Factbox-irish Church Sexual Abuse Reports

Chicago Tribune
March 20, 2012

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-rt-vatican-irelandabusereports-factboxl6e7ip0p9-20120320,0,481677.story

A Vatican report on the sexual abuse of Irish children by Catholic clergy accused Ireland's religious leaders of negligence andcalled for more reforms there to avoid a similarly "shameful" scandal in the future.

There have been a series of reports on allegations of child abuse by priests and members of religious orders. Here are some details of their findings:

* OCTOBER 2005:

-- An inquiry was set up following the resignation in 2002 of the Bishop of Ferns, Brendan Comiskey, when it emerged he had been aware of the activities of an abusive priest in the diocese, but failed to protect the victims. The priest, Father Sean Fortune, committed suicide in 1999 after he was charged with multiple sex offences.

-- The 270-page report detailed the Church's handling of 100 allegations of abuse against 21 priests in the diocese of Ferns in County Wexford dating back to the mid-1960s. Among the allegations were accusations of rape.

-- The Ferns probe found that for 20 years the bishop in charge of the rural diocese did not expel priests against whom abuse allegations were made, but simply transferred them to a different post or diocese temporarily.

* MAY 2009:

-- The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse issued a five-volume report which found that priests abused children between the 1930s and the 1970s in Catholic-run institutions.

-- The harrowing report, which took nine years to complete, said orphanages and industrial schools in 20th century Ireland were places of fear, neglect and endemic sexual abuse.

-- The Commission, chaired by a High Court judge, blasted successive generations of priests, nuns and Christian Brothers -- a Catholic religious order -- for beating, starving and, in some cases raping, children.

-- The Commission interviewed 1,090 men and women who were housed in 216 institutions including children's homes, hospitals and schools. They told of children scavenging for food from waste bins. Youngsters were flogged, scalded and held under water, they said.

* NOVEMBER 2009:

-- The Murphy report, begun in 2006, reported on widespread child abuse by priests in the Dublin archdiocese between 1975 and 2004, and said the Church in Ireland had "obsessively" concealed the abuse.

-- All archbishops in charge at that time were aware of some complaints and the archdiocese was pre-occupied with protecting the reputation of the Church over and above protecting children's welfare, the report said. It said the Church was "obsessively" concerned with secrecy and operated a policy of "don't ask, don't tell" about abuse.

-- The report, designed to show how the Church and state responded to charges of abusing children, said a representative sample of 46 priests against whom complaints were levelled made it "abundantly clear" that abuse was widespread.

* JULY 2011:

-- The report into the handling of sex abuse claims in the diocese of Cloyne in County Cork, showed that senior-ranking lergy were still trying to cover up abuse allegations almost until the present day.

-- The report focused on 19 priests who allegedly abused children during a period from January 1996 to February 2009. It listed how the diocese failed to report all sexual abusecomplaints to the police and did not report any complaints to the health authorities between 1996 and 2008.

-- The bishop formerly responsible for the diocese, John agee, falsely told the authorities he was reporting all abuse allegations to the police, the report said. He resigned in March 2010 after a Church investigation said his handling of abuse allegations had exposed children to risk.

MARCH 2012:

A new report, formally known as an "apostolic visitation," is by Vatican envoys who made a pastoral visit to four Irish archdioceses, religious institutes and Irish seminaries. Investigators said they found major "shortcomings of the past" which had allowed for "an inadequate understanding of and reaction to the terrible phenomenon of the abuse of minors, not least on the part of various bishops and religious superiors".

-- "It must be acknowledged that within the Christian community innocent young people were abused by clerics ... to whose care they had been entrusted, while those who should have exercised vigilance often failed to do so effectively."