Cardinal Desmond Connell
Kindly Catholic Archbishop of Dublin who proved ill-equipped to handle the abuse crisis
CARDINAL DESMOND CONNELL, the former Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, who has died aged 90, found himself out of his depth when it was revealed that dozens of priests in his diocese were paedophiles who had preyed on children – a scandal that dealt a body blow to the power of the Catholic Church in Irish life.
Connell, a former professor of Metaphysics at University College, Dublin, was unexpectedly appointed Archbishop by the Holy See in 1988 on the premature death of his predecessor, because the Vatican wanted a person who was conservative on family law and theological issues. Nevertheless, throughout his time in office he was also a vocal advocate for groups on the margins and was one of the first prominent figures to express concern about the treatment of refugees.
When Pope John Paul II made him a cardinal in 2001 he was the first Dublin archbishop to be elevated to the College of Cardinals in 116 years. An intellectual, he was close to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) with whom he served for some years on the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Connell, an unworldly figure who had led a sheltered life and had had virtually no pastoral experience, proved ill-equipped to handle the modern media. Although he was kindly, gentle and courteous in private, even before the abuse scandal broke he had acquired something of a reputation for insensitivity, particularly in regard to the relationship with Protestant churches at a time when attempts were being made to find a solution to the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
There was a feeling that Ireland needed a Catholic leader capable of accommodating Protestants, but Connell mainly succeeded in alienating them. One commentator characterised him as “Ireland’s answer to Prince Philip”.
In December 1997 he caused an outcry after the Irish president, Mary McAleese, received communion in Dublin’s Church of Ireland Cathedral, when he said: “What [Catholics] are in fact doing in partaking of the Eucharist in a Protestant church is a sham.” He later apologised for the offence caused, but explained that by “sham” he had meant to suggest something which was not as it appeared to be, rather than something “cheap or shoddy”.
In February 2001, on his way to Rome to receive his cardinal’s red hat, Connell criticised the Church of Ireland for inviting all baptised Christians to receive communion at its Eucharist services, upsetting his Church of Ireland counterpart, Archbishop Walton Empey. No offence had been intended, Connell insisted.
At a lunch after his elevation he told an audience including the Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern that some in Ireland were trying to “forget the Church as if it never existed”. “Ireland is not Ireland without the Church,” he insisted.
Later the same year he again found himself at the centre of controversy, following the publication of a book by a former pupil containing an interview in which Connell remarked of his Protestant counterpart: “Archbishop Empey wouldn’t have much theological competence anyway.” He “might have appeared to denigrate” Empey, he said later, but was sorry “if such an impression has been given”.
Cardinal Connell had offered his resignation in March 2001, when he reached 75, the official retirement age for senior clergy apart from the Pope. The Pope, possibly preoccupied by the scandal of paedophile priests engulfing the Church in America, did not accept it, however.
Connell might well have had cause to regret the Pope’s decision because in October 2002 the Irish state broadcaster RTE showed a documentary, Cardinal Secrets, containing accounts of children abused over several decades by Catholic priests serving in the Archdiocese of Dublin, where complaints had been made at higher levels and effectively ignored, both by the Church and by the police.
The programme led to a clamour for Connell’s resignation, which grew in volume as more victims went public and as it was revealed that most Irish dioceses had taken out insurance against sex-abuse claims in the 1980s. In 2003 he was forced to make an unprecedented apology in court to a former altar boy for the way the Church had dealt with his case.
Mervyn Rundle won the biggest single cash settlement of its kind (£230,000) – for abuse he had endured in the 1980s. Challenged by a television reporter on why he had failed to encourage victims to go to the police, Connell said: “I suppose I should have done … but I had so much else to do.”
It was only in 2004 that the Pope moved to draw a line under the scandal by accepting Connell’s resignation, but it was not the end of the story.
In 2006 a governmentappointed commission was established under Judge Yvonne Murphy to examine how allegations of abuse of children by priests from 1975 to 2004 were dealt with by the ecclesiastical and secular authorities.
The commission’s 720-page report, published in November 2009, accused four Archbishops of Dublin – John Charles McQuaid, Dermot Ryan and Kevin McNamara (who had all died) and Connell – of deliberately suppressing evidence of “widespread’’ abuse.
“The Dublin Archdiocese’s preoccupations in dealing with cases of child sexual abuse, at least until the mid-1990s, were the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the Church, and the preservation of its assets,” said the report. “All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities.”
Connell was credited by the commission, however, for pushing for the laicisation of a notorious abuser priest, Tony Walsh, “in spite of the advice and, indeed, interference of his judicial vicar (Msgr Gerard Sheehy) and in spite of the Roman Rota (Appeal Court)”.
After the report’s publication Connell issued a letter to be read out at Masses across Dublin in which he expressed his wish to “apologise from my heart for the terrible betrayal they have suffered” but urged Catholics to “judge what has happened against the background of the many hundreds of good and faithful priests over all the years who have served their people with complete integrity and unselfishness”.
Undoubtedly he had felt a paternal duty to look after his priests, and had to cope with pressure from the Vatican to defend accused priests above all. But he was too trusting of their denials. In the 2002 he told a press conference in Maynooth: “I am as human as any of you … it is the issue which has devastated my period of office.”
Desmond Connell was born on March 24 1926 in Phibsborough, Dublin. He was 13 when his mother was widowed after her husband, a policeman’s son and civil servant who became managing director of the Irish Sugar Board, died prematurely. “It was tough, very tough,” Connell recalled.
He was educated by the Jesuits at Belvedere College, Dublin, before studying for the priesthood at Holy Cross College, Clonliffe. After taking an arts degree at University College Dublin from 1947 to 1951, he studied theology at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, then at the Pontifical University of Leuven, Belgium, where he was awarded a doctorate in Philosophy in 1953.
He was ordained priest by Archbishop McQuaid in 1951 and took up a teaching post at the Department of Metaphysics at University College Dublin, where he was popular and well-regarded among colleagues and students. He was appointed Professor of General Metaphysics in 1972 and in 1983 became the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology.
After his retirement from the archdiocese of Dublin, in 2005 he attended the conclave of cardinals that elected Pope Benedict, and was delighted at the outcome.