CATHOLIC CHURCH IN IRELAND AND IT'S NEGATIVE EFFECT ON THE MARCH OF "CIVILIZATION"
The legacy of the Pope and DeValera

Bishop built wall of silence against howls of abused children

PAEDOS PROSPER IN SICK IRELAND
Cardinal is accused of abuse files cover-up
Collection made for paedophile priest when he gets out of jail
Pope Alexander VI...A lovely little man...God bless him!

IF YOUR CHILD IS SEXUALLY ABUSED IN OUR NATIONAL SCHOOLS...DON'T COME TO THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AS 'IT'S NOTHING TO DO WITH US'. IN FACT, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE!
'And if you do take us to court, we'll sell your house!'
The Clergy knew. The Department of Education knew. And local people knew.
See Prime Time Television Program
Seven YEARS into the 21st century and we're stll a nation of morons...

Convicted paedophile selling paintings of Christ and the Virgin Mary while living in Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow.

26 'Priests' abusing children for years in the parish of Ferns and the criminals in the Vatican didn't know!!!
And now the 'head criminal' comes out and says he's sorry as if he only found out yesterday.
Gullibility is stretched to the limit to think that there are vast numbers of 'low comprehension thresholds' still supporting this putrefaction and does anyone, other than the most seriously intellectually challenged, believe that Ferns is an isolated case?

Paedophile priest living 100 yards from Phibsborough primary school... More

How Ireland exported criminal priests to the USA where they embezzled $8.6m from naive parishoners... More

Lay church members asked for help as priests disappear...March 2007...
(Does this mean that we are not all going to go the heaven now?)
WHOLE parishes will be left without a single resident priest in 10 years' time, a senior bishop warned yesterday.
The Bishop of Killaloe, Dr Willie Walsh, revealed that half of the 109 priests in the diocese are currently over the age of 65. One-third are aged 75 or over.
More...Irish Independent

Appeal Court sends sex abuse priest to prison...March 2007...
A FORMER spiritual director of Gormanston College, who sexually abused four pupils 30 years ago "with almost catastrophic consequences", has been jailed for 2½ years.
The Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday upheld arguments by the DPP that Fr Ronald Bennett should have received a custodial sentence for the "extremely serious" offences and not the suspended sentence handed down last July.
More...Irish Independent

Suspended sentence for priest who molested two boys...
A priest who has previous convictions for sex assault has been given a three-year suspended sentence for molesting two boys in 1979.
Patrick Maguire (60) of St Columban's Dalgan Park, Navan, Co Meath pleaded guilty to indecent assault at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
More...Irish Independent

Bishop knew about abuse claim in foreign diocese for 14 years...
(These people never seem to run out of ways to make goms of themselves.)
THE ELDERLY priest at the centre of this story has never been charged and the child-abuse allegation against him has never been proven.
He was - and still is - highly respected by all who knew him in the diocese of Elphin, which takes in parts of Roscommon, Sligo, Westmeath and Galway.
But for more than 14 years he was able to train children's sports teams, visit the local national school and celebrate Mass in the local church when other priests were away.
His suitability for working with children was never tested.
More...Irish Independent

Priest who abused boy to confront new claims by ex-pupil
(Is the foot in the other boot?...Lord help them, for they know not what they do!)
FRESH claims of indecent assault have been made against a former principal of a boys' primary school who received a jail sentence last year.
Con Desmond, a Catholic priest, was given a three-year suspended sentence on December 20 for indecently assaulting a young boy in Waterford in the early 1980s.
Gardai in Waterford are now investigating the allegations against the priest made by another former pupil following his sentencing last month.
More...Irish Independent

Vatican embraces Wilde as 'dazzling' Catholic icon
(One minute everything these guys say is 'gospel truth', the next minute they have changed everything around to suit the occasion.)
OSCAR WILDE, poet, playwright, gay icon and deathbed convert to Catholicism, has been paid a rare tribute by the Vatican.
His aphorisms are quoted in a collection of maxims and witticisms for Christians that has been published by one of the Pope's closest aides.
More...Irish Independent

