Amnesty International calls for inquiry into child sex abuse by clergy in Northern Ireland
Amnesty International has called for an independent inquiry into clerical child sex abuse in Northern Ireland after internal Catholic Church reports found the clergy guilty of inaction over paedophile priests.
An inquiry in Derry found that allegations were not robustly challenged or adequately managed, and that priests who were moved out of parishes in the diocese continued to abuse elsewhere.
Monsignor Eamon Martin, acting as the administrator of the Derry diocese following the retirement of Bishop Dr Seamus Hegarty, acknowledged it was “disturbing” that the diocese seemed more interested in protecting the church than the children. He said the victims had been “violated, their self-esteem and self-belief battered, and their spirit crushed.”
In the neighbouring Raphoe parish just over the border in Co Donegal, a report revealed that there were 52 complaints of child abuse against 14 priests. More than 20 of the offences were committed by one priest, Fr Eugene Green. In Raphoe it was found that the practice of failing to report allegations of abuse went on for 36 years.
The current Bishop of Raphoe, Phillip Boyce, accepted that in his diocese “insufficient emphasis was placed on the needs of victims, often in the misguided attempt to protect the reputation of the Church.”
One of the main whistleblowers who brought the abuse to light in Raphoe was a Garda Síochána officer Martin Ridge who claims the church hierarchy repeatedly ignored the claims of victims.
The pattern of reports of abuse being ignored or priests suspected of abusing children being moved out of dioceses, even to other parts of the world, is replicated throughout the six reports, that include Tuam in the west of Ireland and Dromore in Northern Ireland which takes in the border region around Newry.
Reacting to the reports by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church, Amnesty International said the findings were “barely a glimpse into the horror of abuse suffered by children in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.”
Backing calls for an inquiry, Amnesty’s programme director in Northern Ireland, Patrick Corrigan, said: “Clerical abuse survivors in Northern Ireland have been in touch with Amnesty and have told us they wish to see a proper, independent public inquiry into clerical child abuse in this jurisdiction. Survivors of clerical abuse in the Republic of Ireland have seen the state institute inquiries into the dioceses of Dublin, Ferns and Cloyne and have seen the Taoiseach speak out on behalf of victims. In Northern Ireland, to date, there has been no such examination. ”
The human rights organisation also challenged the power-sharing coalition at Stormont to back demands for an independent inquiry
“The Northern Ireland Executive has an obligation to ensure a thorough investigation of child abuse within this jurisdiction, regardless of when that abuse took place and regardless of the occupation of the alleged abuser,” Corrigan said.
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Cardinal Pell under attack from within over bishops’ grand house in Rome
A LEADING Catholic priest has criticised Cardinal George Pell for reserving a “grand apartment” for himself at the Australian church’s new guest house in Rome, saying “the ethics of our secular state are higher than those of our church”.
Father Eric Hodgens, of Melbourne, an elder statesman among the clergy, also savaged Australia’s Catholic bishops for what he regards as an abject performance during their five-yearly visit to Rome last month, particularly in failing to stand up for Bill Morris, sacked earlier this year as bishop of Toowoomba.
“They eat their own when fingered by Rome,” Father Hodgens wrote of the bishops in The Swag, the national journal of Catholic priests. “How can you trust them?
”They are reckless with our patrimony. They seem incapable of protecting their own rights, let alone ours, in a system which is corrupt by today’s secular standards. No wonder the attitude of so many priests and observant laity is moving from disappointment to disgust,” he wrote.
Father Hodgens said the Domus Australia guest house in Rome – a beautifully refurbished old religious house with 33 rooms for paying visitors, a richly restored grand chapel and organ and a 150-seat auditorium opened by Pope Benedict XVI last month – cost between $30 million and $85 million, according to different estimates.
He said Cardinal Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, had hoped all Australian dioceses would pay for it, but only Melbourne, Perth and Lismore had made contributions and the Sydney Archdiocese had paid the bulk.
He said Catholics of the four dioceses were not consulted, there was no prospect of a reasonable financial return and no accountability. “What does it say of us who trust bishops?
The ethics of our secular state are higher than those of our church.”
Secrecy also surrounded the sacking of Bishop Morris, who never saw the charges against him or the report by an “inquisitorial visitor”, Archbishop Charles Chaput, then of Denver, he said.
“And the Australian bishops simply rolled over … . they thanked their humiliators for being generous with their time,” Father Hodgens wrote.
“Thank God we live in a secular state and not in a Catholic theocracy,” he said.
Cardinal Pell is overseas but a Sydney Archdiocese spokeswoman said the total cost to develop the Australian pilgrim centre in Rome was similar to that of a new parish or school, ”not the excessive amounts quoted by some ill-informed sources”, and the investment was expected to pay its way.
”Domus Australia was funded by the transfer of an underutilised property investment to this purpose and by borrowings and donations,” she said.
”No money raised through parish collections has been used in this initiative.”
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Former Woodland priest arraigned in Sacramento on 7 counts of child molestation
Former Woodland Holy Rosary Catholic Church Priest the Rev. Uriel Ojeda has been arraigned on seven counts of child molestation, the Sacramento Bee reported Friday.
Ojeda, who served in Woodland from 2007 to 2009, was later transferred to Redding. He did not enter a plea in the brief proceeding in Sacramento Superior Court, according to the Bee.
He spoke only to confirm his name, and to confirm that he knew the identity of his accuser, whose name is not being released.
