Cardinal admits he provoked anger in abuse row

Saturday December 18th 2004

THE former Archbishop of Dublin, Cardinal Desmond Connell, has acknowledged that his retirement helped the Church in Ireland because he had become the main "lightning rod" for public anger over the clerical sex abuse issue.

The cardinal said he regretted more was not done to help the victims of abuse, but stated that not all convicted abusers should be removed from the priesthood because this might not always be the best way to protect children.

Cardinal Connell was giving his first interview since his retirement in April after 16 years at the helm of the country's biggest diocese.

His time in office coincided with the eruption of public outrage over clerical sex abuse cases and the response of Church leaders to those cases.

He stressed that he did not retire because of the scandals, saying he had reached the age of retirement in any case, but he acknowledged: "My retirement was helpful. Rightly or wrongly, I became nationally the object of anger."

He said he had become the "lightning rod" for much of that anger because of "the symbol of the red hat" of Cardinal.

"My retirement took Dublin out of the direct firing line of public anger."

Dr Connell said he believed that his successor, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, "has the attitude to restore confidence" in the Church in Dublin.

Referring to recent dismissals from the clerical state of Irish priests convicted of sex abuse, he said he did not agree with a policy of 'one strike and you're out', which is favoured by some American bishops.

He remarked: "I did tend towards this view once, but upon consideration decided it wasn't always in the best interests of children."

The key issue when deciding whether to dismiss a priest from the clerical state, he said, was how much control and supervision the bishop would retain over the priest.

"I wouldn't automatically dismiss a priest because of the issue of control and supervision which affects children and their safety."

However, during his time in office he took the decision to dismiss two priests, Fr Tony Walsh and Fr Bill Carney. In the case of Tony Walsh, "it was too hard to keep him under supervision" and this led him to conclude that there was no choice but to dismiss him.

This followed a local ecclesiastical trial, an appeal to Rome by Walsh, and then a special request from the cardinal to the Pope to have him dismissed, who complied with this.

Dr Connell defended his handling of a number of the cases that came to his attention. He said he was limited in what he could say because of the pending State investigation into the Dublin diocese, but remarked that soon after coming to office in 1988 he had removed several abusers, including Walsh and Carney, from ministry.

He also said that in 1995 he ordered a trawl through the archives of the diocese to determine how many clerics had ever been accused of child abuse, and had all these names handed over to the gardai.

David Quinn
Religious Correspondent

? Irish Independent
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/ & http://www.unison.ie/