Bishop defends his dealings with paedophile priest
(These gobshites just don't know when to throw the shovel over the hedge. )
BISHOP Willie Walsh has defended his dealings with a Co Clare priest who three weeks ago was found guilty of child sexual abuse.
"I had no grounds for suspicion in 1995 when I first had a discussion with the priest," Bishop Walsh told the Irish Independent last night.
"I have learned along the way from the whole difficulty of dealing with child sexual abuse. But I believe I have always acted on the principle that the safety of children is paramount."
More...Irish Independent

Casey left in limbo over continuing abuse probe
(This boy was strutting around years ago as if HE had all the answers and the rest of us were intellectually thick. A henhouse couldn't be opened unless he was in attendence.)
AN investigation by the Vatican into allegations of sexual abuse against Bishop Eamonn Casey is ongoing, even though the Director of Public Prosecutions decided there should be no criminal prosecution in the case.
More...Irish Independent

Abuser priest 'brazenly' asks to buy bright children's paper
(It appears that this guy is wanted in the States...Wonder what he's doing walking about free here? Is he trying to create a new 'parable'?)

NOTORIOUS paedophile ex-priest Oliver O'Grady walked into a Dublin shop to buy coloured paper "like a child would have".
The convicted sex offender, who is believed to have abused 23 young people including a nine-month-old infant, admitted he was the shamed former cleric in a "very open, almost brazen" manner when asked by the Phibsborough shopkeeper.
The shopkeeper, called Aidan, told RTE's 'Liveline' programme yesterday that he refused to serve the 60-year-old Limerick-born paedophile and found him to be a "bit strange".
More...Irish Independent

Priest abuser wore female underwear
(Relegion...Is it a magnate for lunatics?)
AN IRISH paedophile cleric who celebrated Mass and abused his victims while wearing women's underwear regularly took the female lead roles in theatrical productions at his seminary college.
The revelation came in documents, lodged in a court in California last week, which aim to make an Irish archdiocese financially liable for abuse committed overseas.
More...Irish Independent

Priest must pay 10,000 to woman he 'harassed'

A PRIEST who was at the centre of a angry funeral stand-off in Belleek, Co Fermanagh, two years ago, has to pay almost 10,000 to a teacher who alleged that he had harassed her.
Fr Ben Hughes, who is currently working as a chaplain the University of Ulster in Jordanstown, was accused of harassing Brigid Gormley at St Davog's Primary School, Belleek, where he was formerly a curate as well as chairman of the board of management.
More...Irish Independent

Bishops fascinated by teen sex
(Divorced from reality as usual! Teenagers have sex all the time. It beats praying 'hands down'.)
THE Catholic bishops have lashed out at the growing levels of teen sex, drink and violence.
Such behaviour is contributing to Irish societys "downward descent into moral chaos", according to the Irish Conference of Bishops.
In an appeal for a return to traditional values, the bishops also hit out at politicians and opinion-makers for not taking a moral stand against growing sexual permissiveness and disrespect for human life.
More...Irish Independent

Christian Brothers still holding back the truth on child abuse and money
(The real tragedy here is that these perverts are still out there moralising to the masses and nobody seems even a little bit embarressed...Is the world full of eegits?)
They date from 2000, in the early days of the State's attempts to investigate abuse, a great deal of it believed to have taken place in Christian Brother institutions. Investigation so far has been disappointingly anodyne. We seem further from the truth than ever.
There is a soft centre to the inquiry. It is directed in public at Brothers and other witnesses from the Orders, while the abused are confined to private sessions or one-to-one hearings.
There is the fact that witnesses on behalf of the religious are answering most of the questions secondhand, at a remove from the appalling revelations that continue to emerge.
More...Irish Independent

Bishop's return angers families of abuse victims
(These morons don't know when to call it a day.)

