Cardinal Desmond Connell has denied that his top administrator tried to protect the priest who abused Marie Collins.
However, the Cardinal has admitted that Monsignor Alex Stenson was wrong in 1996 when he decided that admissions by Fr Paul McGennis about his abuse were confidential to the church and that they should have been given to Gardaí. Marie Collins has accused the church of shielding Fr McGennis from a garda inquiry.
Earlier today a senior official in the Dublin Archdiocese has told Marie Collins that much good has been achieved as a result of her efforts. Ms Collins has been highlighting deficiencies in the way that complaints about child sexual abuse were sometimes handled by the Archdiocese.
Ms Collins told RTE News that she received an e-mail from Fr Patrick Gleeson, the Assistant Delegate on child abuse at Archbishop's House, last night.
Fr Gleeson said in the e-mail that he had heard that the promised statement on her case from Cardinal Connell was on the way and that he hoped it would be helpful.
It has emerged that a letter from Cardinal Connell on child sex abuse is to be read at all Masses in the diocese this evening and tomorrow. In the letter, the Cardinal said that it must be acknowledged that victims of clerical child sex abuse have too often had to speak up in the face of quite inadequate responses on the part of the Church.
