Irish Quarterly Review - Studies - SCANDALS IN CHURCH

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SHOULD WE BE SURPRISED?
Carol Stanton
The small cracks in all our biographies leave us vulnerable to breaking apart; when the small character-cracks in the life of one called to minister have not been acknowledged and in some way attended to, they can become larger splits leaving the person at risk of shipwreck. In the Catholic tradition, the sexual development of a number of ministers is retarded because they entered seminary at an extremely young age. Emotionally and relationally “stuck” at adolescence, a priest may find himself attracted to (pubescent) boys. In addition to comprehensive psychological screening, priests should also have mandatory opportunities for human development work at all stages of their lives.
    People expect to be safe in a church or religious community. For all church personnel it is important to have at least a rudimentary understanding of the dynamics of abuse and its warning signs.
    When a case of clerical child sexual abuse surfaces, some people close to the scene say : “I am not surprised”. They had indications, veins of knowledge, of what was going on, but they did not speak out. This could be for various reasons. Some of them may even now not have known the procedures for making a complaint. Others may have discounted their own undifferentiated unease as a tendency towards paranoia. Perhaps the majority fell into the category of: know no evil, see no evil... It was unthinkable that a priest friend, or a gifted pastoral man, should be a perpetrator; and in many cases they feared drawing down trouble on those around - and perhaps even losing their job.
    But non-reporting is only one side of the coin; the other is the stonewalling by church authorities when a complainant does come forward. In a tradition of tight institutional control, an official’s impulse is to go for a cover-up and to persuade himself that the problem if de-fused now may be successfully neutralised through the internal workings of the organisation. This springs from the tendency never to blame failure on the system but only on individual “bad apples”. The same tendency leads some church spokesmen to think that they have reassured their public once they have quoted the comparative statistical incidences of child sexual abuse among clergy and among the population at large. But the public remains appalled : principally at the depth of the violation that has occurred - given the level of emotional exposure involved in any interaction with a minister of religion. The pastoral response called for is, rather, the introduction of a code of practice and procedures, coupled with the manifest will to fully implement them.
    In a church become accustomed to the apparent imperviousness of power, brokenness and pain - acknowledged and shared - is the first step out of puzzling shame and despair, and into the glimmerings of hope.
Carol Stanton, now completing a PhD on Scandals in the Church, was Press Officer of the Orlando Diocese, Florida.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND UGLY: - Media coverage of Scandals in the Catholic
Church in Ireland
Michael Breen
The positive aspect was that the media unearthed the scandals and forced the Church to deal with them and to put in place preventive measures. The negative aspect was exaggeration. There was exaggeration of some of the consequences of clerical child sexual abuse. There was also exaggeration in the impression created that child sexual abuse was confined to Catholic Church personnel. Only individual cameos can illustrate the exaggerations.
Exaggeration of some of the consequences of clerical child sexual abuse:-
- A television chat-show host spoke in such a manner about a cleric going on leave of absence, that viewers were led to believe that any cleric taking leave of absence was facing an accusation of paedophilia.
- If ever the findings of a high-profile trial should be set aside and the selection of highly-dubious witnesses exposed, the normal reaction would be public protests, in the correspondence-columns of newspapers as elsewhere. But when precisely this transpired in the case of a(n ex-)nun charged with abuses of children in her care, there was no wave of protesting letters. Such silence, it can be argued, is a symptom of a population brain-washed by the media to think of church personnel as no longer worthy of basic civil rights.
- The figure of Fr Brendan Smyth, convicted paedophile, was raised to iconic status by the media. Those who had been in the care of that particular ex-nun had only to link his name to hers for their accusations to appear in banner-headlines. The malevolent ‘image’ of religious influence, Brendan Smyth’s photograph has been used as the illustration for journalistic pieces on topics such as celibacy, women priests, falling vocations, the Church in Ireland.
Exaggerated delimitation of child sexual abuse to church personnel:-
- Journalistic contributions on topics as broad as “paedophilia” or “psychiatric disorders” or “evils of the internet” again had the Smyth photograph as the accompanying illustration.
- The epithet ‘paedophile’ kept occurring with ‘priest’ - but not with ‘teacher’, ‘farmer’, etc. A heading like “Perverts swap sick tales in prison” would appear flanked by the photograph of a named convicted priest paedophile - when the priest was not one of the individuals referred to.
- But omission was more important than commission. There was little attempt to show that the overwhelming majority of abusers are relatives of their victims (or that married men are the primary abusers - a finding that undercuts any causal link between celibacy and abuse).
If, for the future, the media wish to make a positive contribution to solving the paedophilia crisis, then one thing they could do is keep readers informed of the discoveries (including paedophilia’s incidence across all segments of society) unearthed by scholars in the field.
Michael Breen, a priest of the Dublin Diocese, is head of Communications at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick.

CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE: IMPACT AND SURVIVAL
Geraldine Moane
A review of the clinical and statistical literature on childhood sexual abuse emphasises not only the fact that sexual abuse of children is more prevalent than is generally recognised, but also dispels a number of myths - such as that abuse is perpetrated most often by strangers and that children are not damaged by abuse. On the contrary, the evidence shows with great consistency that abuse is most often perpetrated by someone known to the child who is being victimized, and that children are terrified, hurt and humiliated by the experience of abuse.
There is general agreement that abuse involves damage in the areas of self- esteem, trust, intimacy and sexuality, and in other areas which are more specific to the experience of abuse and to each individual. The clinical literature and the writings of those who have survived abuse also indicate that it is possible for those who have been victims to experience considerable healing, which is facilitated by acknowledgment of abuse and by the experience of close and supportive relationships.
Geraldine Moane lectures on Psychology in the Department of Psychology, University College Dublin.

COMMISSION OF INQUIRY INTO ABUSE OF CHILD IN QUEENSLAND INSTITUTIONS
Barry M. Coldrey
In 1998 a Commission of Inquiry was set up under Justice Leneen Forde. For several years, journalists had been revealing instances of horrific abuse of children in more than one institution. Michael Ware had revealed that as early as 1994 the Criminal Justice Commission had been made aware of suspected abuses in a particular Detention Centre. A complaint about this Centre was again made in 1997 when a concerned youth worker contacted the Commission. He had since been dismissed. Then it emerged that as early as 1989, the Minister for Family Services and Aboriginal Affairs - even then aware of the situation in the Centre - had appointed a committee of inquiry. As the evidence mounted, the government had terminated the committee and shredded its proceedings.
The Forde Inquiry found that incidents of unsafe, improper and illegal treatment of children occurred in both state and private care. This includes neglect - and emotional, physical and sexual abuse. The critical problem running through most Forde Inquiry revelations was the lack of suitable care staff. This was intimately related to the funding issue.
In February 2000, the Premier established an independent body to monitor the implementation of the Inquiry’s recommendations. It is on effectiveness of implementation that this Inquiry - as any other - stands or falls.
Barry M Coldrey has written some twenty books and a number of referred articles, many of them in recent years, around the child migration/abuses in children’s homes issues.

THE SUPPRESSION OF THE CARRIGAN REPORT
Finola Kennedy
A committee under William Carrigan, K.C., was set up by the Government in 1930 to consider whether a revision of the law was required in regard to sexual offences against young persons and in regard to juvenile prostitution. There had been a tightening-up of legislation in Britain and Northern Ireland in the 1920s.
The fate of the Carrigan Report is remarkable in three ways:
(1) The Report’s admission of the wide prevalence of these offences scandalised the powers that be, and in effect led to its suppression. Only a few copies were printed, and not even higher civil servants in the relevant Departments had access. There arises the question: If the Carrigan Report had been debated in public, would public awareness of the prevalence of child sexual abuse have ensured that the relevant authorities took appropriate action?
(2) The Report’s central recommendations regarding child protection were turned down. Among the proposals rejected were:
(a) The crime of solicitation could be leveled equally against males as against females.
(b) The age of consent should be raised from 16 to 18 years. (Indeed, under the final Criminal Law Amendment Act 1935, unlawful carnal knowledge of a girl between 15 and 17 years would rate only as a misdemeanour rather than a felony - as would “only attempted carnal knowledge” of a girl under 15).
(3) By proposing to prohibit contraceptives unless there were exceptional circumstances, the Report triggered a chain of events that led to the eventual total prohibition of contraceptives. Even with the original Report, there came an addendum from Fr John Hannon, S.J., to say that contraceptive “appliances” were not covered by “exceptional circumstances”.
An all-Party Committee to examine the Carrigan recommendations, set up under James Geoghegan when he was Minister for Justice, did not propose the prohibition of contraceptive drugs and substances - and simply maintained the basic Carrigan ‘line’ in regard to contraceptive “appliances”: to be prohibited unless there were exceptional circumstances. But Sean T. O Ceallaigh, Minister For Local Government and Public Health, registered an objection to the legalising of any contraceptive in any circumstance. This objection carried the day with the Executive Council - who from then over-rode other representations on the matter.
Finola Kennedy was a member of the Constitutional Review Group and is author of the forthcoming From Cottage to Crèche: Family Change in Ireland in the 20^th Century, to be published in late 2001 by the Institute of Public Administration.

