BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Pope Benedict will meet
Irish bishops on Dec. 11
Translated from




ROME, Dec. 7 (SIR) - Cardinal Sean Brady, president of the Irish bishops' conference and Archbishop of Armagh, and Cardinal Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin, will meet with Benedict XVI at the Vatican on Dec. 11, according to Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, Vatican press director.

The meeting is for the purpose of "information and evaluation of the painful situation of the Church in Ireland following the recent publication of the Murphy Commission Report" [on abuses committted by Irish clergy and religious in the Archdiocese of Dublin against minors].

"I can confirm", Fr. Lomardi said, "that the Holy Father has invited Cardinal Brady and Cardinal Martin to a meeting in Rome on Friday, December 11" to discuss the Report and its consequences.

Also attending the meeting will be representatives of the various Curial dicasteries that have competence to deal with the specific issues raised by the report.

The report focuses on what Church and State authorities did (and did not do) regarding acccusations made of clerical abuses between 1975-2004.

It can be found on a special website of the Irish Ministry of Justice/
www.justice.ie/



Irish Primates to meet Pope
this weekend on abuse report
by Fiach Kelly

Monday December 07 2009



SEVERAL bishops singled out for criticism in the Murphy report have responded to a letter sent to them by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin asking them to clarify their positions.

Dr Martin said he had received a number of responses from the bishops he had written to last week.

Speaking to the Irish Independent after celebrating a Lourdes reunion Mass in Dublin, Dr Martin said that he had received a reply from the under-fire Bishop of Limerick, Donal Murray.

But he would not be drawn on whether he was satisfied with the responses given to him so far.


Cardinals Martin and Brady.

He indicated that the bishops' responses would be central to the discussions he and Cardinal Sean Brady would be having with the Pope this weekend.

Last week, Dr Martin said that he was not satisfied with the response of Bishop Murray and other auxiliary bishops who served in Dublin and who were criticised in the report. At the time, he said that those who were no longer serving in Dublin could not tailor their responses to people in their current diocese.

"He [Bishop Murray] did reply, I wrote a letter to him and he said he'd be replying," Dr Martin said yesterday. "They are beginning to come in."

He said that he would have to read the responses together in order to decide if he was happy with them and added that some of the bishops he wrote to had questioned his request for clarity.

"I think we'll wait until we see what comes in," Dr Martin said.

"We have a meeting of the bishops on Wednesday and Cardinal Brady and I are going to Rome at the weekend so I would hope that by the time we are ready to go Rome, we would have something to say there."

His comments follow those of Cardinal Brady, who called on the bishops named in the report to act soon in light of the findings that cover-ups of clerical abuse had taken place.





Vatican should have replied
to Murphy letters, says cardinal

Dec. 7, 2009




THE CATHOLIC primate Cardinal Seán Brady has criticised the lack of response by the Vatican and papal nunciature to correspondence from the Murphy commission.

Speaking to The Irish Times in Dundal yesterday he said “it was unfortunate that requests from the [Murphy] commission didn’t get the courtesy of a reply” from the Vatican. “They should have,” he said.

Similarly, correspondence by the commission with the papal nunciature in Dublin “should have been acknowledged”, he added.

He repeated his belief that the Bishop of Limerick Donal Murray “will do the right thing” following publication of the Dublin diocesan report, and is awaiting a response from the others named in that report to a letter sent to them by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin.

The cardinal was speaking at St Joseph’s church in Dundalk after he had ordained three Redemptorist priests.

Asked about an open letter sent to him as president of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference by abuse survivor Marie Collins, seeking a public assurance that no Irish bishop would in future use the stratagem of “mental reservation” to avoid telling the truth, he said he had yet to receive the letter. When he did he would bring it to the attention of the bishops this week, he said.

The Murphy report outlined the concept of “mental reservation”, which some churchmen felt allowed them knowingly to mislead people “without being guilty of lying”.

Cardinal Desmond Connell explained the concept to the commission as follows: “You are not permitted to tell a lie. On the other hand, you may be put in a position where you have to answer, and there may be circumstances in which you can use an ambiguous expression, realising that the person who you are talking to will accept an untrue version of whatever it may be – permitting that to happen, not willing that it happened, that would be lying . . . So mental reservation is, in a sense, a way of answering without lying.”

Cardinal Brady said yesterday he had never employed mental reservation, “not to my knowledge”, and was even unsure about it as a concept.

The bishops’ conference will meet in Maynooth for their winter meeting on Wednesday and Thursday next.

Such quarterly meetings normally take place from Monday to Wednesday but as the feast of the Immaculate Conception falls tomorrow, it was scheduled for later this week.

As to those others also named in the report, he awaited their response to a letter sent them by Archbishop Martin last week.

