Dublin survivors of clerical child sex abuse expressed deep disappointment following a meeting with the Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin in Drumcondra today.
One in Four executive director Maeve Lewis said afterwards that the meeting had been “very disappointing.” The Archbishop had not been able “in any way” to explain why concerns they had expressed in a letter to the Pope last week had not been addressed at his meetings with the Irish bishops in Rome this week. He would not comment either on the position of the Bishop of Galway and the statement he made in interviews, she said.
Abuse survivor Marie Collins said it seemed to her there would now be nothing more in the letter to Irish Catholics from the Pope than was in his communiqué last Tuesday. “We got very little. There is very little to look forward and I am totally depressed with this meeting,” she said.
She also said that Archbishop Martin seemed to be in a different position now than prior to his going to Rome . “I’m totally despairing of the whole thing,” she said. However she said she “would always talk to Archbishop Martin” but that he didn’t appear to be as strong before he went to Rome .
“I think Rome looks on the unity of the bishops as far more important than anything else,” she said.
Andrew Madden, who had been abused by former priest Ivan Payne, said: “I feel that I’ve met a different man this morning than the man I met last Saturday who seemed to be very much on our side. I did put it to him that he seemed to have come back with his wings clipped but he said that wasn’t the case.”
He also took great exception to the line in the Pope’s statement last Tuesday that bishops were going to take concrete steps to help survivors. “The idea that Martin Drennan is a fit man to identify steps to help victims is obscene,” he said.
Speaking later to the media Archbishop Martin denied that his wings had been clipped. “I follow my own conscience, sometimes I’m in agreement with people, sometimes I’m not. I’m saddened that the survivors feel so disappointed. I sought in my reading of what was there, that I would have been more optimistic. But they’re the ones who suffered. I appreciate their understanding and if they feel disappointed, they’ve a right to be disappointed.”
He continued that “One thing I will say is that, with regard to the specific questions this group brought…there was no denial of the Murphy report at this meeting, There was no challenge of it. I began my intervention with the paragraph `it happened’, to make sure that there was no doubt about what happened. I believe what happened in this diocese of Dublin in the years 70s, 80s, 90s and beyond was an appalling thing. I’ve said it was handled appallingly badly. The result was that children suffered and you have to say that unconditionally.”
He said “the nature of the letter the Pope will write may not be exactly what people are expecting and we shouldn’t be putting our hopes in any individual moment in what I believe is a process.” He refused to comment on the position of Bishop Drennan and acknowledged differences among the bishops. “The bishops are united on a number of issues. There are divisions on other issues. What is important is that with regard to the child protection norms, we all stick to the norms we have agreed to, the same with the religious congregations. Our analysis of the past may differ but I believe reconciliation and healing without accountability just won’t work,” he said.
He continued “There are times when my views are different to others. On the other hand I would say it’s a long time since the relations between the Archbishop of Dublin and the Archbishop of Armagh have been as good.
He also said “There is obviously isolation. There are criticism of me in all your papers and media by people who disagree with the way I addressed the Murphy report. I stand over that. I believe that the only answer we can say is that something terrible happened in this diocese and we got it extraordinarily wrong, full stop.”
On opposition to the Murphy report among clergy he said “Obviously a certain amount of denial was inevitable with a report of this category. Again we were talking there about the possibility of maybe organizing gatherings of priests, not to rewrite the Murphy report but to revisit the horror. We did (meet) a year ago, before the report was to come out. We did a lot of work in trying to get across to people what it’s like to be abused and what this really means. Even here today there are some people who don’t want to be identified but there stories are extremely sad and they are people who, strangely, will say the actually need spirituality and they are blocked in this. Their lives just go on from difficulty to difficulty. Survivors are the ones who define how survivors feel and I don’t challenge them in that.”