ECUMENICAL HOPES FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM
Michael Hurley
In the decades between Bloody Sunday (1972) and the Good Friday Agreement (1998), progress has been made towards peace on our island which raises our hopes for the new Millennium.
    We have learned to speak much less in terms of one “side” capitulating to the other. Protestants and Orthodox are no longer expected to return to Rome - no more than we expect of Northerners and Unionists any return to Dublin. The New Ireland Forum adumbrated more than one model of Irish unity. And, since the Second Vatican Council, the Churches are seen as being not mutually exclusive but as having complementary insights. (Witness the 1999 Joint Catholic/Lutheran Declaration). Unity-in-diversity is the vision for the years ahead.
    We have also become more realistic about what is involved in step-by-step progress towards unity. Negatively : violence leads nowhere - whether it be , in the political arena, the “armed struggle”; or, in inter-church terms, that non-cooperation and segregation which is in effect sectarianism or mutual excommunication. Positively: repentance is called for - forgiveness, apology, reparation, reconciliation.
    On 12 March 2000 the Pope celebrated a Day Of Pardon. A theological grouping from the Irish Inter-Church meeting has recommended that the Churches in Ireland should come together in a common confession of guilt and a common desire for reconciliation. But there has been no collective move on this from the Irish Catholic bishops, no celebration of the Day Of Pardon in the way in which other Jubilee special “Days” have been marked here. However what happened in Ferns, as between Catholic and Church Of Ireland bishops, is a beacon of hope.
Michael Hurley, SJ is and Ecumenist and author of Christian Unity: An Ecumenical Second Spring?, Dublin: Veritas Publications, 1998

ADMINISTRATION IN IRELAND:The Significance Of Public Bodies
Deirdre Heenan/Anne Marie Gray
The “public bodies” in question are non-departmental appointed public agencies - often called “quango”s : quasi-autonomous non-government organisations. They are set up by parliament; but their day-to-day workings are not covered by responsibility to a Minister - who has only broad oversight of their designated function. (He appoints the chairman, receives the annual accounts, and sees their public annual report).
    Where local government is weak - and central parliamentary authority sometimes also - these para-government organisations may arrive to fill the vacuum.
     This was the case in Ireland right up to the time of Partition. The English did not trust local government. Given the animosity of the populace towards the landlord ruling class, any devolution of powers was seen as playing into the hands of nationalists. In any case, England wished to treat Ireland as a subordinate, as a colony: since the Act Of Union, the central authority was an Irish Executive in Dublin Castle.
     Public bodies or “nominated boards” continued to flourish in the Northern Ireland administration. As late as 1969, the Northern Ireland Government was proposing that health and personal social services should not be the remit of local government but should be brought under nominated boards. This despite the fact that in 1966 the Hospitals Authority (founded in 1948) had had to be made an agent of the Ministry of Health and Social Services. Up to then it had been largely autonomous : M.P.s were not given the minutes of its meetings, the press had no access to the meetings (until this was forced through), the Authority was experienced as high-handed by local hospital committees.
     In l969, as a result of the findings of the Cameron Commission into civil disturbances, it was decided that housing provision should no longer be the function of local authorities, but should be brought under regional nominated boards to be known as the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. This despite the fact that a Housing Trust functioning since 1945 was found not to have had one Catholic on its board until 1968. (The Hospitals Trust board never had more than one or two Catholics).
     Distrust of the efficiency of local government was endemic. And a nominated board was seen as an organ which could coopt voluntary professional expertise.
Deirdre Heenan & Anne Marie Gray lecture on Social Policy at the University of Ulster, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry.

THE REDISCOVERY OF COLUMBA MARMION
Placid Murray,OSB
Up to the Vatican II era, Marmion’s books were perhaps the most widely read in religious houses of formation. Recalling the reader to the person of Our Lord himself, they were different from the jejune fare on offer hitherto, and were for many their first taste of theology.
Marmion read the Scriptures through the eyes of the Fathers. There is even an affinity with the writing of the Anglican Newman - in, for instance, Marmion’s holding firmly to what has been described as the “oldest and truest expression of the philosophy of the Incarnation” : the principle that the Sacred Humanity of Jesus had no human personality. And there is an opening to ecumenical spirituality in his sending readers directly to Christ as their mediator.
Marmion had the gift of going straight to the centre : he rendered the full sweep and meaning of St. John and St. Paul; he highlighted baptism and its consequences as the focus from which everything radiated and to which everything returned.
Placid Murray, OSB is a Benedictine Monk of Glenstal Abbey.