Bishops to meet on child welfare issues
Catholic bishops from throughout Ireland will gather today for a special summit on the latest child sex abuse controversy to rock the church.
The hierarchy from both sides of the border have been summoned to the meeting at Maynooth, Co Kildare, in the wake of the fall-out over paedophilia allegations in the Diocese of Cloyne, Co Cork.
A spokesman for the Catholic church said the talks at St Patrick’s College seminary would deal with child welfare within the church.
“It’s a special meeting, addressing the safeguarding of children, obviously in the context of recent developments,” he said.
“This is a core pastoral area for individual bishops and collectively.”
The Church has come under the spotlight again in recent months after two separate investigations, by the Health Service Executive and the Church’s own watchdog.
Both heavily criticised the response to the clerical child sex abuse claims in Co Cork.
Bishop of Cloyne Dr John Magee, a former Vatican aide, has faced down repeated calls to quit over his mishandling of the allegations, branded inadequate and dangerous by the church’s own National Board for Safeguarding Children.
Earlier this month, Catholic Primate Cardinal Sean Brady said Bishop Magee should not resign, but should stay on to help implement recommendations in the official investigations.
The controversy prompted the government to widen the Dublin Commission of Investigation, into clerical sex abuse allegations in the capital, to cover the Diocese of Cloyne.
That investigation will focus on claims by a priest in December 2004 who claimed he had been abused as a young boy by an unnamed cleric in the Diocese of Cloyne, referred to as Father A.
It will also examine several complaints made against a second priest, Father B, accused of molesting two teenage girls, abusing a 14-year-old boy and of having a year-long sexual relationship with the boy’s mother.
