‘The only way you’re going to really respect victims ... is to have abusers’ names out there’

Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago said it had emerged in the revelations about abuse and cover-ups in Pennsylvania that some dioceses witheld files on priests against whom allegations were made and this had contributed to the “disgust” people felt.

Several victim advocate groups here called this week for all records held by dioceses on priests not prosecuted in the criminal courts but punished under canon law to be disclosed.

The National Board for the Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church says Ireland’s defamation and data protection laws prevent the disclosure of the names of such priests as only those convicted in court can be publicly named.

But Cardinal Cupich said while some US states also had restrictive laws, disclosure was essential. “The only way that you’re going to really respect victims and give them the courage to come forward for healing by is to have those names out there,” he said.

My suggestion would be, which we did in Chicago, is to ask independent people to come in to look at the files to make sure there is nothing in there that has not been revealed in terms of pepole who have been judged as having credible accusations against them, to list those names and then go the next step and say anybody who has been offended by any of these people should come forward. That’s the only way we’re going to go forward.

Cardinal Blase was speaking at a press conference at the World Meeting of Families which will this morning host a panel discussion on abuse in the church. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar last night repeated his pledge to discuss clerical sex abuse with Pope Francis when they meet in Dublin this weekend.

Speaking on RTÉ, Mr Varadkar said he would tell Pope Francis that the Catholic Church must admit its own sins.

The two leaders are scheduled to hold a 10-minute meeting on Saturday and the Taoiseach said he would approach it with a sense of welcome and respect.

But he added that he knew the Irish public would want him to stress that the Catholic Church needs to do more in dealing with child sex abuse in Ireland.

The Vatican has said Pope Francis will meet victims during his visit, but Archbishop Eamon Martin said yesterday he had no details of what was planned.

He said he believed the Pope would be in listening mode during the meeting and he hoped it would go well.

Meeting with survivors is not easy,” he said. “Survivors sometimes simply don’t trust us.

The World Meeting of Families’ three days of talks and workshops continues in the RDS today while this evening at an multi-faith event in Christchurch, the Catholic bishops will announce they are to pull the church’s wealth out of investments in oil, gas and other fossil fuel industries.

The announcement will say they have committed to moving all its stocks into ethical investments within five years.

The move will make the Church in Ireland the second in the world after Belgium to answer Pope Francis’s call to put climate change on the clerical agenda by divesting themselves of fossil fuel investments. The Vatican Bank has yet to do the same.