A “culture of denial” in the Catholic Church about child sexual abuse has been challenged by Archbishop of Dublin Dermot Farrell.
The Church in Ireland “has yet fully to come to terms with what was done to the thousands upon thousands of innocent and vulnerable people over such a long period of time,” he said. “Until the abuse crisis is fully addressed, there will be no authentic, enduring renewal and reform of our Church.”
Referring to the recent report of the scoping inquiry into historical sexual abuse in schools run by religious orders, in a sermon at the Pro Cathedral to mark Safeguarding Sunday, he said that “listening to the stark and distressing testimony of this, and other reports over the last 20 years is as painful and difficult as the content of those reports is outrageous and scandalous”.
It was “not new to hear that there was widespread abuse of pupils and that shameful acts were perpetrated by religious themselves, as well as by teachers, peers and others employed in their schools”, he said. What was new “was the presentation of an extensive, sustained and horrific pattern of abuse which has disfigured our tradition of Catholic education and profoundly damaged the lives of so many young people and their families”.
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Religious instruction in schools
Yet among some responses to the report there was “a thread of denial and disengagement”. It was “possible to go further”, he said, “and speak even of a ‘culture of denial’ [his emphasis] with respect to sexual abuse”.
It was “vital that we come to recognise the dynamics of denial, and address them”, he added. “Basic human justice, demands that we not dismiss the witness of those who suffered abuse, but recognise their continuing hurt and suffering, and begin to come to terms with the fact that this darkness has roots deep within ourselves.”
When that darkness “finds itself masked by outward displays of piety and exterior appearances of service, its destructive potential is amplified. Report after report, victim after victim, testifies to the horror unleashed by this manifestation of evil,” he said.
It was the case that “we who have come to know these stories of abuse and exploitation, and have taken on board the pervasiveness of an education culture that was marked by violence and punishment, are called to see this as part of our own history – as part of our story, as a church, as a society, and as a country”.
“We have to acknowledge what happened as ours.”
This “involves a change of culture, and cultural change is slow” but “change happens – the peace process on this island shows us that”.
We must “pay honest attention to the voices of those who, as children, experienced the horrible reality of our failures – as followers of Christ and as a society. We have all lost out because of what was visited upon the innocent, and the weak.”
Almost 2,400 allegations of sexual abuse made in 308 schools run by religious orders and spanning a 30-year period were disclosed to the Government-appointed scoping inquiry. Its recently published report, which detailed a systemic culture of abuse in religious-run day and boarding schools throughout the country, said 2,395 allegations of abuse were reported against 884 people. It is likely that the true number of allegations made is much higher, the report noted, given the level of underreporting of childhood sexual abuse.
Most alleged incidents of abuse took place between the early 1960s and early 1990s, with the highest number of reported incidents occurring in the early to mid-1970s.
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