What the Scoping Inquiry really means

Or how the Roman Catholic Church remains untouchable

 It’s tempting to think that government is no longer in thrall to the Roman Catholic church, but this group of celibate men – for the most part, anyway – and the groups in which they congregate, are untouchable. The Scoping Inquiry has told us nothing that was not known – from church reports, no less -  before it was established, and simply added some deeply personal testimonies of grotesque clerical behaviour. This process has now given birth to a statutory inquiry.

My first reaction to the news – which just shows how naïf and trusting I am – was to think: Well, at last the religious orders will be compelled to give evidence and to disclose documents, to reveal what they have been hiding for decades.

Many people, I know, felt the same. At last we were getting somewhere. But no. An advance coat of whitewash was being applied.

Now consider this, on page 167 of the Scoping Inquiry’s report:

“The Scoping Inquiry’s Terms of Reference required us to engage with the religious orders regarding the likely level and extent of their co-operation with a future inquiry. The great majority of the religious orders have indicated that they are, in principle, willing to engage and cooperate with a future inquiry, with the majority saying that they would appear before such an inquiry and provide documents if requested to do so.”

Consider, especially the words “how likely” and “if requested”.

So much for compelling!

The report continues: “the great majority of orders did not respond to the more specific queries raised by the Scoping Inquiry as to what issues they might be willing to concede, on the basis that they could not respond until they see the terms of reference of a future inquiry. In particular, the religious orders in respect of which there are a significant number of allegations did not respond to these questions for that reason.”

What the following excerpt from the report actually means is that the statutory inquiry will request the co-operation of the religious orders. It will not demand and require such co-operation:

“The attitude of the religious orders against which there are large numbers of allegations is particularly important to any future inquiry. The religious orders are entitled to rely on their legal and procedural rights before a commission. However, the extent to which they may do so, and the extent to which issues are contested, will be relevant to the likely duration of the commission’s work, and to the experience of survivors before such an inquiry, having regard to the need for oral evidence and cross-examination. It is therefore clear that further engagement with the religious orders is advised after the Terms of Reference are fixed by the Government.”

I read, in The Journal, ““Government sources were emphatic last night that all relevant religious institutions will be requested to contribute to any redress scheme for survivors.”

Yes, you read that correctly. The Orders are definitely going to be emphatically “asked” to contribute.

Not sued. Asked.

Let’s be quite clear. If you or I concealed a crime, and were convicted of doing so, we would be guilty of a criminal offence. The religious orders concealed thousands of crimes for decades and continue to do so. No religious superior who failed to disclose allegations of child sexual abuse in the full knowledge of what he was doing – and I know the names of several – has ever been prosecuted.

If there is to be any justice in the proposed process – apart from much needed redress – the terms of reference and the powers of the statutory inquiry will have to be such that it can get to the truth despite the best efforts of the religious orders to conceal it.

Is that too much to ask? I suspect that, even in the Ireland of today, it is.

One person, who knows this territory intimately, told me: “After a two decade hiatus during which they were overtaken and in disarray from the revelations of the Ryan and Murphy reports, the clergy have regrouped and are almost untouchable once again. Denial is impossible nowadays, so they simply go with the flow and dare anyone to sue. Watch out for slander cases being brought by the church in the future.”

And priest-ridden Ireland is supposed to be dead and buried?