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Thursday, March 04, 2010
Please sir… I want some more
THE BISHOP has called on his flock to dig deep for the diocese, by helping to pay crippling costs for payoffs from the sexual abuse here.
In a first for a Ferns’ Bishop, Bishop Denis Brennan called on parishoners’ financial help at Monday night’s meeting of annual diocesan finance AGM in the Riverside Park Hotel, Enniscorthy, following a raft of civil lawsuits for clerical sex abuse.
There are currently 13 civil cases pending which will cost the cash-strapped diocese over €2m, on top of €8m already paid out.
Bishop Brennan told the meeting: “The Diocese of Ferns has been on a road involving the settlement of claims for 15 years now. It has been very much a team effort – various administrations and personnel, local diocesan and national church funding and from the picture as it exists today, up to 80% of the road of justice has been travelled.
As we look to complete this road, it will be necessary to invite the parishes to become part of the process financially.
Funding sought is not about sharing the blame, it is about asking for help to fulfil a God-given responsibility.”
To date the diocese has paid €6 million to victims of clerical sexual abuse in the county, as highlighted by the Ferns’ Report.
€2,138,692 was spent on legal fees which arose from its co-operation with the Berminghman and Ferns’ Inquiries, the same amount which was spent on the Murphy Report into clerical sex abuse in the much larger Dublin diocese.
€650,000 of this was recovered from a contribution made by the government.
Treatment of offenders has amounted to €836,000, an investment in child protection in the long term. It is thought the diocese would have been bankrupted had not half the national Church insurance kitty been used financing these payments.
Bishop Brennan said: “The funding of claims associated with child abuse as perpetrated by some members of the clergy continues to impact on the diocese financially. The issue continues to receive priority attention and I am glad to report continued progress.”
Bishop Brennan said: “‘That I did not cause the problem’ is not the response of the Christian, that ‘I would like to help in the work of justice, healing, reconciliation, a safer environment for children in the future, proper financial stewardship and overall good economic health’ is. I would be grateful for whatever ways you might be able to help me and the diocese to complete a road on which it has been necessary to travel.”
The diocese’s finances are managed by a committee headed by Eugene Doyle (Diocesan Finance Officer) and Liam Gaynor (Accountant).
Bishop Brennan said: “This particular tragedy is not viewed by the diocese as a problem to be solved. More accurately, people who suffered abuse are not the cause of our problems: the actions of individual perpetrators, along with mismanagement, poor understanding and/or lack of resolve, are.
“The diocese is at various points on the road with individual victims and survivors: some wish to have no further dealings with us and this we respect; some view us as representing or defensive of those who damaged them; some stay in contact; and some engage with us in the search for healing and reconciliation.”
Clerical sexual abuse survivor and founder of One in Four, Colm O’Gorman said he was eager to see the reaction of the people of Wexford to this request from the Bishop.
Mr. O’Gorman said a bishop tried this before in Derry, adding that the people of Wexford should not be asked to finance these payments, adding that saying it was a God-given responsibility, was a fallacy.
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