesting facts to reveal about the …

Two interesting new items of news for our members.

 Interim Guidance – Leave from Sacred Ministry and Apostolate for Clergy and Religious: Document January 2012

http://www.safeguarding.ie/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Ministry-Leave-2012.pdf

Pádraig McCarthy

“Any senator or TD who tried to raise the issue of clerical child abuse in the Dail would have been shouted down”. So wrote Kevin Myers in the Irish Independent of 14 February 2012.

An account of a problem being faced by SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) in USA, as they are confronted with sub-poenas to reveal their records. Where an abused person turns for help to a support group, without wishing to go public or take legal action, should the support group be obliged to report the matter to the justice system?

An extract from the article on National Catholic Reporter is given here.

The full article on http://ncronline.org/news/accountability/snap-subpoenas-harm-key-ally-victims

Pádraig McCarthy

This is a very interesting interview conducted by Catholic World Report with Dave Pierre, a journalist who has written extensively about false allegations against priests in the U.S.