SUPPORT GROUPS:GROUPS REPRESENTING survivors of abuse have expressed dismay and disappointment at the outcome of the meeting between the Irish bishops and Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican.
Campaigner Christine Buckley described the Vatican meetings as “a charade”, while One in Four said the response was “extremely inadequate”.
One in Four director Maeve Lewis said expectations had been high that the Vatican and the Irish bishops would fully acknowledge the role of the institutional Catholic Church in protecting sex offenders at the expense of vulnerable children. She said it had been expected that a clear plan for the future would be offered.
“We are also disappointed that the pope has offered no explanation for the failure of the Vatican and the papal nuncio to co-operate with the Murphy commission,” she said. “Instead, the Vatican has accepted no responsibility for its role in facilitating the sexual abuse of children, referring only to the Irish church, and only vague declarations of intent for the future are included.”
She said while the bishops’ commitment to co-operation with the State authorities was welcome “the response is . . . extremely inadequate. There seems to have been very little progress in the course of the meeting.”
Christine Buckley of the Aislinn support centre said she was “dismayed and terribly sad” at the outcome of the bishops’ visit.
“It was an absolute and utter charade from beginning to end. It was a pretend slap on the hand from Pope Benedict. There was nothing discussed in relation to Bishop Drennan. Saying it was not only an Irish problem was wrong. The evil and the seeds were sown here in Ireland.”
Ms Buckley also criticised the focus of the meeting on diocesan abuse, rather than on abuse in Catholic-run institutions.
She said she had really hoped the pope would have taken a lead on the issue and would have announced that he was coming to Ireland to meet with victims of institutional and sexual abuse.
“He has washed his hands of it,” she said and she urged the pope to include a visit to Ireland in his itinerary when he visits Britain in September. “I really though he would have said that all bishops who knew about abuses had to resign . . . And to reinforce this, he was coming to Ireland and [would] meet victims and abusers. But none of this happened. We got absolutely nothing from it.”
She said questions needed to be asked about the pope’s future. “This pope is living in some kind of la la land . . . he hasn’t got an iota of an idea of the pain that people are suffering.”
