ROME — In one of his most concrete actions since a sexual abuse scandal began sweeping the Roman Catholic Church in Europe, Pope Benedict XVI on Monday appointed a high-profile team of prelates, including the archbishop of New York, to investigate Irish dioceses and seminaries.
The pope had announced that he would open the investigation in a strong letter to Irish Catholics in March. In the letter he expressed “shame and remorse” for “sinful and criminal” acts committed by members of the clergy, following two scathing Irish government reports documenting widespread abuse in church-run schools and the Dublin archdiocese.
Although the pope has spoken out against abuse in recent weeks and accepted the resignation of five Irish bishops for their failure to address child sexual abuse, Monday’s announcement seemed aimed at showing that the Vatican is committed to combating the crisis with actions as well as words. The pope’s March letter had been criticized by some as calling more for spiritual renewal than offering direct action against abusers and the bishops on whose watch abuse happened.
Also on Monday, the pope accepted the resignation of Richard Burke, an Irish-born archbishop in Benin City, Nigeria, who had been suspended after he acknowledged having a 20-year relationship with a woman. In a statement, the bishop apologized and denied accusations of child abuse. He said the sexual relationship began when the woman was 21. The woman has said it began when she was 14.
In its announcement, the Vatican said the investigation, called an Apostolic Visitation, would begin this fall with the examination of four dioceses: Dublin, Armagh, Cashel and Emly, and Tuam, as well as seminaries and religious orders. It will then be extended to other dioceses.
For the visitation, the pope appointed some leading Anglophone bishops. He appointed Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, a former archbishop of Westminster, to investigate the Archdiocese of Armagh, which is the seat of the All-Ireland primate Cardinal Sean Brady.
Cardinal Brady said last month that he would remain in his position, despite calls for his resignation, because of his involvement in secret meetings with abuse victims in a notorious case in 1975.
The archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, will investigate the Archdiocese of Dublin, and the archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, a former rector of the North American College in Rome, will oversee an investigation into Irish seminaries, including the Pontifical Irish College in Rome. Ireland’s seminaries, like those in many countries, have experienced a significant decrease in enrollments.
The other two are Archbishop Thomas Christopher Collins of Toronto, who will oversee investigation into the Diocese of Cashel and Emly, and Ottawa’s archbishop, the Rev. Terrence Thomas Prendergast, who will be responsible for Tuam.
Religious orders will be investigated by two priests and two nuns, including an American, Sister Sharon Holland, who was the first woman to direct a Vatican office before she retired in 2008.
Some American victims groups criticized the appointments of Cardinal O’Malley and Archbishop Dolan because of their mixed records on handling abuse cases within their own dioceses.
Terrence McKiernan, founder and president of BishopAccountability.org, which tracks church records on abuse cases, said an apostolic visitation was by its nature a secretive approach that recapitulated the fundamental problem underlying the sex abuse crisis. “To employ a secretive process to solve a problem caused by secrecy,” he said, “seems to us problematic.”
But Garry O’Sullivan, the editor of The Irish Catholic, Ireland’s leading Catholic weekly newspaper, said the visitation appeared to be more significant than he expected. “Rome means business,” he said, adding: “Two cardinals and three archbishops is a sign of intent. It is a high-powered group and the scope appears to have widened.”
Maeve Lewis, the director of One In Four, an Irish organization that provides counseling and advocacy for victims of sexual violence, said she welcomed the visitation but was unclear why it would examine the Diocese of Dublin, which was extensively examined by the Irish government for a report last year.
“It would help to know what the purpose of the visitation is,” Ms. Lewis said. “Is it about the renewal of faith or is it about sexual abuse?”
In its statement, the Vatican said the inquiry would “explore more deeply questions concerning the handling of cases of abuse and the assistance owed to the victims; they will monitor the effectiveness of and seek possible improvements to the current procedures for preventing abuse.”
The goal of the visitation, it said, was “to contribute to the desired spiritual and moral renewal” by the Church in Ireland.
