Socialist Workers Party
February 16, 2010
http://www.swp.ie/index.php?page=696&dept=News&title=Irish+bishops+meet+pope+in+crisis+summit+on+sex+abuse%3C%2Fstrong%3E+cover-up
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Irish bishops met with Pope Benedict XVI yesterday (Monday) in a crisis summit over the sex abuse scandal that has rocked the Church in recent years.
While Cardinal Sean Brady, archbishop of Armagh and primate of all Ireland, told Vatican Radio the two-day meeting was part of a "journey of repentance, reconciliation and renewal" for the Irish Church, others sounded a different note.
Clogher Bishop Joseph Duffy said resignations of bishops were not on the agenda in Rome, despite victims' demands that clerics who played a role in concealing pedophile priests from censure step down.
An investigation last year revealed that church leaders in Dublin had spent decades protecting child-abusing priests from the law while many fellow clerics turned a blind eye. A separate report in Ireland released months earlier documented decades of sexual, physical and psychological abuse in Catholic-run schools, workhouses and orphanages.
Victims have been clamoring not only for resignations, including of one of the bishops at the summit, but for the pontiff to quickly accept the offers of three others to step down. They insist the Vatican take clear responsibility for what they call a culture of concealment of abuse.
"For the bishops to say that resignations aren't on the agenda just compounds the anger and grief of abuse victims," Madden said.
Several Irish bishops have agreed to resign, including two who stepped down on Christmas Day, but others have flatly refused. Among the bishops at the summit is Martin Drennan of Galway, who has insisted he did nothing to endanger children and has rebuffed calls that he step down.
In the Dublin report, investigators determined that a succession of archbishops and senior aides had compiled confidential files on more than 100 parish priests who had sexually abused children since 1940. The files had remained locked in the Dublin archbishop's private vault.
Abuse victims have accused the pope and his envoy in Ireland, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, of hiding behind "diplomatic protocols" in refusing to respond to letters from Irish investigators about the extent of abuse and cover-up.
Present at the summit was U.S. Cardinal William Levada, who heads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a key Vatican office that reviews abuse claims against clergy worldwide.
The pope himself led that office during the years of John Paul II's papacy, which was bedevilled by an explosion of sex abuse and cover-up scandals in the United States, Australia and other countries.
In recent weeks, a new sexual abuse scandal involving Catholic clergy has erupted in Benedict's homeland of Germany.
After today's meeting the US-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests issued the following statement.
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