Saturday, July 23, 2011

Ireland: abuse report leads to Church-State rift


Revelations of another scandal in the Irish Roman Catholic Church over the mishandling of child abuse by clerics have led to an angry response from the Irish government and the promise of new legislation that would send priests to prison for up to five years for non-disclosure of information to the civil authorities — even information gleaned from the confessional.

The new report, prepared by Ms Justice Yvonne Murphy, of the Irish High Court, relates to the diocese of Cloyne, County Cork. It involves allega­tions against several priests — some of whom are now dead — in the period 1996 to 2009, which were ignored even though the RC Church’s safeguarding policy was already in place.

It is critical of the former Bishop of Cloyne, Dr John Magee, and says that he misled the State’s Minister for Children and the Health Service Executive. The report found that Dr Magee handed over responsibility for the abuse issues to the then Vicar General of the diocese, Mgr Denis O’Callaghan, who is described as “uncommitted” to the safety guidelines.

The Murphy report also says that the Vatican was “entirely unhelpful”, and found that it had undermined the rules drawn up by the Irish bishops for dealing with child abuse, including the immediate notification to the Garda and Heath Service Ex­ecu­tive (HSE) of any abuse allega­tions. (This refers to a covert letter to the bishops in 1996 which described the rules as “merely a study docu­ment” rather than an official policy.)

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1 comment:

Danny Haszard said...

Not to diminish the high crimes of the RCC but please examine the Jehovah's Witnesses who go door to door and come on our property.

Jehovah's Witnesses pedophiles.

Many court documents and news events prove that Jehovah's Witnesses require two witnesses when a child comes forward with allegations of molestation within the congregation. Such allegations have customarily been treated as sins instead of crimes and are only reported to authorities when it is required to do so by law, (which varies by state). It has also been shown that child molesters within the organization usually have not been identified to the congregation members or the public at large.
These people engage in a door to door ministry, possibly exposing children to pedophiles.

Although the Watchtower Bible Tract Society claims that known pedophiles are accompanied by a non-pedophile in such work, there is no law stating that such a practice must be followed.

The Watchtower corporation has paid out millions in settlement money already.
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Danny Haszard abuse victim
dannyhaszard(dot)com