About a dozen supporters showed up on Ojeda’s behalf, the Bee reported.
Ojeda surrendered to Sacramento police Wednesday night. He is accused of lewd and lascivious acts with a 14-year-old girl on four different dates in 2007 and 2009.
Ojeda’s attorney, Jesse Ortiz, asked that people “not make any judgments on this case until all the facts are known.
“Father Ojeda is a good man who has dedicated his life to helping people,” he said.
On Thursday at a news conference Sacramento Bishop Jaime Soto stressed the diocese’s quick response to the allegations, which he said were brought by the family of the alleged victim on Tuesday.
Soto said church officials immediately contacted Child Protective Services and Sacramento police. California law requires clergymen to report suspicion of child sexual abuse.
Ojeda was one of the youngest priests in the diocese, and was hailed as a key link between the church and the Hispanic community in a 2007 profile in The Sacramento Bee. The newspaper reported that he tended to Latino Catholics at the hospital and in the farm fields, where he was recognized by his distinctive yellow truck with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the back window.
Then a vicar at Holy Rosary Parish in Woodland, Ojeda was known for being involved in the community and offering free guitar and drum lessons to parishioners. He played bass in a church band, wore Converse tennis shoes and likes Spider-Man comics, the Bee reported.
Ojeda came to Woodland in August 2007. At the time he told The Democrat he was one of 475 men to be ordained to the priesthood for service throughout the United States in 2007.
He was ordained June 29, 2007, at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Sacramento. He joined Holy Rosary Catholic Church for his first priestly assignment.
Ojeda was born in Point Pleasant, N.J., but grew up in Colima, Mexico. At the age of 18 he enrolled in Mount Angel Seminary in St. Benedict, Ore., where he spent four years studying for his Bachelor of Arts degree, and a further four obtaining his Master of Divinity degree. He spent another year studying English, followed by a yearlong internship at the Cathedral in Sacramento.
Soto said the family of the alleged victim approached the diocese on Tuesday and church officials immediately contacted Child Protective Services and Sacramento police. He said the diocese has offered to help the family.
The bishop said the diocese wants to encourage any other potential victims to come forward and that it will make announcements in parishes where Ojeda has served, including Redding and Woodland.
“Anyone who believes that they have been a victim of Father Ojeda or other abuse needs to contact the diocese,” Soto said.
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Irish Panel on Abuse Cites Failures by Church
Authorities in the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland were slow or did nothing to notify civil authorities and the Vatican of hundreds of allegations of clerical child sexual abuse over several decades, according to independent audits of six dioceses published simultaneously on Wednesday.
The church-sponsored National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland found allegations of widespread abuse in every diocese it investigated, saying that 85 priests in the six dioceses had been accused of 164 sexual assaults on children since 1975, but that only 8 were convicted. Of the 41 still alive, 30 no longer serve as priests.
Many victims, police investigators and advocates dismissed the report as another whitewash by the church. One victim, Martin Gallagher, said on RTE, the national broadcaster, that it was not “worth the paper it’s written on.”
The audits cover the Archdiocese of Tuam and the Dioceses of Raphoe, Derry, Dromore, Kilmore, and Ardagh and Clonmacnois. Most attention focused on the northwestern rural Diocese of Raphoe, where a notorious pedophile priest, the Rev. Eugene Greene, was based.
Father Greene was allowed to serve in eight parishes during 25 years of abuse he inflicted on children. In 2000, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to 41 charges of sexual assault against 26 victims from 1962 to 1985. He was released in 2008.
In the case of Raphoe, the church panel concluded that successive bishops — including the present one, Bishop Philip Boyce — had displayed “significant errors of judgment.”
“Too much emphasis was placed on the situation of the accused priest and too little on the needs of their complainants,” the report found. “Judgments were clouded, due to the presenting problem being for example, alcohol abuse and an inability to hear the concerns about abuse of children, through that presenting problem. More attention should have been given to ensuring that preventative actions were taken quickly when concerns came to light.”
In a written statement issued after the publication of the audit, Bishop Boyce acknowledged “very poor judgments and mistakes” and apologized for them.
“There were horrific acts of abuse of children by individual priests that should never have happened, and if suspected should have been dealt with immediately in the appropriate manner,” he said. “Insufficient emphasis was placed on the needs of victims, often in the misguided attempt to protect the reputation of the church.”
Although the board, under the stewardship of its chief executive, Ian Elliott, concluded that all of the dioceses concerned were now carrying out stringent child protection measures, the audits have been criticized for failing to specify the past errors referenced in the reports and, in large part, those responsible for them.
For instance, the audits failed to uncover any documents in diocesan files pertaining to Father Greene, something that Bishop Boyce described as “incredible.”
“It is hard to credit that no word was passed on to the authorities, and it was probably the culture of the time that people didn’t speak to anyone,” he said.
A former police detective who investigated Father Greene rejected this explanation and described the Raphoe report as “a whitewash and an insult to victims.”
The former detective, Martin Ridge, was quoted in The Donegal Democrat, a local newspaper, as saying, “What we witnessed in west Donegal was just carnage that you wouldn’t ascribe to any civilized society.”
Maeve Lewis, executive director of a victims’ advocacy group, One in Four, welcomed the audits’ findings of significant progress in “putting in place child protection measures in the six dioceses.” But she remained concerned about “the number of priests against whom allegations have been made who are still in ministry.”
The Catholic Church in Ireland has been devastated in recent years after reports detailed decades of clerical sexual abuse of children.
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