The British royal family should think hard on four words that doomed the Irish Catholic hierarchy: “I have compensated nobody.” It was May 1995 and my old philosophy teacher, Archbishop Desmond Connell, was lying through his teeth on the Six One News.
He told RTÉ’s religious affairs correspondent Joe Little that “I have paid out nothing whatever in compensation”. He insisted the finances of his Dublin diocese “are not used in any way” to make settlements in civil actions taken by victims of clerical child abuse.
This was news to Andrew Madden, who had been preyed on as a child by Ivan Payne, a priest Connell had promoted and protected. In 1993, Connell had given £30,000 from diocesan funds to settle out of court a case taken by Madden.
When Madden confronted Connell with his lies, the archbishop told him that he had used the word “are” advisedly: “By using the present tense, he had not excluded the
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