Two victims of clerical child sex abuse this week called off a protest seeking Cardinal Connell's resignation. So what happened at their meeting in Archbishop's House? Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent, reports
A sea change? Or, possibly more accurately, a See change? Something remarkable happened at Archbishop's House in Dublin on Monday. And after all this time too.
When that marathon meeting involving two victims of clerical child sex abuse, Ken Reilly and Marie Collins, ended, and its subsequent impromptu press conference on the grounds outside was over, both Reilly and Collins were invited back inside for refreshments. The Cardinal went over to Reilly to say: "Please tell your mother how sorry I am for the way she was treated".
From 1980, Ena Reilly had informed five priests, as well as former chancellor of the archdiocese Mgr Alex Stenson, an Auxiliary Bishop (Bishop James Kavanagh) and an Archbishop (Dr Dermot Ryan) about the abuse of her son Ken by Father Tony Walsh - without any action being taken.
The matter was eventually dealt with by the courts in 1997 after another mother contacted gardaí when the priest abused her son in 1995, while he was attending the boy's grandfather's funeral in Palmerstown.
By then in no doubt about the sincerity of Cardinal Connell's sorrow, Ken Reilly suggested that rather than he convey that regret, the Cardinal might call his mother himself to say so. He gave him the phone number.
Later that day, the Cardinal called Ena Reilly. It was a "very emotional" experience for both.
And yet . . . something happened during that meeting which, worryingly, betrayed an all-too-familiar mind set.
The meeting began at 11 a.m., and ended at about 3 p.m. when an agreed statement along the lines suggested by Reilly and Collins was prepared. This was presented to the press at 4.15 p.m.
The meeting itself was preceded by "about 15 hours of preparation" by Ken Reilly. He had prompted it by calling on December 22nd for a protest march to Archbishop's House to be held the next day, at which it was planned that a letter requesting the Cardinal's resignation would be handed in. Reilly was reacting to an article in this newspaper on December 18th in which Marie Collins's disputed account of her meeting with Cardinal Connell on December 30th 1996 was confirmed by the only other person present at that meeting, Father James Norman. Reilly had had a similarly unhappy meeting with the Cardinal in April 1998.
But on December 23rd last, Reilly was contacted with an invitation to meet the Cardinal last Monday by the chancellor of the archdiocese, Mgr John Dolan, a man with whom Reilly had built a friendship over recent years.
Last Saturday, Reilly had a meeting with Eddie Shaw, currently communications director for the archdiocese. It lasted three hours. And on Sunday he had a meeting, which was as lengthy, with Marie Collins. They prepared a structure for the following day's talks, including requests for direct involvement of victims in dealing with clerical child sex abuse there and in a review of the church's guidelines on the issue.
Both were also anxious that there would be full co-operation by the archdiocese with the Garda in its investigations into the issue and also with the new State inquiry to be set up by the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell.
In addition, they wished to emphasise the need for sensitivity by church personnel in dealing with victims and by gardaí and others in dealing with victims' personal files.
It was also felt desirable that the manner in which the archdiocese addressed the issue publicly should be reappraised, with more emphasis on a pastoral approach and less on legalistic matters.
The first part of the meeting was attended by the two victims, by Cardinal Connell and by Bishop Eamonn Walsh, an Auxiliary Bishop in Dublin who is currently Apostolic Administrator to Ferns diocese and a man believed to be pivotal to the fact that last Monday's talks took place and to the atmosphere in which they did so.
That atmosphere was described as "extremely cordial" from the beginning. At Reilly's request, they were joined by Monsignors Dolan and Shaw after about an hour, both of whom initially maintained something of an observer status before participating as fully as the others present.
Neither Collins nor Reilly were particularly anxious that their cases be discussed. Their emphasis was very much on what could and should be done in the future. Nor were their cases discussed in any detail. That is, until the Cardinal told Marie Collins he was anxious she and the public should know something about her last and unhappy meeting with him in December 1996. When he had said that in the previous 30 or 40 years there had been no complaints about her abuser, Father Paul McGennis, he wanted it known he was telling her the truth then. He was not telling a lie.
Yes, he had been aware at the time of the "concerns" expressed by parents in Dublin's Edenmore parish about Father McGennis in 1994. These had been conveyed to the then auxiliary bishop of Dublin and now Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, Dr Jim Moriarty, who "passed them on" to Archbishop's House.
It was a moment to wince in an otherwise almost heady atmosphere of balm, calm and harmony.
The Cardinal's clarification was acknowledged and the meeting moved on quickly to more comfortable waters.
This anxiety on the Cardinal's part that it should be clear he did not lie or mislead is, to say the least, understandable. Most of us would share such concern for our good name. As he has for his. As he had for Father McGennis's at that 1996 meeting with Marie Collins. And for Father Noel Reynolds when, though similar concerns had been expressed about that priest by parents in Glendalough, he was still appointed by the Cardinal as chaplain to the National Rehabilitation Institute. He stayed there until "complaints" were made against him.
What most of us find difficult is what such a fine distinction could allow in terms of the abuse of children, even if motivated by the very laudable objective of absolutely respecting a man's innocence until he is proveguilty. The latter has been the Cardinal's approach when "concerns" have been expressed about his priests' behaviour.
Such refinement of thought also allowed him to loan Father Ivan Payne £30,000 to compensate Andrew Madden, while simultaneously asserting that the Dublin archdiocese had never (then) paid compensation to a victim of clerical child sex abuse. He was telling the truth then as well, even if that also might have seemed too literal for comfort where most of us were concerned.
There are other examples of similar close use of language but in the light of last Monday's meeting and the quite extraordinary goodwill it has generated among the most important people involved - the victims - it would be gratuitous and just plain mean-spirited to repeat them here.
Suffice to say it was not such exact use of language that most impressed people at that meeting, or indeed the press afterwards, but the ordinary untidiness of genuine human feeling, even affection, evident.
Cardinal Connell has always been capable of such response to people in pain. His tragedy to date has been that he has allowed his own decent instincts to be sifted through the pale cast of particularly legalistic and orthodox thought.
What has emerged has bordered on travesty at times. A travesty of himself and of the ongoing suffering of victims. There is a lesson there. Pain should first be met by the heart. The head will follow.