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Survivor of abuse Marie Collins calls for strong sanctions

THE Pope must put in place ‘robust structures’ and strong sanctions to hold to account bishops and Vatican officials who fail to protect children from predator clergy, a campaigner said.

Marie Collins, a former member of Pope Francis’s abuse advisory board, urged Catholic families attending the World Meeting of Families in Dublin yesterday to ask why the Pope scrapped a proposed accountability tribunal for negligent Church leaders.

Speaking on the eve of Francis’s visit, Ms Collins, herself a survivor of abuse, also said Catholics should ask why the Church opposes removing the statute of limitations to prosecute and sue abusers, despite claiming to be on the side of victims.

She said: ‘The actions of the Church do not match the words, and they are in fact totally the opposite. The Pope needs to face down this resistance and take strong action – if it means removing people, I suppose that is what he must do. He can no longer countenance this resistance – because every day, children are being abused. Every day that goes by and safety is not properly imposed, more and more children are being harmed. He needs to put energy into the change that’s needed, to keep children safe and give justice to survivors. It must be known in the Vatican who these people are. Instead of calling for the dismissal of Bishop Sean O’Malley, who’s totally behind the work of the Pontifical Commission, it’s these people within the Vatican that need to be dismissed.’

Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who is Archbishop of Boston is Francis’s top abuse adviser and had been expected to head the Dublin safeguarding discussion yesterday. But following reports of abuse allegations at a seminary in Boston, he last week opted to stay in the US to address ‘serious pastoral needs’ in the US.

Yesterday in Dublin, Ms Collins urged Catholic families to ask why the Pope scrapped a proposed Vatican accountability tribunal. ‘Very often we have seen the Church act to protect its institutions, its reputation,’ she said. ‘And display an absolute reluctance to look into things. There’s a mistaken idea that if we don’t look at it, it will go away and the fear that if we start looking at bishops, how far will it go down the line. Every rotten apple should be gotten rid of. What needs to happen next? Firstly, the strongest possible safeguarding policies with the strongest possible canon law behind them should be implemented in every congregation in the world.

‘Some countries – like Ireland and the US – have strong policies but I want to know why such strong policies aren’t in place in every country.

‘We need a zero-tolerance attitude to ensure that any priest who abuses a child is removed immediately. If canon law doesn’t allow that to happen, then write a new canon law. More often, canon law is used to protect the abuser than to sanction them.’

Ms Collins, who resigned last year from the panel chaired by Cardinal O’Malley, demanded accountability for abusers and those in the Church hierarchy who covered up for them, including at the Vatican.

That call for zero tolerance was echoed by a worldwide network of survivors of clerical abuse. The Ending Clerical Abuse group urged the Vatican to open the archives of dioceses.

Peter Isley, a founder member, said: ‘We want to end the cover-up, and Pope Francis must revive the 2015 initiative of a tribunal for judging complicit bishops and religious superiors, and order all Church officials to report allegations to the police.’

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has said he believes that wider Irish society will look to Pope Francis for guidance when he visits this weekend. ‘This Pope may be able to say something not just to the Irish Church but to Irish society about where it should be going.’

However, he admitted that ‘right across the Church, there’s a certain unease about the way the Church dominated lives… it might even arrive to anger, in some cases’. He said he made the decision to issue the Murphy Report in full in 2009 because he believes that ‘it’s only when the truth comes out that you can begin to rebuild’.

Also yesterday, the Taoiseach told the BBC he believed that the Catholic Church had had ‘too dominant’ an effect on laws in Ireland.

Leo Varadkar said that he would address the Church’s legacy of clerical abuse when he meets Pope Francis today.

Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said that clerical abuse was a ‘cultural problem’ that can’t be changed overnight. Speaking of the Pope’s visit, he said: ‘I think in 36 hours, it’s hard to change a culture.’ He also said that the Church would ‘take responsibility for… very grave sins’.

Meanwhile, high-ranking cardinal

‘If canon law doesn’t work, change it’

Kevin Farrell celebrated the closing Mass of the Pastoral Congress at the RDS, focusing on the role of men and women in creating life. Dubliner Cardinal Farrell, a native of Drimnagh, is prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, which issues teachings on lay life.

Yesterday, he urged delegates to embrace the beauty of married life, saying: ‘Today there are many opinions contrary to the Church view of family but… you cannot argue with the facts: when a man and a woman start a new family they come to understand they are called to participate in God’s work of creation.’