By Michael Kelly
Catholic News Service
DUBLIN – Boston Cardinal Sean P O’Malley, visiting Dublin to begin a Church investigation of the Dublin Archdiocese, told Catholics he came “to listen to your pain, your anger, but also your hopes and aspirations.”
“I have come to listen, not to offer a quick fix,” he told those in attendance at a Mass in St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral on 14 November. The Cardinal is responsible for investigating the country’s largest Archdiocese after the Church was shaken by revelations of clerical abuse and mishandling and cover-up by Church leaders.
British Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, retired Archbishop of Westminster, will conduct the visitation of the Archdiocese of Armagh, Northern Ireland. Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins will conduct the visitation of the Archdiocese of Cashel, and Archbishop Terrence Prendergast of Ottawa, Ontario will visit the Archdiocese of Tuam. New York Archbishop Timothy M Dolan will lead the investigation into Irish seminaries. A number of Religious Sisters and priests have also been charged by the Vatican with investigating the state of Religious life in the country.
Cardinal O’Malley said that his review would not duplicate previous governmental inquiries.
“In Dublin, much has been done already to address the crimes of the past and to develop sound policies to ensure the safety of children and to provide assistance to the victims of child abuse. The task of the visitation is to bring new eyes to the situation, to verify the effectiveness of the present processes used in responding to cases of abuse,” he said.
Cardinal O’Malley will meet with victims of abuse, Irish priests and lay people to gauge their views on the abuse scandal and the process of renewal of the Catholic Church in Ireland.
In his homily at the Mass, Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said: “Renewal in the Church is vital at any time in the Church’s history. The Archdiocese of Dublin today is wounded by sinful and criminal acts of priests who betrayed the trust of vulnerable young children. This behaviour has wounded the body of Christ. People have lost their trust in the Church. For many young people, the recent scandals have become the final element in their alienation from the Church.”
However, he said, renewal will come from conversion.
“That conversion, in its turn, requires recognition of what was done wrong in the past – particularly to the weakest,” he said. “It is not about putting the past aside, but of bearing the wounds of the past – and the truth of the past – with us on a painful process.”
Cardinal O’Malley is expected to return to Dublin early next year for the next phase of the visitation. Archbishops Collins and Prendergast are expected in Ireland before Christmas and Archbishop Dolan is not expected until early 2011. The country’s Religious orders and congregations are in the process of completing questionnaires that will form the first step in the visitation of Religious. In a mid-November statement, the Vatican said it would issue a comprehensive summary of the investigation’s findings when they are completed.
A 12 November Vatican press release explained the context of the visitation as well as the objectives shared by the visitators. The first stage of the visit is expected to be completed by Easter 2011: “The visitation will identify whether the mutual relationship of the various components of the local Church, seminaries and Religious communities is now in place, in order to sustain them on the path of profound spiritual renewal already being pursued by the Church in Ireland. It also has the goal of verifying the effectiveness of the present processes used in responding to cases of abuse and of the current forms of assistance provided to the victims.”
The Vatican clarified that the visitation is not an investigation into individual abuse cases, nor a “trial to judge past events.” Nor in any way will it interfere with local civil authorities in their investigations and processes.
Though the visitators are not expected to receive allegations of new or old cases of abuse, the Vatican added, “if any were to arise, such allegations must be reported to the respective ordinaries or major superiors who have the duty to inform the competent civil and ecclesiastical authorities, in conformity with the current civil and ecclesiastical laws.”
The visitators will be available “to meet with those who have been deeply wounded by abuse and who wish to be met and heard, beginning with the victims themselves and their families. They will be received in the same fatherly manner in which Pope Benedict XVI has on several occasions greeted and listened to those who have suffered the terrible crime of abuse.”
The visitators will monitor the functioning and implementation of 2009 guidelines on safeguarding children, looking to see if there are ways in which these directives need to be improved.
The statement contained practical directives for contacting the visitators so that confidentiality will be protected; and mentioned the visitation to Irish seminaries.
“Archbishop Dolan will examine all aspects of priestly formation, and will conduct private interviews with all staff members, all seminarians and, where applicable, other parties normally involved in the life of the seminary,” it said. It is not his task to meet with victims of abuse who, as noted above, may be instead received by the visitators of the four metropolitan Archdioceses.”