Church abuse victim insists Dr Drennan must resign

Date Published: {J}

Claims by the Catholic Church that it has reformed or learned lessons in the wake of the Murphy Report will be seen as “very hollow” unless the Bishop of Galway resigns from his post, according to clerical abuse victim Andrew Madden.

He said that the refusal of Bishop Martin Drennan to step down was highly disrespectful to abuse victims and was continuing to inflict further damage to the reputation of the Church.

The comments will place added pressure on the embattled bishop to cede to calls for his resignation before he travels to the Vatican next month for a meeting with Pope Benedict to discuss “the very serious situation that prevails in the Irish Church”.

Dr Drennan is the only one of the five auxiliary bishops named in the report not to have tendered his resignation following the call of the Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin for all current and former auxiliary bishops to be accountable for their actions on child protection issues.

Mr Madden told the Sentinel that Bishop Drennan had still not acknowledged a request for a meeting that he sent to him by e-mail on December 17.

“I think that is indicative of the same level of arrogance that he has displayed all along,” said Mr Madden. “He obviously feels that he owes no responsibility to clerical abuse survivors and he seems to think that the right people to ask whether he should resign are other priests, who are showing a similar level of arrogance and bad judgment in supporting him.”

Bishop Drennan has maintained that he was not fully informed of cases involving allegations of child abuse against priests during his eight years in the archdiocese and that former Archbishop Desmond Connell made all major decisions.

However, Mr Madden rejected the idea that this exonerated the Galway bishop.

“That is not the point,” he asserted. “He joined the diocese at a time when there was a culture of cover-up and he failed to challenge that culture. He asked no questions, stayed quiet and was content to ‘enjoy his time as a bishop’, as I think he put it.

“When he joined the archdiocese in 1997 it had already been criticised over the handling of allegations against Ivan Payne, who had been moved on after I made a complaint in 1981,” he continued. “Bishop Drennan could have asked ‘How many times has this happened?’”

Mr Madden said there was added impetus after 1998 when Ivan Payne was convicted of clerical child abuse. “Drennan could then have asked ‘How many Ivan Paynes do we have in the archdiocese?’ but he didn’t. If he claims to have known nothing, then it is because he decided not to ask.”

He said Bishop Drennan was continuing to inflict damage on the Catholic Church by continuing in office and said that “Any claim by the Church that is somehow different or that they have begun to listen or that they have changed their behaviour will be made very hollow unless he is removed or resigns.”