ALL THE BISHOPS' MEN, CLERICAL ABUSE IN AN IRISH DIOCESE, Tom Mooney, Collins Press, Cork, 2011
From Amazon, The lid is lifted on how a group of priests in Wexford were able to
abuse children over a thirty-year period. Boys and girls were molested, raped,
stripped of innocence and left devastated. Inept supervision by bishops, botched
police investigations, weak sentences, and a philosophy of hear no evil, see no
evil, allowed priests to sexually abuse at will. Fr Seán Fortune's suicide in
1999 set in train events in Ireland that led to the first voluntary resignation
by a bishop in the Catholic Church in Western Europe, and precipitated the first
State investigation of clerical abuse. The Ferns Report, which documented
hundreds of allegations of abuse since 1966 against twenty-one priests of the
Diocese of Ferns, sent shockwaves around the world. Eventually, a few good men
said enough is enough . This is a searing indictment of the Catholic Church and
the society that spawned and protected the abusers.
Page 49- Father Sean Fortune, Diocese of Ferns, committed suicide and thus
avoided justice for the awful sex abuse he committed against many victims. He
planned his suicide meticulously. He wrote a note in a poem format, called A
Message from Heaven for My Family. He wrote on the top of it that it was to be
read at his Requiem Mass. He took an overdose with a bottle of whiskey.
Page 50 - Fortune was found dead on his bed holding his rosary beads - "his
rosary beads twined around his hands in prayer". His victim Colm O Gorman said
that suicide was not cowardice but about ego - he didn't want to have to account
for his actions to anybody for he considered himself too wonderful for that.
Page 159 - In 2002, Michael McDowell, Minister for Justice, determined that
Canon Law was just like the internal sporting rules of an organisation such as
the GAA. Cardinal Desmond Connell corrected this misunderstanding. The book says
the Irish "Supreme Court recognised that canon law enjoyed the status of foreign
law" according to the Cardinal. But it adds that "The truth, as usual with
organised religion, was somewhere in between." The Law Society Gazette says, "It
is correct to say that canon law is recognised as foreign law by the Irish
courts where it governs a relationship that is at issue. It would not be correct
to imply that this gives canon law precedence over civil law." The book quotes a
priest who says that here is no conflict between state law and canon law on the
basis that canon law commands that civil law must be obeyed unless it
contradicts divine law.
Page 161, 162 - Crimen Sollicitationis was interpreted as proof by American
Lawyers that the Catholic Church had made it law that clerical sex abuse be
covered up. The document decreed that the Secret of the Holy Office applies in
cases of clerical sex abuses that are investigated by the Church. Those who
broke confidentiality were punished by automatic excommunication from the Church
and reckoned guilty of a sin that could only be absolved by the Pope. The Crimen
rules applied to 2001. The document was about four kinds of sins, priests using
the confessional to solicit for sex, sexual abuse of minors, homosexuality and
bestiality. The book says that it "was viewed as ... an indication of an
official policy of secrecy rather than a conspiracy to stay silent, was an
archaically worded blueprint to help bishops discipline priests who, in the eyes
of the Church, had forsaken their chastity".
Page 163 says Crimen decreed that how the investigation was conducted that was
to remain secret not the abuse.
Page 166 states that Pope Benedict in his letter to Irish Catholics, apologised
for how the Irish bishops handled cases of clerical sex abuse. He did not even
mention the Vatican's part in all this.
COMMENT: Fortune definitely believed his faith condoned his evil actions and
that he would go to Heaven. This shows the danger of endorsing an irrational
religious faith - some people end up more irrational than the pope! The Irish
state should not recognise Canon Law as the law of a foreign state. Canon Law is
for a worldwide organisation - not merely the Vatican. And Canon Law must have
precedence over state law for state law does not enjoy the same guidance from
God as it supposedly does. How the book can say that Crimen was about helping to
manage immoral priests is baffling in the light of the fact that there were such
severe penalties against the accuser if he or she breaks the secret. And why
apply the Secret of the Holy Office and not a vow of confidentiality? Why was
there no requirement to report the offender to the civil authorities?
