Is there a creeping denial coming into play now, a view that it would be an injustice for some bishops to resign? It appears that the Pope may not accept the two remaining bishops' resignations that are on his desk, namely those of Bishops Eamonn Walsh and Bishop Ray Field. Archbishop Martin's office is said to not know what the outcome will be which is quite an extraordinary admission.
Meanwhile Bishop Drennan has refused to step down claiming that it would be an injustice. Bishop Noel Treanor and Baroness Nuala O'Loan last weekend backed this stance, in the case of Mrs O'Loan saying that there was no 'collective responsibility' under the archbishop of Dublin as he was in charge. However, Bishop Jim Moriarty has signalled that his resignation will be accepted.
So what is going on? First of all, if a bishop of a diocese knowingly covered up abuse, he has to go, and that principle should be accepted by all; the buck stops with him.
Authority
In the case of auxiliaries it is a little more complicated. They were not the ultimate authority in the diocese, in this case Dublin, the Archbishop of Dublin is 'the culture' and as it is accepted that there was a 'culture of cover-up' it therefore stands that the Archbishop presided over this culture.
Archbishop Connell presided over this culture though he did try to tackle the issue of clerical abuse later into his tenure. The auxiliary bishops were like senior managers, and to say that they had no responsibility at all is misleading - ask any priest!
For his time as an auxiliary, Bishop Jim Moriarty said he didn't do enough to challenge the culture presided over by the Archbishop and on that basis resigned. In contrast to that, Bishop Eamonn Walsh said he knew nothing about abuse and did nothing wrong, and though he eventually resigned after a meeting with Archbishop Martin, he made no mention of his reasoning for doing so. Both men were auxiliary bishops before the 1996 Framework Document, the first serious effort by the Irish bishops to deal with child sexual abuse allegations. Both Bishop Drennan and Bishop Field were appointed auxiliaries a year after the Guidelines were introduced. It would seem somewhat arguable that they were part of a diocese that had moved, or at least was moving away from the culture of cover-up although victims dispute this period as some sort of 'watershed'.
Truth
What Bishop Jim Moriarty did was essentially step aside because his Archbishop, now Cardinal Desmond Connell is retired, and someone had to step forward and honour the truth that there was a cover-up. He did that. Bishop Eamonn Walsh did not do that. Why did Bishop Eamonn Walsh not challenge the culture of cover-up? He was a contemporary of Bishop Moriarty and served under Archbishop McNamara as a secretary. Even if there is a case that says there was no collective responsibilty, surely someone as learned and intelligent as Bishop Walsh knows the difference between right and wrong.
If an auxiliary absolves himself of that responsibility, that moral truth, then we are back to all the 'mental reservation' type mindset that got us into this mess. The Pope must accept Bishop Eamonn Walsh's resignation for these reasons, granted that he is a bishop who is widely recognised to have performed very well in the Diocese of Ferns. Indeed he is a very talented man but this is not about personalities. Bishop Drennan and Bishop Field may have a case to stay, but there is no case for Bishop Walsh and Bishop Moriarty for staying, and the Pope should act on that before his letter and not leave it until after Easter.
Before I read through the whole Murphy Report, I looked up all the references to Bishop Walsh – simply because he is my local bishop – and in all honesty the idea that he would have to resign based on anything in the Report did not even enter my head. And that wasn’t because I had my head in the sand or that I didn’t understand the enormity of what is in the Report. As I remember it, calls for Bishop Walsh’s resignation began only after there had been widespread use in the Media and then in public discussion of “mentioned in the Report” as meaning “criticised in the Report”. Debate and comment included little or no discussion of the very different roles played by different bishops. Part of the issue is that most of the Church leaders responsible for the very poor handling of these cases are either dead or already retired. The notion of collective responsibility never seemed to me to make much sense – it should only apply where each individual in the ‘collective’ has some degree of personal responsibility for the wrongs. Which brings us back to the personal responsibility of Bishop Walsh. He did not mis-handle any case of child abuse. He did not fail to act when acting would have stopped further abuse.
Bishop Moriarty resigned because he felt he had not challenged the prevailing culture. Bishop Eamonn is on record from 1990, the year he was ordained bishop, as advocating mandatory reporting of child abuse – challenging the prevailing culture? Mandatory reporting was certainly not a popular or widely accepted concept at that time. In 1999 Bishop Walsh was appointed Chair of the Irish Bishops Committee on Child Protection. The work of this committee under his chairmanship included the setting up of the National Child Protection Office in 2001 and the commissioning of a College of Surgeons research study on clerical sexual abuse. He was appointed Apostolic Administrator of Ferns in 2002: one would imagine his appointment was not arbitrary, but reflected among other things a recognition of his advocacy in the area of child protection.
The diocese of Ferns was, quite frankly, a mess when he arrived there. His work there in dealing with the scandals of child abuse were widely praised, and the systems he set up went beyond what was in place anywhere in Ireland and perhaps in the world and have now been accepted as the model for best practise in this area. Hence the honest acknowledgement of this by Colm O’Gorman. This to me is a picture of a man who was to the forefront in making sure the Church – and in fact the whole of our society – fully understood the nature of child sexual abuse, and did everything he could to ensure that children were safe and that policies were in place to ensure that.