IRELAND
New York Times
SINEAD O’SHEA
FEB. 24, 2017
DUBLIN — Cardinal Desmond Connell, who retired as the Roman Catholic archbishop of Dublin during a furor over the church’s handling of cases of sexual abuse perpetrated by members of the clergy, died on Tuesday. He was 90.
The death, in Dublin, was announced by the current archbishop, Diarmuid Martin.
A theological scholar with training in metaphysics, then-Father Connell was a surprise choice when Pope John Paul II appointed him to lead the archdiocese of Dublin in 1988. John Paul named him a cardinal in 2001, making him the first archbishop of Dublin to be so elevated in nearly 120 years.
During his 16 years as archbishop, Cardinal Connell was a stalwart defender of church doctrine, particularly on social issues like contraception, divorce and homosexuality. …
But he was best known for his handling of a sex abuse scandal that eventually engulfed his archdiocese, as it has others around the world.
The abuses first began to emerge after the Rev. Brendan Smyth, a Northern Irish priest, was convicted of child sex abuse and imprisoned in 1994. The next year Archbishop Connell denied that the archdiocese had paid compensation to victims of abuse by its priests. But in 1998, it emerged that he had quietly lent archdiocesan money to an abusive priest, the Rev. Ivan Payne, who then paid an abuse survivor, Andrew Madden.
Mr. Madden came forward to reveal the loan, but Cardinal Connell initially denied that he had made it. In the ensuing controversy he was accused of tolerating or participating in a cover-up.
In 2002, the national broadcaster RTE published a report by the investigative journalist Mary Raftery exposing the archdiocese’s protection of eight priests who had sexually abused children.
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