How effective is the Pope's Apology?

Pope Francis

The head of the Catholic Church has issued an apology for clerical sex abuses against children.
Speaking to members of the International Catholic Child Bureau (BICE) at the Vatican in April, Pope Francis said: “I feel called to take responsibility for all the evil some priests – large in number, but not in proportion to the total – have committed and to ask forgiveness for the damage they’ve done with the sexual abuse of children."

The history of sexually abusive priests would make any safeguarding board cringe. Somehow, the way in which the church cloaks any mention of child abuse in religious language clouds the real point, and enshrouds it in mist and dogma. Often the victim is prayed for as though he needs absolution rather than an apology from the abusive priest.

I have been dealing with abuse cases for nearly 20 years. The scandals of abuse by American Priests came to the surface first. As the scandal swept America, we heard that the then Pope announced that abuse was an American problem, and that it did not extend to Italy or the Holy See. How wrong he was.

The worldwide publicity prompted victims to have the courage to come forward, and make disclosures about the past with the result that the numbers of priests exposed has risen exponentially to thousands.

There then arose the scandal of the Vatican edict prohibiting the Catholic hierarchy from reporting abusive priests, written in Latin, and designed to keep it undercover. The thrust was forgiveness of sins, and the movement of an abusive priest, after he had "promised" not to do it again or even approach children, from one parish to another. The crime was not reported to the police, with the result, in many cases, that the Priest then broke his promise and carried on abusing again. After all, how can someone addicted to child abuse resist their primeval urges? The famous English priest Father Hill comes to mind.

So how genuine is Pope Francis apology? Well he seems humble enough, having come from working class beginnings in Argentina. He has refused to live in the luxurious papal surroundings or use a limousine, rather choosing a simple Ford Focus, and standard garb to wear. So the signs are good. However:-

• In January the Vatican was forced to admit that it does not force priests to report child sex crimes to authorities
• 400 priests were defrocked in the years 2011 and 2012.And what of these criminal defrocked individuals, you might ask? Well, we don't know. They remain free and at liberty to abuse again. Their identities are unknown, as are their whereabouts, and the nature of their crimes. Of them we know not much. Pope Francis has done nothing to help arm authorities with information they would need to apprehend these criminals.
• On 1 July, the United Nation's Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) sent a request to the pope for "detailed information on all cases of child sexual abuse committed by members of the clergy, brothers, or nunnery" from the past fifteen years, and set 1 November as a deadline for a reply. Missing the deadline, on 4 December, Pope Francis responded saying it was not the way his government practised to "disclose information on specific cases unless requested to do so by another country as part of legal proceedings" and "that the Vatican can provide information only about known and alleged child sex crimes that have happened on Vatican property." 
• There are many other examples in the Huffington Post blog from whence this blog is partially derive.

When one has to deal with the Catholic Church in litigation it is a whole different ball game. They fight hard and long, in the hope that the victim or his lawyers will give up before the case ends. They take technical points to throw a smoke screen over the real point - abuse of a child. Richard Scorer in his book "Betrayed" devotes a whole chapter to the subject - a recommended good read:-

•  In a Group Action my firm QualitySolicitors Abney Garsden were running against a Catholic Society which used to be known as Liverpool Catholic Social Services, the Group started in 1997 and did not conclude until 2012 - 15 years of litigation funded principally and conducted by their insurers. In that period of time they tried to strike the case out on three occasions using the time delay argument - or rather these cases are too old to go to trial. This avoids having to challenge the victims on whether the abuse took place even though there were numerous convicted abusers at the two children's homes in question - St. Vincent's in Formby and St. Aidan's in Widnes.
• At another home run by the same organisation - St. George's in Southport, the Merseyside Police told me that they received 122 complaints against 96 alleged abusers - it is worth saying that the culprits were not priests but civilian care workers.
• In the St. Williams Group Litigation run by my good friend David Greenwood, the Catholic Organisation defending the Group - the De la Salle Brothers - argued that because of their constitution one could not simply issue proceedings against them but rather the victims had to choose which of several trustees and governing bodies were responsible over a period of years. Hours of wasted time and cost was spent tracing and naming up to 150 Defendants - a tactical argument that collapsed eventually.
• The church often uses that old chestnut - a priest is not an employee of the Church but rather a man with a calling to God who devotes his life to his parish. He is answerable to his community and not the church, and therefore, of vital importance legally, the Church are not legally responsible for his actions. That argument has been tried and taken to the House of Lords unsuccessfully and at great costs by Church Lawyers several times

So am I encouraged by this new apology - cynically no - not until the Church stops defending civil litigation with a fury and gets round the table to not only mediate properly but also comes up with some proper cash to compensate the victims and pay their lawyers properly. There have been many attempts to force the Church to do this, and it all goes well with many beatitudes of holy meaning until the subject of compensation and an admission of guilt comes up, then the lawyers intervene, or rather their insurers and close the whole thing down.

