Dealing discreetly with allegations of child sex abuse "can lead to failure to take the necessary steps", Bishop Donal Murray has said.
This was one of the painful lessons learned in 10 years' experience of the issue. Another was the pain of overcoming disbelief when somebody one knew, even loved, abused a child: "You have to experience that to know it."
Dr Murray, Bishop of Limerick, was speaking in Maynooth yesterday at the publication of Towards Healing, a pastoral reflection for Lent issued by the Irish Catholic bishops.
Introducing the document, Archbishop Seán Brady said it was intended to complement the new national guidelines on child protection for the church, agreed last week. It would do so by "emphasising the commitment of the church to bring about healing and restoration" to those who had been abused, Dr Brady said.
Bishop Murray said: "One of the most important services we can offer to members of the church, and to Irish society in general, is to share the experience of what we have painfully learned."
Besides the dangers inherent in dealing discreetly with the issue, and the pain of overcoming disbelief when somebody one knew abused a child, a great deal had been learned about how to prevent further abuse, he said.
There was also the "dreadful betrayal of trust" when a child was abused by an adult, particularly when it was a priest, and when the "innocent trust" was exploited and destroyed by someone who was supposed to be a "sign of God's tender healing love".
The scale of this "horror in our society", whoever the abuser, should not be underestimated, and we had to learn to understand the enormous impact of it on the victim, he said. The task was one for us all, involving "all Christians, not just bishops and clergy".
Dr Murray said: "The Good Samaritan is our model. We must not, like the priest and Levite in the parable, pass by on the other side, failing to see somebody's suffering because we are too wrapped up in our business to notice."
Responding to questions, he could not say whether the worst was over where clerical sex abuse in Ireland was concerned. It was not possible to predict the future or to be complacent, he said. Constant vigilance was called for where child protection and the monitoring of offenders was concerned - by church and state - in the knowledge that it was impossible to fully guarantee against further abuse.
Dr Murray said that laicisation of offending priests would be looked at on a case-by-case basis. Both he and Archbishop Brady said they had conducted a trawl of all files in their respective dioceses for complaints against priests. They were unable to say whether all other bishops had done so.
On the McCullough inquiry, set up by the bishops/trustees at St Patrick's College Maynooth in 2002 to investigate circumstances related to the departure of the college's former president, Miceál Ledwith, Dr Brady said that a final report had yet to be received.
The One in Four group, which supports people who have been sexually abused, has responded positively to the bishops' document. Its director, Mr Colm O'Gorman, said that they welcomed the openness of the statement and the clear invitation from the Irish bishops to seek new ways of working together: "We offer a clear and express commitment to respond to this invitation. As we work to address the many layers of betrayal of trust experienced by victims of abuse, their families, their communities, clergy and religious and the church itself, first steps must be taken. This is the first step."
