Abuse victims vindicated

2009-11-26 22:12

Dublin - Victims of abuse by Irish Catholic clergy said on Thursday they felt "vindicated" by a new report detailing a decades-long cover-up by church authorities, and demanded those involved be charged.

As a judicial probe unveiled a culture of secrecy where protecting the Church's reputation overrode concerns for the children, those who suffered abuse by priests told how they had been demonised for years for speaking out.

"This is the end of a very long road for victims of abuse and particularly for those of us who spoke out for so many years and who were vilified by the Church (and) called liars," said Marie Collins, who was abused in 1960.

"I think this report has vindicated us and shown that everything we said about a cover-up (was true), about the fact that abusers were being moved from parish to parish and being allowed to abuse further and more children after they were known to be abusers," she told a press conference.

'Police should have acted'

Maeve Lewis, executive director of the One in Four victims support group, expressed her anger that "some of the abuse could have been prevented" if police had taken action earlier.

"Those people are as guilty as the sexual offenders themselves," she told reporters, calling for criminal investigations to be launched against "all those who colluded and conspired to protect the Catholic Church".

Lewis added: "It is going to be extraordinarily distressing to those people who would read the report and realise that they might not have been abused if people in authority had actually done their jobs."

The report, the result of a three-year investigation into the Dublin Archdiocese, the country's largest, outlined how a number of bishops over more than three decades heard suspicions and concerns but failed to act.

Victim ignored by govt

It cited a mother who contacted the archdiocese to report that her daughter had been abused as a child, only to be told that her daughter should make the complaint herself. When she refused, the archdiocese dropped the matter.

Abuse victim Andrew Madden said he was "shocked" by the revelations, but said government officials were as much to blame, saying they refused to act when he went public about his own abuse and the Church's attempt to pay him off 14 years ago, including writing to then premier Bertie Ahern in 1998.

The publication of the report "may bring closure for some victims, it may only serve as the only justice some victims ever receive", he said.

"But its publication, if not acted upon, will have been a wasted opportunity to raise child protection standards in this country," he said.
 

- SAPA