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| Sunday Independent 31st March |
Censored
section in Murphy sex abuse report set to be published
SUNDAY INDEPENDENT - RUAIDHRI
GIBLIN – 31
MARCH 2013
A censored chapter in Judge Yvonne
Murphy's report into the handling of clerical child sex abuse allegations by
the Catholic Church and State is finally set for full publication.
Chapter 20 has remained censored on
foot of a High Court direction that its full publication could damage the trial
of a defrocked priest charged with the sexual assault of children in the 1970s
and 80s.
Former priest Patrick McCabe was
sentenced last week by the Circuit Criminal Court after having pleaded guilty
to indecently assaulting two 13-year-old boys.
Although sentenced by Judge Margaret
Heneghan to two concurrent 18-month jail terms, he walked free from the court
because he had already been in custody for longer than the sentences handed
down.
As a result of his trial, there is
now no further need for the blanked-out chapter to remain secret.
McCabe was extradited from California
in June 2011 and had been in custody for 21 months awaiting sentence. His
identity could not be revealed last year when he pleaded guilty to indecently
assaulting five other boys.
The handling of complaints made
against McCabe was the subject of chapter 20 in the Commission of Inquiry into
the Dublin diocese, chaired by Judge Yvonne Murphy and known as the Murphy
Report.
The inquiry was set up by Government
to investigate how church and State handled clerical child sex abuse
allegations in the Dublin diocese between 1975 and 2004.
The report examined the handling of
complaints made against a representative sample of 46 priests, though
complaints had been levelled against more than 100. The report was published in
2009.
Chapter 19, also censored for similar
legal reasons, was not published until the sentencing in 2010 of Tony Walsh,
"probably the most notorious" abuser, according to the report.
Among the 50 pages of chapter 20,
many of which were published blank, it was stated that the McCabe case
"encapsulates everything that was wrong" with the Dublin diocese's
handling of child sexual abuse cases.
According to the report, Archbishop
Ryan not only knew about the complaints against McCabe but had "protected
him to an extraordinary extent. . . It seems that the welfare of children
simply did not play any part in his decisions", it stated.
Judge Murphy went on to state that
"connivance by the gardai in effectively stifling one complaint and
failing to investigate another, and in allowing [McCabe] to leave the country
was shocking".
Following McCabe's sentencing, one of
his victims, James Moran, waived his right to anonymity.
He said on Wednesday that he was
alarmed to discover it could be months before the remainder of the Murphy
Report was published.
Mr Moran said the legal reasons for
withholding parts of chapter 20 no longer existed, and he had written to
Minister for Justice Alan Shatter asking him for the date of release.
No further victims of McCabe are due
to come before the courts, so there are no implications for the Murphy Report,
Mr Moran said.
"Surely the time to release it
is now, so the Irish people and the wider world will discover the truth, even
if unpalatable," he said.
In a victim impact statement
submitted to the court, Mr Moran said his voice was being heard after a long
and painful journey.
"I have waited nearly 37 years
for acknowledgment and justice," he said, adding that he often thought of
all the victims who had been too afraid or too ashamed to come forward and
expose the contamination within the church.
McCabe had changed the path of his life for ever,
and while he may never be able to forgive completely, he wanted to begin some
kind of healing process, he said.
