OPINION/Breda O'BrienI once failed miserably to buy Ken Reilly breakfast. Ken, like Marie Collins, is a survivor of clerical sex abuse, and they are the chief organisers of a planned silent protest march from the Pro-Cathedral to the Archbishop's House in Drumcondra. Ken had kindly agreed to meet me, but suggested an hour so ungodly that the café where we had planned to meet was not open.
We settled for two plastic cups of McDonald's coffee, with the idea that we would go get a proper breakfast when the café opened.
Unfortunately for Ken, what he told me was so riveting that we never moved and his reward was to be still hungry two hours later when he had to leave. Afterwards, it occurred to me that this is in some way symbolic of what has often happened to survivors of clerical child abuse who have gone public.
While performing a public service for our benefit, in opening our eyes to painful reality, they themselves often go away hungry.
Sadly, this has been particularly true in relation to the institutional church where, in spite of the best efforts of individuals, relationships with victims have often been less than satisfactory and, in some cases, even destructive.
Ken Reilly and Marie Collins now have the promise of a meeting with Cardinal Connell next Monday. Why, oh why, did it take the threat of a protest march before moves were made to listen and to speak to them again? When Ken told me he was planning the march, my heart sank. I feared that it would not achieve his objectives. I was afraid that it would dominate his Christmas and just end in more disappointment. I was wrong, because it has already achieved the promise of a meeting.
The survivors need to be heard, and need concrete, easily understood commitments with no weasel words whose meanings can be twisted at a later date.
In spite of the fact that they feel their trust has been violated, I get the strong sense that if only there was someone in authority in the Church capable of giving a simple human message to them, they would be hungry to hear and accept it. They just want truth.
I can see things from a church point of view. Many of the men now in place inherited decades of neglect, procrastination and ambivalence towards victims, which is inexplicable on a human or Christian level, but still happened.
If I were to march in Ken's protest, I would have to do so with two placards. One would read, "Solidarity with survivors" and the other would read, "Scapegoating solves nothing." I hate the culture of a search for a head on a plate. It may provide wonderful headlines but changes nothing at a fundamental level. A change of face at the top does nothing to ensure a process of reform continues and accelerates.
Ironically, despite the way in which Marie Collins was treated, I believe that Desmond Connell is one of the bishops who is most committed to making far-reaching changes. It is at the human level, the failure to appreciate how legalistic messages sound to someone like Marie, that the greatest mistakes have been made. Every time the church has fudged, or been less than straight, or failed to hear what their words would sound like, they have paid for it in loss of credibility and moral authority a thousand times over.
The church faces a real dilemma. There are many survivors who have no desire to have their records opened. I know of one woman, who over the years has written dozens of pages to her contact in the diocese as a means of expressing her turmoil and pain, who is ill at the thought of anybody else seeing her writings. There has to be some way around this, yet I cannot think of an easy solution.
This is where the State has a huge responsibility. It instituted an inquiry which effectively put paid to the independent although church-funded inquiry. The State now needs to reassure people that there will be mechanisms in place to protect those who want anonymity at any cost. We need to hear from Minister McDowell as to precisely how he proposes to do that. Lives could literally depend on it.
I know Ken Reilly and Marie Collins understand these concerns, perhaps better than anyone, because Ken has said to me on more than one occasion that he would hate for anyone else to have to go public, to endure what he has been through, in order to force the archdiocese to move again.
He should never have had to go public in the first place. It has been the most enormous intrusion into his family life and his privacy, to an extent which those of us who have not experienced it would find hard to credit.
I know that part of what drives them both is the desire to prevent this happening again. Ken has pointed out to me the numbers of people who came forward when they themselves became parents, because in a stark fashion they realised that their own children could also be vulnerable. Child protection is one of their major priorities.
The Church has a Child Protection Office, which should be run off its feet, instituting training on child protection in any area where the church has responsibility for young people.
Policies need to be put in place on reporting, on procedures to be followed in the case of complaint, and on ensuring that the civil rights of individuals are not trespassed on, either.
This cannot be left just to the State, though the State has an important role.
Even at this late stage, which could not be described as the eleventh hour, but is closer to five minutes to midnight, it is possible that the survivors and the Archdiocese could meet and really listen to each other. It is possible that healing and forgiveness could begin to happen.
Between Christmas and New Year is a strange time, when the old has not yet passed but the promise of the new still beckons. It is strangely appropriate that this meeting happen now. Thousands will be hoping and praying for its success.