VICTIMS:THE FATHER of a woman abused by a priest in the Diocese of Cloyne yesterday backed a call by an American canon lawyer for senior administrators in the Catholic Church who conceal abuse to be prosecuted.
Jack O’Donnell, whose late daughter Maeve made a complaint to Bishop John Magee that she was abused while a teenager by a Cloyne priest, supported the call by Fr Tom Doyle for members of the hierarchy to be jailed for covering up abuse.
“I agree with Fr Doyle – until such time as some senior figure in the church hears a prison door clang shut behind him, then the cover-ups and the concealment will continue. Anyone engaging in a cover-up should be prosecuted and punished,” said Mr O’Donnell.
Mr O’Donnell said he believed the Commission of Investigation Report into the Catholic Diocese of Cloyne captured well the concealment and failure by Bishop John Magee and his child protection delegate, Msgr Denis O’Callaghan, to address the problem.
“To my mind, they should both be prosecuted . . . They helped hide the abuse and are as culpable as the priests who committed the abuse,” he said.
Mr O’Donnell said he did not believe senior administrators appreciated the horror perpetrated on children and teenagers by abusive priests and he sadly did not believe that they would ever understand the hurt caused because of their mindset.
“At every layer, at every level, there’s collusion – it’s bred into them or trained into them. They become homogenised like zombies – this idea that ‘united we stand’. And no one, or at least very few, are willing to put their head above the parapet and say it’s wrong.”
Mr O’Donnell said he believed that while the commission was not an inquiry into the abuse but rather into the diocesan handling of complaints, it was nonetheless an important report for the victims of abuse.
“The more I read the report, the more impressed I am with it and it’s important because it vindicates the victims and the people who came forward and it shows people that they weren’t telling lies and it wasn’t their imagination but that it was happening.”
