Patsy McGary, Dublin, Aug 2, 2018<\/p>\n
Pope \u2018needs to commit to doing something to stop this cancer,\u2019 says Marie Collins<\/em><\/p>\n On his visit to Ireland<\/a> Pope Francis<\/a> must \u201csay what he is going to do about abuse in the Church,\u201d abuse survivor Marie Collins<\/a> has said.<\/p>\n A former member of the Vatican\u2019s Commission for the Protection of Minors, she added that the Pope \u201cneeds to commit to doing something to stop this cancer in the church.\u201d<\/p>\n She resigned from the Vatican\u2019s Commission for the Protection of Minors in March 2017 after \u201cthree difficult years\u201d due to \u201cthe attitude of a small number in the Vatican\u2019s curia\u201d who had been \u201cresistant to the work of the commission.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms Collins was abused by Fr Paul McGennis, then a chaplain at Our Lady\u2019s Hospital for Sick Children in Dublin, where she had been a patient as a child in 1960.<\/p>\n Speaking on RTE Radio 1\u2019s Today with Miriam O\u2019Callaghan<\/em> programme on Thursday morning, she said she believed Pope Francis should meet representaives of abuse survivors who had been in industrial schools, Magdalene laundries, mother and baby homes in Ireland at the end of this month \u201cin recognition of those horrors.\u201d<\/p>\n She also said Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, when speaking on Wednesday, indicated there was Vatican<\/a> resistance to this.<\/p>\n Rome\u2019s view that it would go away \u201cif we don\u2019t talk about the issue or that there is no attention given to it,\u201d was, she said, \u201cdelusional.\u201d<\/p>\n The Vatican \u201cthinks like King Canute<\/a>. Ignore it and it will go away,\u201d she said. But they were \u201cnot going to make it go away.\u201d<\/p>\n Pope Francis \u201cmust tell us what he\u2019s going to do this issue,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The Church in Ireland \u201chas been devastated by abuse\u201d and if the church decides to airbrush that, it was \u201c a sign of its irrelevance.\u201d<\/p>\n She recalled how the Commission for the Protection of Minors was frustrated in its work by the Vatican\u2019s Congrebation for the Doctrine of the Faith.<\/p>\n In June 2015 the Commission announced an accountability tribunal to deal with negligent bishops, cardinals, and church leaders who had not protected children.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was appro ved by Pope Francis but blocked by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Then in June 2016 Pope Francis followed that up with the apostolic letter A Loving Mother<\/em> which addressed the same issue but it did not seem to have any effect either.<\/p>\n There were, she said, \u201cno proper penal repercussions\u201d for cardinals or bishops who failed in protecting children. She gave as an example that of former Archbishop of Adelaide Philip Wilson<\/a> in Australia<\/a> whose resignation was accepted by Pope Francis this week.<\/p>\n Last month Archbishop Wilson was sentenced to 12 months in prison for not disclosing child abuse by a priest to police.<\/p>\n Where the Vatican was concerned \u201che was not removed\u201d but was \u201cpersuaded to resign,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She also expressed concern that a session of child safeguarding at the World Meeting of Families in the RDS on Friday August 24 th would focus on child protection in the home rather than in the church. As for herself, if asked, she \u201cwould meet the Pope\u201d when he visits Ireland.<\/p>\n \u201cI would speak quite frankly to him about what is needed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n