Nolan Report, three years later” “

A greater awareness of the risk of abuses, and a structure that may prevent the errors of the past from being repeated: with the Nolan Report, which came into force in September 2001,the Catholic Church of England and Wales has changed for ever its approach to children. Today a layperson responsible for juveniles exists in each parish, in each diocese and in each religious order. There also exists a dedicated agency at the national level. It’s called COPCA, the Catholic Office for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults, which monitors their work and reports each year to the Bishops’ Conference. We asked a priest, Father Philip Scanlan , the layman responsible for the protection of children in the diocese of Nottingham, John Creedon , and a spokesperson of the Bishops’ Conference, Oliver Wilson , to give their reactions to the implementation of the Report almost three years after it came into force. PRIESTS WORRIED? According to Father philip scalan, parish priest of St. Mary’s, a Catholic parish in Loughborough, a town of some 50,000 inhabitants in the Midlands, “there’s a concern among priests that, in response to a false accusation, the very rapid procedure that then comes into operation – sometimes as little as 24/48 hours after the charge – and that involves the suspension of the priest from his ministry, does not leave sufficient time for a preliminary investigation of the accusations and the circumstances surrounding them. We would like there to be more time to investigate the causes. And many priests I have spoken to are worried by the fact that, in the case of a false accusation against them, they would be removed from their parish and that their reputation and name would be gravely tarnished”. “The protection of children must come first and the Nolan Report is the best solution, so far, to the problem of abuses”, continues Father Philip, “but our concern is that this system, however valid it is, leaves the door open to false accusations”. It could, according to the parish priest, be exploited by the “culture of compensation” by now widespread in Great Britain too, “There are unscrupulous people who see in a false accusation an easy way of making money. It’s enough to lodge an accusation and vehemently support it to have some probability of winning the case and taking home a tidy sum in compensation”. Father Philip admits that, after the entry into force of the Nolan Report, it has become a little more difficult to exercise his ministry: “today I would think twice before going into the playground of the school next door to meet children, and if a child comes to confession in the parish house there’s always the fear of a false accusation. It’s not the best situation in which to exercise the ministry, which at times requires private moments in which someone wanting to confess may freely confide”. Protection for children and for priests. Less worried on this score is john creedon, responsible for the protection of children in the diocese of Nottingham. “I believe in the system introduced by the Nolan Report”, explains Creedon, “It’s important that the accusation be checked out by the police and by the social services, because the Church for years failed to understand what sexual abuse was all about and tried to cover up the investigations, concealing the accusations and shifting priests from one parish to another”. Creedon, however, agrees that the Church ought to concern itself with restoring the reputation of a falsely accused priest and reinstating him in the community. “Nonetheless I doubt that the probabilities of a priest being accused without cause have increased following the Nolan Report”, he continues, “On the contrary, I think the new system provides guarantees for priests as well as for children”. Also in the view of oliver wilson, spokesman of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, “an accusation must be verified and proved”. “The fact that a priest has been suspended is not proof of his guilt. If the accusation is revealed as unfounded, the priest will return to exercise his ministry”. According to Wilson, it’s improbable that anyone would accuse a priest for pecuniary reasons. “The money that would be obtained with a false accusation is not much”, he says. “In the USA and Canada there’s been an enormous number of lawsuits for financial compensation which have placed in crisis the finances of the Catholic Church, but it cannot be said that the same has happened here”.