THE CATHOLIC Bishop of Killaloe, Dr Willie Walsh, has said he saw no reason why the pope would not meet Irish victims of clerical child sex abuse.
He also said funding for the compensation of victims should come from the sale of assets rather than by asking people to put their hands in their pockets.
However, he did not believe the Vatican should be approached about assisting with such funding. “I do believe this is an Irish question which has to be solved, I believe, within Ireland.”
Speaking on RTÉ Radio One's This Weekprogramme yesterday, he said "I think it would be great" to see the pope meeting Irish victims of clerical child sex abuse but he did not know whether it would happen. It was not discussed at last month's meeting in Rome between the pope and Ireland's Catholic bishops.
On raising funds for compensation, he said it was better to “sell assets, sell houses, that sort of thing” rather than asking people for money. “Transparency, that’s the most important thing. That people would be consulted and know where the money was coming from.”
He said it was for each bishop in consultation with the people. “I would be very strong in emphasizing that,” he said.
There was nothing in canon law “to say that the Vatican should bail out” a diocese. There was “a question mark, of course, about church, be it Vatican or local church, holding a whole lot of valuable assets. I’m not particularly comfortable about that, but I do believe this is an Irish question which has to be solved, I believe, within Ireland.
“I think really, whether the Vatican should be selling assets or not, it is really a separate question from this. It didn’t arise at all in the meeting in Rome.”
He felt “the Rome visit certainly didn’t meet expectations of people, and I think it was unfortunate that the formalities of dress and whether people kissed the pope’s ring or didn’t kiss it . . . distracted from the real purpose of the meeting and, indeed, the substance of the meeting”.
He felt “people were angry and rightly angry at the apparent pomp and ceremony, at the kissing of the pope’s ring (which he did not do)”. He was “somewhat uncomfortable in relation to both the dress and the kissing of rings, that sort of thing. I feel it belonged to another era.”
He hoped the pope’s pastoral letter “would be more satisfactory, perhaps, from the survivors’ point of view”.