GOD

THE first public appearance of Brendan Comiskey in Wexford since he stepped down as Bishop of Ferns has angered locals.
The bishop, who is believed to be living in Dublin, quietly returned to attend a gathering of serving and active clergy at the weekend.
His appearance came just days after it was revealed that the diocese is facing a 10m compensation bill to victims of clerical sex abuse.
More...Irish Independent

Diocese borrows 700,000 to pay for sex abuse
Bishop's house goes up as loan security
(These guys, who consider women to be second-class, have yet to be brought to book for their greatest crime of all...peddling junk to impressionable morons and telling them that they should be grateful to god for the privilege of being so. And telling them that the more they suffered while working their butts of for peanuts in their efforts to make their employers and the church's patrons wealthy the more they could expect to get into heaven where they would sing Gloria Hallelujah forever...FRAUD AT IT'S BEST!)
A CATHOLIC diocese has been forced to borrow hundreds of thousands of euro to compensate victims of clerical sex abuse.
The Diocese of Ferns in Co Wexford is expected to pay up to 10m in settlements to those abused by priests over a number of past decades.
At the annual meeting of its Finance Committee this week, it was revealed 4.7m has bee paid out in 29 cases settled.
More...Irish Independent

'Conspiracy to hide IRA bomber priest set to rock Church'
(The IRA and the Catholic Church...Come on...Let's get out of here!)
One of the key figures who provided much of the moral grounding for the Provisional IRA campaign, who is still alive and cannot be named for legal reasons, played a significant role in the indoctrination process used on recruits. All new recruits in Belfast attended lectures by the priest, many unaware that he was a member of the clergy.
A former IRA man from west Belfast who attended one of these lectures said the lectures were designed to instill the belief that any action they might be asked to carry out - up to and including murder - was justified in Catholic teaching as they were fighting an enemy occupying their country. The youths were told it was not a sin to kill in defence of one's country.
(Where did I hear this type of 'galootism' before?)
More...Sunday Independent

Business as usual at the old boys' club
(It's amazing that in this day and age, there are still millions who support and believe in the 'Great Con'.)
No women. No laity. No priests. No nuns. No migrants. No victims of sexual abuse. When the Pope wants to know what is going on in Irish Catholicism he goes right to the top. For many Irish Catholics, that is like the owner of the Titanic asking its captain for advice on navigating icebergs.
More...Sunday Independent

Orphans died because nuns didn't want them seen in nightgowns
THIRTY-five orphans who perished in a blaze in Cavan more than 60 years ago were locked into their dormitories as the fire raged because nuns didn't want them seen in their nightgowns.
More...Sunday Independent

Pope: my anguish and horror over Ferns abuse
The Vatican and the Pope have yet again failed to address the institutional failure which extended from diocesan level all the way to the Vatican, and which permitted the sexual abuse of countless children.
More...Irish Independent

Pontiff's act of contrition provides little succour for the many victims of abuse
Its grim findings catapulted the small rural diocese, which covers Co Wexford and part of Co Wicklow, to the top of the Church's infamy league. It also accelerated the collapse in the credibility and moral authority not just of the Catholic Church, but also of its doctrinal masters in the Vatican.
More...Irish Independent

Brothers of bestiality still in denial
It's the sort of thing that makes one understand why so many people think that the Brothers were and are a bunch of thugs, uneducated, brutal, sadistic and incapable of teaching children.
More...Sunday Independent

MORE CHILD ABUSE REVELATIONS
Irish Indo 17/02/06:

Abuse probe 'worse than expected'
John Cooney Religious Affairs Specialist
THE Government-appointed Commission of Investigation into allegations of child sexual abuse by priests in the Dublin Archdiocese will be even bigger and its contents more shocking than expected.
Several new complaints of child sexual abuse have been made against already well-known paedophile priests in Dublin since the publication of the Ferns Report last October, the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, has revealed to the Irish Independent. Dr Martin told this newspaper he was determined there would be no more cover-ups.
He had ordered an extensive trawl nearly two years ago of the Dublin archdiocese's own massive archives in Drumcondra.
This search by two independent assessors has found a number of previously missing files that contain further allegations of molestation of children. While bound by confidentiality not to name those involved, Dr Martin indicated the complaints were against a number of priests whose names were already in the public domain as serious offenders.
The high-profile names of convicted or dead paedophile priests include the notorious marriage annulment advisor, Ivan Payne, now laicised, Crumlin hospital chaplain, Fr Paul McGennis, the defrocked Fr Tony Walsh and the late Fr Noel Reynolds. The complaints are understood to relate to alleged incidents prior to 1990, mainly during the period when Cardinal Desmond Connell was Archbishop of Dublin, but also going into the reigns of his dead predecessors, Kevin McNamara, Dermot Ryan and stretching as far back as the time of Archbishop John Charles McQuaid.
The discovery of the new cases has shown that these paedophile priests had more serial pederast tendencies than was previously recorded. In total, the Garda has examined complaints against between 60 and 70 priests. Over 5.5m has been paid by the archdiocese in compensation.
Yhe start of the investigation of the four-member Commission under Circuit Court Judge Yvonne Murphy has been stalled for almost three months because of a Government row over the amount of money to be allocated. It is thought this relates to disagreement on the issue between the justice and finance ministers.
When the Commission's terms of reference were announced by the Government last November, it was allocated a budget of 5.7m. Meanwhile, the Commission has begun preliminary work in the probe. It was to report within 18 months and examine a representative sample of complaints against priests from January 1, 1975, to May 1, 2004.
It will also look at how Church authorities and State agencies dealt with complaints.
Cardinal Connell will be called to give evidence to the Commission, which will question him on his handling of complaints when he was archbishop from 1998 until his retirement nearly two years ago.
Archbishop Martin has pledged full co-operation.
It was under Cardinal Connell's stewardship of the country's biggest archdiocese that some of the most appalling cases of priest child-rapes became known.
Last night, in response to the Irish Independent's request for more details about the new files, the Dublin diocese press office:
"The Archdiocese of Dublin has received a number of new allegations of child protection concerns as a result of the ongoing audit of personnel files (of clergy) in the diocese, and following the publication of the Ferns Report.
"The audit, commissioned by Archbishop Martin, following his appointment to Dublin, has involved an extensive trawl of several thousand files in the diocese. That process, carried out by independent assessors, is nearing completion. It has resulted in a number of questions being raised which have required further investigation.
"When this process is completed in the near future, the diocese will, as it has on a regular basis over the past 12 months, give a statement on the information currently available.
"The Archdiocese and its Child Protection Service would again appeal to anyone who has been abused by a priest to come forward to the diocese, the statutory authorities or to any other organisation with whom they feel comfortable speaking to."

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SHADOW ON SEX EDUCATION

The below articles are all from the Sunday and Irish Independent from 23/10/05 and concern the fall-out from a report on child and other clerical abuse in Ferns, Co. Wexford.

