The Catholic Hierarchy is in the dock because of its failure to protect children against rape and sexual abuse by paedophile priests. For 15 years, the response by bishops to growing evidence of such activity was to take out insurance and protect assets; to transfer offending priests from parish to parish, where they continued their depredations; and to engage in a deliberate cover-up to protect the Church against scandal.
It is small wonder that committed Catholics have been outraged by the behaviour of those churchmen who protected the institution at the expense of the most vulnerable members of their flock.
Following questions from this newspaper, the Irish Bishops' Conference issued a statement last Tuesday in which it admitted that insurance had been taken out, from 1987, to cover liabilities arising from child sexual abuse. This was the first explicit evidence that Catholic bishops had been aware of the problem and of its potential costs for at least 15 years.
In the intervening period, as they negotiated with their insurers, Church and General, on the creation of a €10 million compensation fund for abuse victims, and put new insurance policies in place, they continued to plead ignorance of the situation in public. They promised to give precedence to the protection of children. There would be, they insisted, no cover-up.
Developments of the last week have shattered public faith in those undertakings. Victims of abuse have remarked that claims by bishops that they did not know what was happening was at variance with their actions in arranging insurance cover. They noted that while the financial wealth of the great majority of dioceses had been protected from early on, nothing of substance was done to safeguard abused children.
The need for a statutory inquiry is now more urgent than ever. The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, has promised to bring legislation to Cabinet within weeks. It will provide for statutory investigations into matters of significant and urgent public importance. While such legislation will have general application, the Bill will specifically reflect public concern over the handling by the Dublin Archdiocese of allegations of clerical abuse. Mechanisms will be provided to examine the systems, practices and structures put in place to handle complaints of sexual abuse and to probe the nature of the Church's response to those accusations.
Public anger over the handling of such cases by a number of bishops has been reignited by the revelations of the past week and by evidence of an orchestrated cover-up at the highest levels. It would appear that the financial lessons learned by the Catholic Church in the United States, in Canada and in Australia were put into practice here, beginning in 1987, but that duties of pastoral care to innocent children were neglected or ignored. If it were politics, there would be heads on plates.