This article is from page 4 of the 2009-01-20 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 4 JPG
es terday, the National Director of One in Four, Maeve Lewis, said that even the bishops who acted responsibly
should be stripped of all discretion- ary power. She was speaking follow- ing a statement from Cardinal Séan Brady, which said that the Bishop of Cloyne, John Magee, should not re- sign as he had learned his lesson.
‘I think that the recent position ex- pressed by the vast majority of the bishops would show that they sim- ply don’t understand the dynamics of sexual violence and the degree to which the offender can manipulate the situation,” she said.
“They simply do not have the ex- pertise to be the judge for these types
of situations and this power should now be taken away from them. ‘When you have a bishop who re- ally understands all of the nuances in relation to child sexual abuse then the protocol will be implemented not only to the letter of the law but also to the spirit of the law. But this is clearly not the situation so we are now call- ing for the power of discretion to be taken away from all bishops.” Despite calling for his discretionary powers to be taken away, the One in Four director praised Bishop Walsh for his commitment to child protec-
tion. “Our experience would be that Bishop Willie Walsh is very commit- ted to child protection and has man- aged cases in the diocese very well in the past,’ she continued.
“We would commend him for this and would also recognise that the Bishop was one of the few to call for Bishop John Magee to consider his position over the situation in Cloyne.
“But we also believe that the bish- ops in the main have not aligned themselves with the thinking of the priests and people who they repre- sent.”