Religion and politics cast a shadow on sex education

SR CARMEL warned that looking at, or touching our bodies in the bath was a sin that we would all go to hell for and she told us to hide our sanitary towels in our slippers. This is Ann-Marie's, 27, abiding memory of a sex-education class less than 15 years ago.
Ann-Marie, like many children today, attended a convent school. She recalls with some humour how this strict nun met with the wrath of her father when Ann-Marie refused to bathe for a week.
Ireland has a long and prestigious tradition in education, dating back to the middle ages when it held the position as one of the principal education providers to the western world. Today, we have one of the highest participation rates internationally and proudly retain our reputation for excellence.
The benefits of an Irish education are appreciated even more so by the Irish living abroad. A young, successful Irish couple living and working in Australia recently told me that they would be returning to Ireland because they wanted their children to have the best education possible. Despite this high standard of education, there is "a fatal flaw" according to a Dublin primary-school principal. The teacher, who has been a principal for over 15 years said that sex education in Ireland was still very "patchy" and that "teachers in Ireland are still reluctant to call a penis a penis".
The subject of sex education has recently been thrown into the spotlight as the British Government is put under pressure to review its entire sex-education policy. Advice given by the Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Health and Teenage Pregnancy in the UK recommends sex-related education for children as young as five years old under controversial new plans.
The advisory group reported that the current system for sex lessons, which are mostly optional, is unfair, confused, damaging to pupils' health and development and partly responsible for Britain having the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Western Europe.
Labour peer Joyce Gould, who chaired the inquiry, said that the government should make Personal, Social and Health Education a statutory part of the national curriculum in order to tackle the high number of teenage girls becoming pregnant, the rising levels of sexually-transmitted infections and widespread ignorance among young people about sex.
Gould denied the group's proposals would encourage promiscuity.
"Some people will say that if you don't tell them about it, they won't do it. But real life shows that's not the case. More and more young people are having sex at a younger age," she said.
In Ireland, following ongoing debate since 1986 in relation to the introduction of sex education in schools, an interim programme was issued to schools in 1996. In the current curriculum, Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) is part of the wider Social Personal and Health Education (SPHE) programme. The RSE programme aims to equip children with information about sexuality and relationships that will "help them think and act in a moral, caring and responsible way".
Strand one, 'Myself', the 'Growing and Changing' element of the programme includes making children aware of the physical changes that occur in puberty and giving them an understanding of human reproduction. Unlike the UK, in Ireland SPHE is mandatory at primary and post-primary junior-cycle level since Autumn 2003. It is not yet mandatory at senior-cycle level, though RSE is 'required' at this level.
The slow roll-out of the RSE programme nationwide has come under fierce scrutiny. Recent reports claim that four out of every ten secondary schools have failed to fully implement the programme. The primary school principal said that he was facing real difficulty getting his teachers to teach RSE to the young boys at his school, "Many of them haven't got the proper in-service [training] and feel awkward about teaching it, especially with young boys".
The principal - whose school has over 500 primary school boys - said most of them go without RSE and said "Accord [the Catholic marriage support agency] come in to do a day of sex education but only once a year isn't the way to learn - it should be continual within the curriculum". Teachers have been faced with a mandatory subject that has no mandatory curriculum. It seems, for many teachers little has changed since RSE was first introduced. A survey conducted at that time showed that 73 per cent of teachers felt uncomfortable teaching children about sexuality.
I spoke to Frances Shearer coordinator of the RSE programme in Ireland. Asked if she was satisfied with the implementation of the programme she said "I'm reasonably happy but there's a lot of work to be done". She said it was expected that the implementation in schools would be a gradual process. This was also the case in other countries, she pointed out, "Ireland is not unique in experiencing obstacles along the way".
Deirdre Sullivan, Training and Development Officer at the Parents' Council said that most parents do want RSE to be taught to their children and that the programme encourages direct involvement from parents. When RSE was first introduced there was overwhelming support with 93 per cent of parents backing the initiative. Some parents have opted to take their children out of the classes for religious reasons or because they dislike the language being used. According to Deirdre most parents want to see further development of the programme.
"All I remember of sex education or Civics as it was called was a really scary abortion video and a priest who came in to do a talk," said Michelle, a teacher who has taught in Ireland and the UK. At present Michelle is teaching at a co-ed school in London and says sex education has come a long way in 10 years. Michelle's most recent RSE class for 12-13 year olds involved showing students how to put a condom on a phallic-shaped object. She also spoke about female condoms, STIs and unwanted pregnancy.
Michelle agrees with plans in the UK to introduce sex education to younger children but says that "both Ireland and the UK need to have a more defined curriculum". There is no official textbook for the teaching of sex education in the UK or in Ireland and teachers are left to their own devices to design appropriate lessons depending on their own schools ethos.
