Pope Francis appoints Dublin priest to senior position dealing with clerical abuse claims

VATICAN CITY (VATICAN CITY)
Irish Independent [Dublin, Ireland]

April 24, 2022

By Sarah MacDonald

Pope Francis has appointed an Irish priest to the number two position in the Vatican’s oldest and most high-profile department, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which was formerly known as the Inquisition for its role in defending the Church from heresy.

Monsignor John Kennedy (53) from Dublin has worked for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) since 2003. He was appointed head of the Disciplinary Section of the CDF, which deals with serious canonical crimes and clerical abuse cases, in 2017.

In his new role as secretary of the CDF, he is now second in command to Spanish Cardinal Luis Ladaria who is due to retire in July as prefect.

Speaking to the Irish Independent from Rome, the priest who was ordained for the Archdiocese of Dublin in 1993, said he was, “very glad” to “play my part in making the Church a better place for everybody, particularly for children”.

“Being a product of the Irish Church, I have seen the impact that this [the abuse scandals] has had on the lives of people, the lives of communities and parishes, and how people have lost faith.”

In a 2019 interview with the Associated Press, Monsignor Kennedy said the CDF had seen a “tsunami” of abuse cases from parts of the world that had previously not reported any cases.

He told the Irish Independent that though the number of cases the Vatican congregation is dealing with had since levelled off “fractionally”, the number of cases was still very high.

“This is because people are finding the courage to come forward and bishops and religious superiors throughout the world are much more prompt in bringing these cases to the attention of the congregation.

“If you look at the pattern of those countries experiencing a growth in number of cases, they include Poland as well as traditionally Catholic countries in South America, Asia as well as Africa.”

Asked about Pope Francis’ recent plan for an internal reform of the CDF which will see it reclassified as a dicastery and divided into two sections, Monsignor Kennedy said this was part of the Pope’s implementation of the apostolic constitution, Praedicate evangelium, and his greater emphasis on evangelisation.

The CDF traditionally has been feared within the Church over its role as a watchdog on orthodoxy or inquisition and its censuring of priests and religious deemed to hold heretical views, including Irish priests like Fr Tony Flannery and Fr Brian D’Arcy.

However, according to Monsignor Kennedy: “If we were creating the CDF today, we might call it a think-tank or quality control.”

Having lived in Rome for 27 years, he said while he missed Ireland, he never liked the rain, and so living in a warmer climate was not a penance for him.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/pope-francis-appoints-dublin-priest-to-senior-position-dealing-with-clerical-abuse-claims-41583211.html