Muted welcome for pope in Ireland, the genesis of abuse crisis

DUBLIN: Pope Francis arrived in Ireland yesterday, ground zero of the Catholic Church’s sex abuse crisis, with the institution under fire across the globe for its systemic failures to protect children from rapists or to punish bishops who hid the crimes.

Francis is making the first papal visit to Ireland in almost four decades, but the reception he received in Dublin was a contrast to the raucous, rock star welcome that greeted Pope John Paul II in 1979. Only a handful of people waited to cheer him outside the Vatican residence.

Aware of the lasting wounds of the abuse crisis in Ireland, Francis was expected to meet victims during his 36-hour trip.

But neither Francis’ words nor a new meeting with abuse victims are likely to calm the outrage among rank-and-file Catholics following new revelations of sexual misconduct and cover-ups in the US, an ongoing crisis in Chile and the prosecution of top clerics in Australia and France.

Ireland has one of the worst records of abuse in the world, crimes that were revealed to the deeply Catholic nation’s 4.8 million people through a series of government-mandated inquiries over the past decade. The reviews concluded that thousands of children were raped or molested by priests and physically abused in church-run schools while bishops covered up for abusers.

After the Irish church atoned for its past and enacted tough new norms to fight abuse, it looked to the pope’s visit as a way to highlight a different, more caring church that understands the problems of ordinary Catholic families today.

But Ireland’s tortured history of abuse has left its mark. In a country where Catholic bishops held such sway that they advised the drafters of the republic’s constitution in the 1930s, voters in recent years have turned their backs on core Catholic teachings. They have overturned a constitutional ban on abortion and legalised divorce, contraception and same-sex marriage.

Irish abuse victims and their supporters were expected to hold a solidarity rally in Dublin today, at the same time Francis was to celebrate his final Mass.

Separately, survivors of Ireland’s wretched “mother and baby homes” – where children were exiled for the shame of having been born to unwed mothers – were to hold their own demonstration today. The location was to be Tuam, site of a mass grave in a sewage area of hundreds of babies who died over the years at a church-run home.

Francis was to be nearby, visiting the Marian shrine at Knock, but had no plans to visit the grave site.

On the eve of Francis’ arrival in Dublin, Boston Cardinal Sean O’malley – the pope’s top abuse counsellor – said protecting children and vulnerable adults was now the single most crucial issue facing the church.

However, Irish abuse survivor advocate Marie Collins told the church’s “safeguarding panel” that if Francis claimed to be on the side of victims, the church should no longer lobby to block victims from prosecuting abusers after the statute of limitations expired.

She called for “robust structures” and strong sanctions to hold accountable bishops and even Vatican officials who failed to protect children. But Francis offered no such structures or sanctions in a letter he penned on the eve of his Irish visit to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, vowing only to spare no effort to fight the abuse problem. – AP