If a bishop, priest or deacon is convicted of a criminal offence against children and is sentenced to serve a term of imprisonment of 12 months or more, then it would normally be right to initiate the process of laicisation. Failure to do so would need to be justified. Initiation of the process of laicisation may also be appropriate in other circumstances.
(Nolan, 2001, 3.5.32, p44).

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Thursday, May 12, 2016

Questions asked of the Diocese of Salford regarding the case of Canon Mortimer Stanley


Press release - 12 May 2016

The group Concerned About Abuse in the Diocese of Salford (https://www.facebook.com/concernedaboutabuseinthecatholicdioceseofsalford/?ref=bookmarks ) is asking several questions of the Diocese of Salford and its bishop following the first day of the trial of Canon Mortimer Stanley, former parish priest of St Vincent’s, Rochdale (http://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/102921/retired-priest-father-mortimer-stanley-accused-of-sexually-abusing-children-over-four-decades).
Spokesperson, Dr Philip Gilligan said,
"In December 2013 when the media first reported that Canon Stanley was being questioned under police caution, Salford Diocese gave a statement which said: “The Diocese is co-operating fully with the police and the statutory agencies in these investigations in line with the robust safeguarding policies put in place by the Catholic Church in this country in recent years.” (http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/rochdale-catholic-priest-canon-mortimer-6381949). The “robust safeguarding policies” referred to were presumably those recommended by the Nolan Report twelve years earlier and accepted in full by Bishop Terence Brain of Salford and all the other Roman Catholic Bishops in England and Wales in November 2001.
But what the statement from the Diocese of Salford in 2013 did not report was what actions it had taken during the preceding eleven years that followed Canon Stanley’s ‘retirement’ as a parish priest in the Diocese of Salford. This has,however, become a very pertinent question now that we know that the jury at Manchester's Minshull Street Court was told on Wednesday (11 May 2016) that Canon Stanley had “retired in 2002 and returned to Ireland shortly after the mother of one of the female complainants informed teaching staff that he had inappropriately kissed her daughter” (See:http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/god-like-priest-who-playground-7941853).

We need to know from the Diocese of Salford and from Bishop John Arnold, in particular: Who in the diocese was told about the information given to the teaching staff at St Vincent’s? What action was taken? Was the matter ever discussed with the Diocesan Child Protection Co-ordinator or the Diocesan Child Protection Adviser or by the Diocesan Child Protection Commission, established at the beginning of 2002? Was the information shared with the police and other statutory agencies in 2002?

Could the matters now before the court have been dealt with more than a decade ago, if someone in the Diocese of Salford had acted differently and in accordance with the recommendations that Bishop Brain pledged to implement when he accepted them in November 2001?"

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

From 10 May 2016, posts are also available at https://www.facebook.com/concernedaboutabuseinthecatholicdioceseofsalford/