The former Archbishop of Dublin, Cardinal Desmond Connell, died on 20 February aged 90 after a long illness.
Prior to his surprise appointment as Archbishop of Dublin in 1988, he lectured in metaphysics at University College Dublin.
His later years in office, until he was succeeded by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin in 2004, were dogged by the fall out of the clerical abuse scandals that culminated in the Murphy Report of 2009. That report accused him of having been slow to recognise the seriousness of the situation.
He was made cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 2001 and a year later RTE screened its Prime Time documentary, ‘Cardinal Secrets’, which led to the setting up of the Murphy inquiry.
The programme revealed how the then Archbishop Connell had covered up the defrocking of two priests the Church had concluded had been involved in sexual abuse.
It claimed the Church had failed to give information about these priests to the police and a “clean” reference had been issued for a priest alleged to have sexually abused of children.
From 1988, Cardinal Connell continued to insure the archdiocese of Dublin against liability from the victims of clerical abuse. He arranged for compensation payments to be made from a ‘Stewardship Trust’ that was kept secret until 2003.
Marie Collins, who was abused by a Dublin priest and now serves on the Vatican’s Commission for the Protection of Minors, said that in the 1990s when she was dealing with Cardinal Connell, he was “very much locked into canon law and defending the Church” and she believed he had little or no understanding of the suffering he caused victims.
At a press conference in Maynooth in April 2002, Cardinal Connell said the paedophilia scandals were “the issue that has devastated my period of office”. He went on to describe paedophiles as “devious” and willing to “lie through their teeth”.
A doctrinal conservative, Cardinal Connell shocked the newly installed President Mary McAleese in December 1997 when he criticised her taking of Communion at a service in Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin and suggested that intercommunion for a Catholic was “a sham”.
Personally shy, he was liked by students and colleagues in UCD. Within Dublin there was a recognition that his lack of pastoral experience contributed to his awkwardness and lack of sensitivity at times.
Paying tribute to him, his former press officer, Fr Damian McNeice, described him as a “Victorian gentleman” whose “gentlemanliness will not be forgotten”.
PICTURE: Irish Cardinal Desmond Connell, retired archbishop of Dublin, right, with Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.
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