Mags GarganDear Editor, Well done to Marie Collins (IC, July 24) for calling out the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) for their denial about the Murphy Report.
There is a worrying tendency in certain (mostly clerical) circles in the Church to engage in a process of trying to unpick the comprehensive reports that have shone light on the darkness at the heart of the institutional Church in Ireland, where the reputation of abuser-priests was put ahead of the rights of children to live lives free from abuse. The ACP believes that some of the abusers and those who covered-up abuse were denied due process. As far as I am aware, anyone appearing before the Murphy Commission was perfectly free to have been accompanied by their lawyer if that was his or her wish. Similarly, anyone who had a difficulty with the fairness adopted by the Commission had the right to challenge those procedures by way of a judicial review in the High Court. Sadly, the hierarchs in the ACP seem unwilling to face the need for transparency and honesty in the Church. Shame on them!
Yours etc.,
Mary O’Donnell,
Belfast,
Co. Antrim.