RTE News Ireland
Updated: 09:32, Thursday, 16 June 2011
Catholic bishops have denied they fabricated data difficulties to delay probes into child protection practices in a number of dioceses.
Ireland’s Catholic bishops have denied they fabricated data protection difficulties to delay inquiries into child protection practices in a number of dioceses.
Last month the watchdog tasked by the bishops with independently reviewing their own safeguarding record said it had been prevented from doing so for legal reasons.
This latest twist in the public disagreement between the hierarchy and the National Board for the Protection of Children in the church comes in a statement from the bishops.
They confess that the board’s progress in carrying out a review commissioned by them 17 months ago has been ‘slower than hoped for’ and that they share the board’s frustration on the matter.
Last month, the board’s chief executive Ian Elliot said it had been prevented from undertaking the review of child protection after lawyers for the bishops and religious orders advised them not to co-operate due to possible breaches of data protection laws.
Although Mr Elliot said his board was confident it fully complied with those laws, the bishops say the board’s own lawyers, as far back as 2007, alerted it to the likelihood that data protection law could pose difficulties.
They emphasise that data protection difficulties are real and were not fabricated or invented to prevent progress.
The hierarchy’s statement appeals to the Government to provide legal protection for the exchange of so-called ‘soft information’ so that the board can fulfil its full remit.
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Data issues were real, say bishops
16 June 2011
GENEVIEVE CARBERYDATA PROTECTION issues, which have prevented the Catholic hierarchy from co-operating with the church’s own child protection review, were “not fabricated to prevent progress”, bishops said yesterday.
The Irish Bishops Conference said in its annual report that it shared the “frustration” expressed by the church’s child protection board.
Last month the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church said that until recently it was prevented from undertaking the child protection review requested by legal concerns on the part of church authorities.
The Irish Bishops Conference accepted that the progress in the child protection review was “slower than hoped for”, it said in a statement released following its June meeting yesterday.
“Data protection difficulties are real, they were not fabricated or invented to prevent progress,” the statement said.
Lawyers acting for the board had “alerted the board to the likelihood that data protection law could pose difficulties”, the statement
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Calls for church leaders to maintain change
RTE News Ireland
Updated: 17:49, Friday, 3 June 2011
An advisor to the child protection watchdog in the Catholic Church has said battle lines are still being drawn within the church over how transparently sexual abuse cases should be handled.
Monica Applewhite also expressed scepticism about the explanation of some church leaders for their failure to co-operate with the watchdog’s audit of abuse cases.
Ms Applewhite is a US catholic and a world expert on abuse prevention.
She has addressed the hierarchy in Ireland and advises the National Board for the Protection of Children in the Catholic Church.
Speaking in a personal capacity to The Irish Catholic newspaper, she laments that some church leaders still follow legal advice, instead of listening to their pastoral instincts or the consensus for change among the faithful.
She says the Irish church is at ‘a tipping point’ and that each of its bishops and religious superiors must now choose whether they are for or against transparency and change.
Asked why some leaders were accused recently by the national board of having failed to co-operate with its audit of abuse, Ms Applewhite says their explanation ‘that there were fears about violating data protection laws seems to only scratch the surface of what the fears may be’.
She observes that ‘being fully accountable and disclosing to an outside entity is very frightening for leaders in any area, but most assuredly for religious leaders who have not been asked to do this in the past’.