The men concerned include Bishop Jim Moriarty of Kildare and Leighlin; Bishop Martin Drennan of Galway; Dublin auxiliary bishops Éamonn Walsh and Ray Field; and the chancellor of Dublin’s Catholic archdiocese Mgr John Dolan. “In fairness they should be allowed time and space,” the cardinal said.

Yesterday he said he and Archbishop Martin would be travelling to Rome later this week.

Details were still being worked out as to when they would go and who they would meet. In Rome they intended to convey “the anger and dismay among the people” at findings in the Murphy report, he said.

They would do so to Pope Benedict XVI, as well as to the heads of various Vatican congregations.

Last June, following publication of the Ryan report on May 20th, both he and Archbishop Martin met the Pope and most of the Curia in Rome to discuss that report and reaction to it. Arrangements are being worked out so that similar meetings can take place where the Murphy report is concerned for later this week.

Of his personal reaction to the Murphy report, he said: “Surprise is too weak a word to describe it. I was shocked, felt ashamed, dismayed, deeply shocked.”

He had received letters expressing “a lot of intensity of feeling. Very strong. I can understand that.”

People who did not usually write letters had been in contact with him saying they were dismayed by the report. He was “glad people are expressing their anger. Our job is to respond and not in a superficial way. It’s only beginning.” It was “a big test”.

As to whether the bishops had been unprepared for the report and were in disarray since its publication, he responded: “How could anybody be prepared for it? We have tried [to respond]. It came out 10 days ago. I preached on it last Sunday. I met groups. I was abroad meeting the bishops of England, Scotland and Wales. And of course everyone was shocked. It has taken time to deeply ponder the issues raised.”

Again and again he returned to the issue of child protection, where “interaction by church and State is essential”.

There had to be provision “for the future well-being of children, We have to ensure that in every part of the Catholic Church in Ireland children are safe and their parents are satisfied that they are safe,” he said. “No complacency can be justified,” he added.





One Irish bishop flies to Rome:
To resign before the Pope?
by PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

Dec. 7, 2009


THE BISHOP of Limerick Dr Donal Murray travelled to Rome yesterday to discuss his future. It is believed Bishop Murray departed from Cork airport in the afternoon and that he intends offering his resignation to Pope Benedict XVI. However neither Bishop Murray nor his secretary were available for comment last night.

Earlier yesterday, Bishop Murray told parishioners he was “reflecting on the decision he now has to make”, in a statement read out at Masses across the diocese.

Calls have been made for Bishop Murray’s resignation since the publication of the Dublin diocesan report which criticised his handling of complaints against clergymen who were later found to have been involved in the sexual abuse of children.

The pressure increased on Bishop Murray on Saturday when Catholic primate Cardinal Seán Brady said he was confident Bishop Murray “would do the right thing”.

He went on to say that he would resign himself if a child had been abused as a result of a failure on his part. “I would remember that child sex abuse is a very serious crime and very grave and if I found myself in a situation where I was aware that my failure to act had allowed or meant that other children were abused, well then, I think I would resign,” he told RTÉ.

In an interview with The Irish Times, Cardinal Brady confirmed yesterday that he and Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin would be travelling to Rome later this week, although the date of their departure had yet to be finalised. They intended conveying “the anger and dismay among the people” at findings in the Dublin diocesan report.

He also criticised the lack of response by the Vatican and the papal nunciature in Ireland to correspondence from the commission.

“It was unfortunate that requests from the commission didn’t get the courtesy of a reply” from the Vatican when it wrote to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in September 2006.

On RTÉ’s The Week in Politics last night, Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin expressed his “deep disappointment” at the lack of a response by Pope Benedict to the Dublin diocesan report. “The Pope has not responded yet to the appalling revelations of the Murphy inquiry.”

[If he has not responded, it's because there has been no occasion to do so. Besides, it's not as if he has not spoken out about the situation - he did in very strong words to the Irish bishops in October 2006. He met with Cardinals Martin and Brady at the Vatican after the preliminary Ryan Report was released last June, and there is no question he will make his statement now that the full report has been release - after he meets with the two cardinals this week.]

The papal nuncio, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, has been asked to visit the department this week to explain why there had been no response from the nunciature to correspondence from the commission

“I think we will be pointing out that we need such a substantive response,” Mr Martin added, “and it is the view of the Irish Government that there has to be co-operation . . . not just with the investigation into Dublin but also the Cloyne diocese,” which is ongoing.


It was a tactical error on the part of the CDF and the Nuncio in London not to have responded, even if they had valid reasons to do so (i.e., the local bishiops and clergy have direct knowledge of what happened, and the Vatican does not have the files). They at least owed the Commission a written refusal. To have simply ignored the requests made to them, as reports make it appear, is not just inexplicable - it's rude!