Cathal BarryCEO of the Church’s safeguarding watchdog has painted an “improving picture” of child protection procedures within the Catholic Church.
The chief executive of the Church’s safeguarding watchdog has painted an “improving picture” of child protection procedures within the Catholic Church.
Teresa Devlin, CEO of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland, said that the timeframes for reporting allegations against priests and religious to the civil authorities has “improved considerably” since the introduction of new standards and guidelines.
She warned, however, that support for complainants “continues to be inconsistent.
“Contact in many instances was not made directly by the congregation and the opportunity for pastoral support was missed.
“This, however, is an improving picture and the reviewers highlighted instances of compassionate meaningful responses to survivors,” she said.
Ms Devlin was speaking after the publication of 18 reviews of safeguarding practice across five male religious congregations and 13 female religious congregations.
Eight of these are standard reviews measuring safeguarding practice against the seven established standards that the Catholic Church has agreed to meet.
Full
review
The congregations fully reviewed included the Vincentian Fathers, the Redemptorists, Sisters of St Louis, Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, the Pallottines, St Joseph’s Missionary Society (Mill Hill), The Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers) and the Presentation Sisters.
However, because ten of the congregations are so small and have very limited contact with children, also due to the advanced age of their members and the fact that they face no allegations of sexual abuse in Ireland, these were assessed against a revised framework.
The report noted that the ten congregations demonstrated a strong sense of commitment to working positively with the National Board, in spite of their limited ministries.
The ten congregations referred to were the sisters of the Notre Dame des Missions, the Medical Missionaries of Mary, the Franciscan Missionary Sisters for Africa, the Faithful Companions of Jesus, the Missionary Sisters of St Columban, the Adoration Sisters, the Ursulines of Jesus, the Sisters of Charity of Jesus & Mary, the Sisters of Marie Reparatrice, and the Daughters of the Heart of Mary.