Catholic group warns: Let Church fall rather than pay abuse cash

By Conor Kane and Colette Browne


Thursday March 04 2010

A GROUP set up to support Catholic religious orders urged parishioners to refuse to help with compensation payments to abuse victims.

On Monday, the Bishop of Ferns Denis Brennan asked that his 100,000 parishioners contribute to the diocese's massive legal and compensation bills.

The Let Our Voices Emerge (LOVE) organisation yesterday said it would prefer the downfall of the Catholic Church.

The group's call came as Bishop Brennan said he did not want to "burden" the Vatican with a request for financial help, while singer Sinead O'Connor predicted the Catholic Church would not survive the 21st century.

LOVE spokesperson Florence Horsman Hogan said yesterday that the church would not manage without selling some of its assets: "If people want the church to survive in its present state, they need to contribute to ensure survival. If people don't want the church to survive in its present state -- don't."

She said she had spoken to members of religious orders as well as abuse survivors who felt in the past that the Catholic church was being unfairly targeted by people with agendas.

"They now state that it would be preferable to see the downfall of the church as it stands, and the rebuilding of a more humble and truthful entity."

LOVE was established by former industrial school pupils to support religious orders who were being slammed because of abuse allegations. However, the group spoke out against institutional child abuse and withdrew its support for the orders in the wake of the publication of the Ryan report last year and yesterday repeated its call for atonement.

"We have seen brave people -- nuns, priests and brothers -- give selflessly to care for us in the industrial schools. But we've also collectively seen a corruption that must be atoned for," Ms Horsman Hogan said.

In a letter published in today's Irish Independent, singer Sinead O'Connor speaks about her astonishment at Bishop Brennan's request to his flock to pay bills arising from the horrific sex abuse in his diocese.

The outspoken singer says the Vatican has always put its business interests before the interests of children.

Ms O'Connor says that: "If Christ was here he would be burning down the Vatican. And I for one would be helping him."

Bishop Brennan has ruled out a request to the Vatican for financial help for the abuse victims' compensation fund. "I am not familiar with the finances of the Vatican," he said.

"I do not want to burden others," he added. "This is our responsibility and we would like to discharge our responsibilities ourselves."

Speaking yesterday on local radio, Dr Brennan said it was up to the parishes to decide if they wanted to sell an asset or donate funds and denied he had made a specific request for additional donations. "We have not ruled anything in or out. We need to get people's reactions. We are trying to be as transparent as possible," he said.

- Conor Kane and Colette Browne

Irish Independent

Thursday March 04 2010

PLEASE allow me to express my astonishment upon reading the statement made on the evening of March 1 by the Bishop of Ferns, Denis Brennan.

His statement attempts to dictate to us -- in the same way the Inquisition did -- how Christians should behave. It says directly that it would be anti-Christian of us to feel that the church should pay its own bills for its own abuse with its own billions that it throttled from our grandparents, whom it also abused, physically, emotionally, psychologically and sexually.

Evidence of sexual abuse by clergy, according to the Murphy report, can be traced as far back as 320 AD and the first treatment centres for paedophile priests were created in 1940, named Servants of the Paraclete.

These centres were opened all over the world.

I would like to know exactly whose idea this latest plan was and from where were issued the instructions or permission for Bishop Brennan to make such a statement.

The statement and its attempted manipulation of good Catholic people could be described as unbelievable and stupid.

But in my opinion, the only word that does it justice is 'evil'.

How long do they expect us to restrain ourselves? We have put up with this bull dung for hundreds of years.

A true Christian is someone who, in any given situation, is supposed to ask themselves what would Jesus do, then try to do that.

How an organisation which has acted, decade after decade, only to protect its business interests above the interests of children can feel it has the right to dictate to us what Christians should do is beyond belief.

From the Pope on down, through the Vatican and therefore through the lower echelons, the whole organisation, in my belief, is utterly anti-Christian and evil, as proven by centuries of torture, bloodshed, burnings, terrorism, and coverings-up of "the worst crime" known to man.

And if Jesus Christ is to be seen in the vulnerable of this world, then all the church has done is crucify the man over and over and over again.

If Christ was here, he would be burning down the Vatican. And I for one would be helping him.

Sinead O'Connor
BRAY, CO WICKLOW


Irish Independent