A priest who attended a meeting between Mrs Marie Collins and Cardinal Desmond Connell on December 30th, 1996, has confirmed that the Cardinal said then that the church's guidelines on clerical child sex abuse were "only guidelines" and didn't have to be followed.
Dr Connell also pointed out at the same meeting that the guidelines, published in January 1996, were not binding in Canon Law, the priest confirmed.
Father James Norman, who had been appointed "support person" to Mrs Collins by the archdiocese, in accordance with those guidelines after she made complaints in 1995 about abuse by Father Paul McGennis, also last night confirmed Mrs Collins's claim that the Cardinal had said she was trying to ruin Father McGennis's good name over something that had happened 30 or 40 years before.
He also confirmed that everyone at the meeting was then aware that Father McGennis had confessed to the abuse of Mrs Collins in interviews earlier that year with Mgr Alex Stenson, chancellor of the archdiocese.
The archdiocese refused to confirm the confession to gardaí because of Canon Law, on confidentiality grounds. At that meeting also Mrs Collins drew the Cardinal's attention to Garda reports that Father McGennis was being investigated at the time in connection with the abuse of a young girl in Wicklow.
The Cardinal replied, as also confirmed by Father Norman last night, that he "couldn't pay any attention to that. There has been no complaint to us".
He said it couldn't be taken into account and anyhow Father McGennis denied it, and besides he was innocent until proven guilty.(The priest later also pleaded guilty to those charges in court).
Father Norman had been curate in Mrs Collins's parish and was supportive of her when she first wrote to Cardinal Connell making complaints about Father McGennis in October 1995. He, Mrs Collins and the Cardinal were the only people present at the meeting on December 30th, 1996 .
Mrs Collins has expressed "grave concern" about a story "spreading in clerical circles in Dublin attacking my credibility". It was being said that when she first reported the abuse by Father McGennis it was "in confession" and that the priest concerned, Father Edward Griffin, was not in a position to make any report "and that I have been misleading the media in this".
This story had been repeated to her "by a number of priests who have heard it through colleagues and believed it to be true".
