Seanad debates

Tuesday, 15 November 2005

Ferns Report: Statements (Resumed).

 

5:00 pm

Photo of Martin ManserghMartin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I commend the Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Brian Lenihan, on his contribution and all he has said and done in this area which is in the best traditions of this republic, this party and his family.

The report sets out in an objective way the background to and detail of the inquiry and the recommendations. I have heard very little criticism from any quarter of the report's validity. It is sad and shocking and one can understand, particularly for those more closely involved, the anger and the sense of betrayal. Betrayal has been, unfortunately, part of the Christian experience going back to the time of Judas Iscariot. It is right to put those who were children to the forefront because those type of experiences can scar people for life and hamper relationships they may subsequently enter into. The priority is protection and preventing a recurrence of these events. This is one of those cases, and we find this across all sectors, where self-regulation has unfortunately failed. Clearly it is a much wider problem than one church in one country. To a degree it is a matter that has cropped up in several different countries.

Like my colleague, Senator Jim Walsh, I have been reading the memoirs of the Reverend Ruddock in which he talks about the abuse he experienced. Clerical abuse amounts to just over 3% of total abuse cases. Some ask why people are picking on the Catholic Church rather than other sectors. The truthful answer is that the Catholic Church plays an enormous role in our society and had for a long time a relatively unchallenged moral jurisdiction. It is hard to reconcile, if one thinks back over 40 or 50 years, relatively poor married couples being told how often and for what purpose they might have marital relations with what we are seeing now. I do not believe for one moment that powers in the church not directly involved in the abuses in any way condoned, connived or colluded in it. This does not mean to say, however, that it was well handled. Unfortunately, when these incidents crop up, people feel their way and it is very easy to stumble.

I pay tribute from an ecumenical point of view to Bishop Comiskey of Ferns. He had an advanced attitude to the question of mixed marriages which, thankfully, has largely ceased to be a problem. He did apologise for Fethard-on-Sea. I recall being invited by him to launch a History of the Diocese of Ferns which goes back to the end of the sixth century. It was most unusual in that it dealt with churches other than the Catholic Church.

Priests and members of the church are obviously deeply upset. A parish priest in Tipperary said to me last week that the past week had been the worst couple of weeks in his life. I would regret any generalised attack on the churches, which play a vital role. I would be totally against rooting the churches out of civic life; that is not what people want. It would have serious implications for minority traditions if that were to happen. Some disastrous events are taking place in France where the route of widespread secularisation within a framework of the one and indivisible republic is being followed. That has not been working very well.

Some criticism has been uttered of the Taoiseach. In my opinion the Taoiseach is a model of someone who reconciles loyalty to his church with his duty to the State which has required him, in a number of instances, in the interests of society to take, defend and promote decisions at variance with the wishes of the Catholic Church. I see no incompatibility between loyalty and responsibility in that regard. I welcome the initiative he has taken for an institutionalised dialogue between Government and the churches. When disaster hits any of us, either individually or corporately, we have to brush off the dirt, learn the lessons, pick ourselves up and try to move forward again.

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