Ireland, Germany

Ireland: once more under chocThe Irish Church is once more at the centre of the paedophilia scandal. The publication of a new Investigation Report, the third after those released in 2009, refers of numerous hidden cases of abuse in the diocese of Cloyne, in the Countee of Cork, in the period 1996-2009. The Cloyne Report, that was released by the Minister of Justice Alan Shatter and by the Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald, has caused a sensation across Irish and British media. Allegations were made against bishop John Magee who had previously stepped down from his post. The 400-page Report highlights the handling of allegations made and the failure to report the abuses to the police. The Irish Episcopate immediately released a statement to this regard. First of all cardinal Sean Brady, in a press release said it is a “black day in the history of responses from Church leaders to the cry of children abused by Church personnel”. “The results of this report confirm that serious misconceptions have been committed and that there were serious shortages of leadership – he said. This is deplorable and unacceptable”. The Primate of Ireland pointed out that the Church provides professional support and the recently established Towards Healing service is available to assist survivors. Indeed, the Irish Church is firmly committed in addressing the paedophile scandal. The first phase of the apostolic visitation announced by the Holy Father in the Pastoral Letter to the Catholics of Ireland has just closed and by the beginning of 2012 the Holy See will release a Review containing the results and the perspectives emerged in the Visit. The Irish Bishops welcomed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s new guidelines in cases of sexual abuse released on May 16. The Irish Church has established an independent and high quality regulatory agency – the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church – which supports dioceses, religious congregations and missionary societies in monitoring the implementation of international best practice in safeguarding children and reporting allegations. The Cloyne Report opens a painful wound. Archbishop Dermot Clifford once again conveyed his apologies to all who suffered and their families for the fact that the Diocese of Cloyne “failed to implement the procedures set out in the Church protocols for dealing with allegations of child sexual abuse in the period concerned”. For Msgr. Noel Treanor, bishop of Down and Connor, “the Report reminds us again of the need to remain vigilant and self critical to ensure that there can be no recurrence of these past disgraceful failing. The first duty of the Church now is to listen to the cry of survivors and help them to cope with the continuing pain with which they have been burdened by the sins of clergy”.Germany: “study” projects on the phenomenonRetracing the truth, understanding how it could have been possible, and most of all, preventing it in the most effective manner. These are the objectives of the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK) that has decided to promote two new research projects on abuses committed in ecclesial institutions. The proposal was officially presented on July 13, during a press conference, by Msgr. Stephan Ackermann, DBK responsible for the handling of abuse cases. In the projects are involved also criminologist Christian Pfeiffer and the director of the Forensic Psychiatry Institute from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Norbert Leygraf. The Institute for Criminology of Niedersachsen will conduct the first project, coordinated by criminologist Pfeiffer. The objectives of the survey are the collection of numerical data, the processing of the abuse by the victims, the analysis of the abuse by the perpetrators of the crime, the analysis of the behaviour adopted by the Catholic Church vis a vis perpetrators and victims of abuse, along with the assessment of the existing prevention concept. The authors of the project will examine abuse cases in the period 1945-2010 across 9 dioceses and in the period 2000-2010 in further 18 dioceses. The second project, titled “Sexual assault by religious in the German Catholic Church – evaluation of psychiatric and psychological reports”, is conducted by psychiatrist Norbert Leygraf. It is aimed at obtaining a full picture of the personalities of the culprits, collecting biographic data, along with information on the situation and the modalities of the sexual abuse, as well as the personal features of the victims. “From the results will be identified the predictive factors regarding the risk of sexual abuse, in order to identify targeted prevention measures”, we were told. Msgr. Stephan Ackermann confirmed: “For the bishops it’s not enough to endorse what we learned from the victims’ reports. We also want the truth that could still be concealed in the proceedings of the past decades”. It is a question of “producing formal statistics and of studying the causes with the help of independent experts to best understand how it has been possible that members of the Church have perpetrated horrific sexual abuses”. “We will do our utmost”, he ensured, “to prevent sexual abuse in the most effective way”, so that children, young people and their parents “may live the Church as a positive and safe environment”.