In 1975, no State or Church guidelines existed in the Republic of Ireland to assist those responding to an allegation of abuse against a minor. No training was given to priests, teachers, police officers or others who worked regularly with children about how to respond appropriately should such allegations be made.
Today, Church policy in Ireland is to report allegations of abuse to the civil authorities. It recognises the Gardai and H.S.E. as those with responsibility for investigating such allegations and that any Church investigation should not take place until the investigation by the civil authorities has been completed.
I hope that everyone who believes that the right to life is fundamental will make their voice heard in a reasonable, but forthright, way to their representatives, reminding them that the right to life is conferred on human beings not by the powerful ones of this world but by the Creator.
Unprecedented financial pressures, and an ever-increasingly aggressive public culture, along with social, moral and spiritual fragmentation, are leading to lives being overwhelmed by stress, intolerable interior isolation and even quiet despair.
The inviolability of the seal of confession is so fundamental to the very nature of the sacrament that any proposal which undermines that inviolability is a challenge to the rights of every Catholic to freedom of religion and conscience.
The only people who had authority within the Church to stop Brendan Smyth from having contact with children were his Abbot in the Monastery in Kilnacrott and his Religious Superiors in the Norbertine Order.
We live in a twilight sort of world where, unfortunately, the perception of the seriousness of abortion - has grown progressively obscured in the minds of many of our contemporaries.
There is always tension between the possibilities we aspire to and our wounded memories and past mistakes.
With others, I feel betrayed that those who had the authority in the Church to stop Brendan Smyth failed to act on the evidence I gave them. However, I also accept that I was part of an unhelpful culture of deference and silence in society and the Church, which thankfully is now a thing of the past.
