Cardinal Connell was ill-suited to deal with the child abuse scandal
Controversial former Archbishop of Dublin, Cardinal Desmond Connell, dies aged 90,
CARDINAL Desmond Connell, who died overnight last Monday in Dublin, at the age of 90, was a sincere and learned academic theologian, ill-equipped to deal with the sexual abuse scandal which had engulfed the Irish Catholic Church and into which he was plunged after his appointment as Archbishop of Dublin in 1988.
According to the government commission which produced the Murphy Report (2009), Dr Connell, as Archbishop of Dublin until 2004, was “slow to recognise the seriousness of the situation” and badly handled a number of cases which came under his remit.
Some of those who met him to voice their complaints found him “sympathetic and kind” but with little understanding of their plight, while others found him to be “remote and aloof ”.
The report said: “He was over-reliant on advice from other people, including his auxiliary bishops and legal and medical experts.
“He was clearly personally appalled by the abuse, but it took him some time to realise that it could not be dealt with by keeping it secret and protecting priests from the normal civil processes.”
It was particularly critical of him for allowing abuser Fr Ivan Payne to continue in ministry when a complaint became known about him in 1991, and even lending the priest money to compensate one of his victims.
Dr Connell was appointed a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 2001, taking the title of Cardinal of San Silvestre and becoming the first Archbishop of Dublin to be appointed as a prince of the Church since 1882.
“All the archbishops and many of the auxiliary bishops in the period covered by the commission handled child sexual abuse complaints badly,” said the report compiled by Judge Yvonne Murphy, following an investigation which interviewed 320 people who had complained of sexual abuse between 1975 and 2004. It was not until November 1995 that Dr Connell allowed the names of 17 priests about whom the archdiocese had received complaints to be given to gardai.
At a press conference in 2002, Dr Connell was so distressed by the line of questioning from journalists that he said to the media: “I am as human as any of you… it is an issue that has devastated my period of office.”
He went on to acknowledge he had not handled the issue adequately, but explained that paedophile priests were very difficult to deal with: “They lie through their teeth, they are the most extraordinarily devious people.”
He concluded to the media: “You people… I’m very sorry, I shouldn’t say ‘you people’ but you come along and treat us as if we were utterly indifferent to what was going on and I have gone through agonies over this thing.”
In his favour, it was acknowledged that Dr Connell did put in place rigorous child protection measures in response to the situation in which the Irish Catholic Church found itself.
“Archbishop Connell was one of the first bishops in the world to initiate canonical trials in the modern era,” said the Murphy Report.
It also recognised that he did so “in the face of strong opposition from one of the most powerful canonists in the archdiocese”, Monsignor (Gerard) Sheehy, who “rejected the view that the archdiocese had any responsibility to report child sexual abuse to the State authorities”.
Dr Connell then personally petitioned Pope Benedict XVI to have two priests, who had successfully appealed to Rome, dismissed from the ministry for their predatory sexual behaviour.
However, Dr Connell used the philosophical excuse of “mental reservation” (a way of answering a question, without lying, through the use of ambiguous expressions) to avoid giving full and complete answers. He stood accused by critics of giving priority to the reputation of the Church at the expense of victims.
He also approved the legal defences which were filed by the archdiocese when civil cases were taken by abuse victims seeking compensation.
“Liability for injury and damage caused was never admitted,” concluded the Murphy Report. “The archbishop’s strategies in the civil cases, while legally acceptable, often added to the hurt and grief of many complainants.”
When he became Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Connell was aware of the predatory sexual activities of two notorious paedophiles, Bill Carney and the so-called “singing priest” Tony Walsh.
Dr Connell remained trou- bled by the requirement of secrecy. In 2002, he allowed gardai access to the archdiocesan files.
The decision to do so, he told the commission, “created the greatest crisis in my position as archbishop”, as he considered it conflicted with his duty as a bishop to his priests, even asking himself if he was “betraying my consecration oath” in not keeping information given to him confidential.
Bishop Dermot O’Mahony told the commission that of the three archbishops he served as an auxiliary bishop, Dr Connell was “the most deeply affected by the harm of clerical sex abuse”, adding: “He was also the most proactive in seeking improvement in the church management of the issue.”
Born on the northside of Dublin on March 24, 1926, Des Connell was one of three sons of John Bernard Connell, a principal officer in the Department of Industry and Commerce, and Mary Lacy, a telephonist who was working in the GPO on Easter Sunday 1916, and was escorted to safety by one of the rebel leaders.
The family was living in Walnut Grove, Ballymun Road, Dublin, when John Connell was appointed one of the first directors of the Irish Sugar Company by Minister for Finance JJ McElligott in 1933.
The young Archbishop Connell attended St Peter’s National School, in Phibsborough, and Belvedere College. His father died when he was 13 and he went on to study for the priesthood at Clonliffe College and later University College Dublin (UCD), where he graduated with a BA in 1946 and was later awarded an MA.
He then studied theology at Maynooth, where he graduated with a degree in divinity, before being ordained as a priest by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid in 1951.
He took up a post in the department of metaphysics in UCD and studied at the University of Louvain, Belgium, where he was awarded a doctorate in philosophy in 1953.
Returning to UCD, Dr Connell became professor of general metaphysics in 1972 and was appointed dean of the faculty of philosophy and sociology in 1983.
An ascetic man, he had a fondness for Gilbert and Sullivan from his school days and enjoyed the music of Elgar and Mahler.
He had never served in a parish or even on the clerical staff of a senior churchman before his own elevation as Archbishop of Dublin in 1988 by Pope John Paul II.
Dr Connell was at the centre of Ireland’s prolonged abortion debates and once accused an all-party Oireachtas committee of having an “inadequate understanding” of the issues at stake.
He was also involved in controversy — unfairly, some of his supporters would say — surrounding the position of the then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and his partner Celia Larkin in 2001.
Although Dr Connell accepted an invitation from the couple to a State reception in Dublin Castle to celebrate his appointment as a cardinal, he used the occasion to speak of the sanctity of marriage and the family.
His comments after President Mary McAleese, a practising Catholic, took Communion in St Patrick’s Cathedral, in Dublin, were also interpreted as describing the president’s actions as “a sham”, although he never used that word.
What he said was: “For Roman Catholics, when we receive Holy Communion, it is a statement that we are in full communion with those people with whom we are taking Communion.
“But our communion with the Church of Ireland and other Protestants is incomplete; because we and they do not have the same faith about, for example, the Eucharist.” The Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin Dr Walton Empey said in response: “At times like this, I feel that Jesus is weeping and the devil is doing a dance.”
Dr Connell retired in 2004 but took part in the papal conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI the following year, the two men having known each other well through their shared academic background and interest in philosophy.
Following his retirement, Dr Connell lived quietly in Dublin with his sister-in-law, Peggy, and declined to be interviewed, instead choosing to staying aloof from church politics.
In 2009, following the publication of the Murphy Report, he issued the following statement through the Catholic press office: “I have spoken of my utter abhorrence of these grave offences and apologised for them on many occasions during my time as archbishop.
“Although I am all too well aware that such apologies and expressions of regret can never be adequate as a response to so much hurt and violation and, in any case, lose their value through repetition, I apologise again now from my heart and ask forgiveness of those who have been so shamefully harmed.”
After lying in state in the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin last Thursday, Dr Connell’s funeral Mass took place last Friday.
‘I apologise again and ask forgiveness of those who’ve been harmed’