Safeguarding children

A lawyer slams the freeing of Bishop Finn on a charge of failing to report child abuse (opinion piece first published in the Kansas City Star, submitted here by Paddy Moran, Westland Row).

Fr Raymond J. de Souza writes on why is it so difficult to speak up about sexual abuse, and why so many prefer to keep quiet

This is an excellent article, beautifully written.  With acknowledgement to the Huntington Post

A man who suffered sexual abuse from a priest asks the Church to dispense victims of abuse from needing priests to encounter Christ in the sacraments.  He shows a minimum of anger, a lot of compassion and immense struggle as he reflects on his complicated relationship with the Church. (Name and address with leadership team of the ACP.)

Ladislas Orsy SJ, visiting professor of philosophy of law and canon law at Georgetown University Law Centre, Washington DC, is a graduate in law of Oxford and holds a doctorate in canon law from the Gregorian University, Rome. This article was first published, in German, in Stimmen der Zeit, in June 1998. This version appeared in Ireland’s Doctrine and Life in October 1998.

The ACP Leadership team believe it is very apt today, in view of the difficulties some priests are having with the Vatican.

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.

“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.

If these new guidelines come into practice it would appear that priests will be in even bigger trouble.  It is worrying to hear that Ian Elliot describes a protocol that calls for all priests against whom an allegation has been made to be publicly named as “balanced and fair as possible”.

Combined summary table from the NBSCCC Diocesan Reports

Pádraig McCarthy

The Statement made by the Minister was very strong, as you can read. Fr. Kevin Reynolds’ good name was vindicated in the High Court on November 17^th 2011.   One week later Minister Shatter has not uttered a single word of apology to Fr. Kevin Reynolds for these slanderous comments.  Should the Minister step aside?