The Stop Church Child Abuse campaign is pushing for a public enquiry. Will we we see it happen? Will we ****.................

 

Will Irish Magdalene Laundries Victims get the justice they deserve as compensation scheme is announced?

Magdalene Laundry at New Ross

The new controversial Magdalene Laundries compensation scheme was announced by the Irish Government last week for all the badly treated women at the hands of the religious congregations which ran them for many years.

The sequence of events which led to the announcement is the pinnacle of many years of hard campaigning by the Magdalene women for justice they dearly deserve.

Thousands of women and girls were forced into unpaid labour at the Catholic-run workhouses that operated for decades in the Republic of Ireland.

Last February saw the publication of the 1,000-page McAleese Report. It found that approximately 10,000 women and girls had been put into the laundries between the founding of the State and 1996 when the last one closed. The Irish government were implicated, and embarrassed by the findings.

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny in a tearful address apologised in parliament for the "national shame" of the laundries after a report found that a quarter of the women were sent there by the Irish state.

The Irish government has agreed to pay between 35m and 58m euros (£30m to £50m) in redress to about 600 women. Out of respect for the needs and feelings of the victims one would have thought that the government would want medical evidence, and would assess the harm that was caused, in the usual way that compensation schemes work. So the more damage that was caused, the larger the figure awarded.

Not so with the Irish scheme. Mr Justice Quirke has recommended that the women in question should all receive cash payments in the range €11,500 (if their duration of stay was three months or less) to €100,000 (duration of stay of 10 years or more).

Judge Quirke’s other recommendations include:

• The Magdalene women should all be granted access without charge to a wide range of services (GP, hospital, drugs, dental counselling etc.) i.e. an enhanced medical card;
• All Magdalene women who have reached pensionable age should have an income equivalent to the State contributory pension;
• All Magdalene women who have not reached pensionable age should have an income from the State of €100 per week;
• The cash payments should be exempt from income and other taxes and should not be taken into account for the purposes of means testing social welfare or other entitlements and should not affect funding under sections 38 and 39 of the Health Act 2004;
• The creation of a dedicated unit to provide advice and support, assistance in meeting with the religious congregations, social opportunities to meet other such women and to provide for the creation and maintenance of a memorial park;
• The extension of the Nursing Homes Support Scheme Act 2009 so that persons are appointed to look after on an individual basis the best interests of Magdalene women;
• Any previous payments made to these women under the Residential Redress Scheme should not be taken into account

So the scheme has been made somewhat two dimensional and simplistic. Why? Somewhat naively to make it possible to avoid victims having to use lawyers to help them with their applications. The point is that if the victims were badly educated, then they will need help with the forms, and correspondence. They are also likely to be damaged by their experiences, and will want to avoid dealing with the details repeatedly. The same applies to people who do their own probate after a near relative has died. This serves as a constant reminder of the grief that is ever present.

The Irish Redress Scheme which is now closed encouraged lawyers to be involved and paid their fees for so doing. It recognised that due to a lack of education, literacy etc. the victims would need help. The Magalene Laundries should have been included in the Redress Scheme. If this mistake had not been made, then the victims would have been entitled to instruct a lawyer without charge.

What the motive is behind the Irish Government's determination to exclude lawyers this time, I don't know. It is an easy jibe to say that as a lawyer I would say that wouldn't I? I have been acting for the victims of abuse for nearly 20 years. I know how they struggle emotionally, and how much help they need. The process is painful in itself. They need the assistance of someone to support their emotional and legal needs.

What reaction has the scheme received from the survivors? Mixed. Some are welcoming it, and others angry that it isn't enough. Ex-resident Maureen Sullivan, from Magdalene Survivors Together, said her campaign group had "rejected the deal".She said the amount of money she personally would be entitled to through the redress scheme had not been worked out yet, but it was "not very much".

Abuse carries with it life long scars. It is wrong to award money based upon how long the women were in the laundries. One has to assess the medical effects on each person. It is not unusual of someone to sustain massive damage from one incident if they are particularly fragile, whereas others who suffer serious abuse can react in a particularly robust way. This crude method also disrespects the feelings of the victims, and does not treat them as individuals.

It is sad that a motive to save money has been cloaked in a dig at lawyers - nothing new there however. I have looked at the Irish Redress Board figures. Far from "much of the money" being spent on lawyers as reported by RTE News, the figures I saw for 2010 and 2011 showed that legal fees were  between 20 and 25% of the compensation awarded.

We will see what develops, as the figures have not been finalised yet. It is said that as many as 600 women have been sent letters. Let us hope that whether or not they seek help, they get the justice they truly deserve.