Sorting church/state relations

The opening of church/state dialogue is itself indicative of a changed relationship between the church and the state in Ireland. Previously the idea of an "opening" of contacts between church and state would have been tautologous, for what passed for dialogue was a continuum. Indeed dialogue hardly captures what was essentially a one way process.

The dialogue which is now to commence takes place against a background of shocking revelations of abuse by the Catholic church of children and of the special position it enjoyed for so long in Irish society. As the Ferns report and other revelations have disclosed, the Catholic church – that is the "official" church – covered up thousands of criminal acts by Catholic priests that did grave and lasting damage to thousands of children.

Bishops, knowing of the criminal acts of priests and knowing of the grave harm being done to young boys and girls, not alone did not report this criminality to the civil authorities but continued to allow these priests access to children and to continue their abuse.

The fact there has been no criminal investigation into the conduct of bishops and others into these prima facie criminal acts in aiding and abetting – or at least being accessory to criminal acts – is deplorable and evidence of a continuing deference on the part of the institutions of the State to the Catholic church. Not just that but evidence of a continuing dereliction on the part of the state with regard to its duty to care for the welfare of children.

There was in common law a crime known as misprision of felony, which arose where a person, knowing of the felonious acts of another, failed to bring such felonies to the attention of the authorities. This crime was abolished under a 1997 act but the question arises why were bishops not even questioned about possible misprisions of felony prior to 1997, when there was clear-cut evidence they knew of criminal acts of priests and failed to inform the police? This arises clearly in cases involving Bishop Brendan Cummiskey and Cardinal Desmond Connell. Brendan Cummiskey clearly knew of the criminal conduct of priests of his diocese but did nothing. In the case of Desmond Connell, he clearly knew of the criminal acts of Fr Payne and failed to inform the authorities.

Why should they have been immune from the criminal-justice system?

So one thing that should be made quite clear in the early stage of dialogue between the churches and the state is that officials of the churches will be subject to the rigours of the criminal law in the same way as everyone else is subject.

The indemnity deal done with the government in June 2002 should also be an issue for dialogue. There is evidence that when that deal was done some of the religious orders had reason to know that the scale of the abuse perpetrated by their members was far greater than then suspected generally and that, consequently, the level of damages that victims might claim would be far greater than estimated at the time.

This suggests an element of bad faith on the part of some of the orders in the conduct of the negotiations with the state over the indemnity deal. That deal was done on the understanding that the level of damages was likely to be no more than a total of around €300m. The level of damages is now certain to be well over €1bn. The religious orders have got away with paying something in the order of €70m.

It is outrageous that the public should have to fund damages of almost €1bn for actions perpetrated by members of these religious orders. Certainly the state was culpable in failing to police what was going on in institutions to which it had sent young children but the state's culpability was negligible as compared with that of the religious orders.

There are other matters. For instance the control of primary schools, owned and funded by the state. What conceivable justification is there for any church involvement, let alone control, of such schools? Certainly it might be appropriate for individual priests to be involved in management boards because of a special expertise they might have or because the parents of the children in such schools might want priests to be involved. But the automatic entitlement of priests, or rather bishops, to be controllers of such schools is an absurdity.

Ditto hospitals which are funded almost entirely by the state but controlled by the church. Why? All the more so since the church exercises its "authority" in a manner damaging to the interests of patients.

Let the dialogue begin.

Vincent Browne