http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,581828,00.html

Sacked: the archbishop
judged unfit for office

Leader of Catholics in Wales forced out by
Pope after child sex scandal

Stephen Bates, religious affairs
correspondent Saturday October 27, 2001 The Guardian

The Pope yesterday took the extraordinary step of
ordering the retirement of Archbishop John
Aloysius Ward, the most senior member of the
Roman Catholic Church in Wales, in the wake of a
paedophile scandal which has rocked his diocese to
its foundations.

The 72-year-old archbishop, who had been under
severe criticism from clergy and congregations
following the convictions of two priests for child
sexual abuse offences, was forced to resign despite
making clear his determination to stay in office.
He had been accused of repeatedly ignoring
warnings about the two priests' conduct.

Archbishop Ward's conduct has been a severe
embarrassment to the Catholic church, which has
been convulsed by a series of clergy sex abuse
scandals and the jailing of 28 priests in the past
five years.

Last month it adopted strict guidelines proposed
by an independent committee headed by the high
court judge Lord Nolan, intended to prevent
similar abuses occurring again. These include
checking police records on any candidates for jobs
in the church, the appointment of counsellors in
each parish, and annual reports on action taken
about allegations in each diocese.

The archbishop's resignation was accepted under
the church's canon law article 401.2 which states
that a diocesan bishop can be "earnestly
requested" to resign because of illness or because
he has become "unsuited for the fulfilment of his
office".

His resignation took immediate effect and, far
from several months' delay in naming his
successor as is usual with the Vatican, the Rt Rev
Peter Smith, bishop of East Anglia, was in Cardiff
yesterday, already chosen to succeed him.

The archbishop, who has been on sick leave since
last November, had given several interviews to
regional newspapers and the Catholic press in
which he insisted he would be staying until he
reached the retirement age of 75 in 2004.

In a bitter statement Archbishop Ward said: "I am
weary of an environment characterised by a lack
of loyalty. I have been shocked and deeply hurt by
those sections of the media and members of the
Catholic church who did their utmost to attack
me... they were and are poor servants of justice
and truth.

"Not only must I ask forgiveness of anyone I have
hurt during my 18 years as Archbishop of
Cardiff, I also forgive those who have been the
cause of scandal to so many."

The archbishop had a half-hour meeting with
Pope John Paul II at the Vatican a week ago. At a
meeting the following day the pope and Cardinal
Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, head of the church in
England and Wales, discussed the matter.

Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor was himself
embroiled in controversy a year ago, shortly
after his appointment to the archdiocese of
Westminster, when he admitted moving a priest
who had been the subject of complaints in his
Brighton diocese during the 1980s. He appointed
him a chaplain at Gatwick airport, where the man
later committed sexual offences for which he was
jailed.

Archbishop Ward said in his statement that the
Pope had listened carefully to what he had had to
say, and he insisted he had not been forced to
resign. He added: "At the end of my audience I came
to the conclusion that my present good health
could quickly return to incapacity. Consequently I
offered my resignation to Pope John Paul II and I
immediately felt at peace."

The archbishop had though repeatedly spurned
private suggestions, including a written request
from Archbishop Pablo Puente, the papal nuncio
in Britain, that he should retire gracefully under
the pretext of ill health.

As early as last December it was suggested that he
should go, and a meeting of priests in the diocese
in the spring recorded a consensus that he should
resign.

Yet earlier this month he told the Western Mail:
"I will stay because to do otherwise would have
meant the wrong people would have claimed
victory."

The crisis in the diocese was prompted by the
jailings of Father John Lloyd, the archbishop's
press officer, and then of Father Joe Jordan, who
the archbishop had ordained in 1998 despite
warnings from a fellow bishop that the man was
an unsuitable candidate.

Lloyd was jailed for eight years in 1998 for
paedophile offences. Jordan, who assaulted
children while supposedly taking them for soccer
training, was jailed for eight years a year ago for
indecently assaulting two nine-year-olds.