One father whose twin daughters, 11, go to a convent school felt that the sex-education programme was conservative rather than progressive. He felt that government were "pussy-footing" around the subject of sexuality rather than just implementing a more definitive programme. The Catholic church, he said has swept sex education under the carpet for too long. The recent row between Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, Tanaiste Mary Harney and PD Deputy Liz O'Donnell over the involvement of the Catholic Church in the primary education system has caused Irish parents to question the role of the church in education.
In this modern, ethnically-diverse and multi-religious society, parents expect a modern sex-education programme for their children. The fact that most primary schools are under the managerial control of one church is no longer desirable for many parents.
According to a recent survey the majority of secondary-school teachers in the UK believe pupils should be told where to obtain an abortion. More than two-thirds of staff teaching 11 to 18-year-olds said pupils should be taught how to arrange termination of an unplanned pregnancy. The survey also showed that most teachers would be happy to tell children it was acceptable to be gay. And more than three-quarters thought parents had a right to be told if their underage daughter became pregnant and opted for an abortion. Almost all favoured teaching about contraception in class. More than eight out of 10 said pupils should learn about the morning-after pill.
Ofsted (The Office for Standards in Education) said schools were failing to provide young people with appropriate sex and health education as well as a whole raft of skills designed to equip them for adulthood.
Never has the case for a comprehensive Irish sexual-education programme been so strong. Shocking figures released by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) reveal that in 2004 10,695 sexually-transmitted diseases (STIs) were notified in Ireland. Shockingly, over one in ten of the cases notified were in teenagers (those aged 19 or under).
The Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) supports the implementation of sex education at a younger age. Speaking at an event to mark Ireland's second Sexual Health Awareness Week, Rosie Toner, director of counselling services with the IFPA said, "young people are sexual beings, they have sex and, without protection or good quality information, many take risks. This contributes to our high crisis pregnancy and sexually-transmitted infection rates".
Sex education when properly integrated into an educational curriculum has produced remarkable results. In the Netherlands sex education has remained remarkably non-political. It has been argued that this has led to a much more coherent programme of school sex education, in which teachers are not worried that they may be blamed for teaching something that they shouldn't be.
Currently, a teenage girl in the UK or USA is about 10 times as likely to become pregnant than in the Netherlands. According to Unicef, studies of the Dutch experience have concluded that the underlying reason for success has been the combination of a relatively-inclusive society with more open attitudes towards sex and sex education, including contraception. Requests for contraceptives are not associated with shame or embarrassment and the media is willing to carry explicit messages about them that are designed for young people. The Netherlands has one of the lowest abortion and teenage birth rates in the world.
Sweden radically changed its sex-education policies in 1975. Recommendations of abstinence and sex only within marriage were dropped, contraceptive education was made explicit, and a nationwide network of youth clinics was established specifically to provide confidential contraceptive advice and free contraceptives. Over the next two decades, Sweden saw its teenage birth rate fall by 80 per cent. Sexually-transmitted diseases, in contrast to the rising rates in the UK and the US, declined by 40 per cent in the Nineties.
The UK report, Personal, Social and Health Education in schools: Time for Action is likely to lead to tension in Whitehall. UK Education secretary Ruth Kelly, a devout Catholic, is thought likely to oppose such a dramatic extension of pupils' knowledge about sex. Ms Kelly remains very conservative on issues such as abortion and contraception.
Her controversial links to Opus Dei an ultra-Catholic organisation made famous by cult novel The Da Vinci Code has been a cause for concern amongst lobbyists in favour of an overhaul of the UK sex-education programme. Those in favour of a more secular education system are concerned about how Kelly's beliefs might permeate her politics.
"People are rightly interested in how it's possible to have a person with faith at the centre of politics," Kelly said. Politics and religion continue to overshadow the development of a comprehensive sex-education programme.
The successful development of sex education in Ireland could serve to reduce the incidence of STIs and crisis pregnancies amongst Irish teenagers. As John Carr, INTO General Secretary, said at a recent conference - "I believe it is time that we had a major debate on this issue. Irish is not optional. Mathematics is not optional. Why should child protection be optional?"
Celine McGillycuddy
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THE PRINCES OF THE CHURCH ARE ON THE RUN. 31/10/05

Exposed: Appalling horror of Ferns abuse

THE FULL horror of brutal clerical child abuse in the diocese of Ferns finally emerged last night.
The shattering probe into the activities of pervert priests shows that the church lied, deceived, and covered up to protect them.
Former Supreme Court Judge Frank Murphy's damning report which uncovered a systematic and shocking catalogue of abuse is now being sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
More than 100 allegations of child sexual abuse were made against 21 priests in the diocese.
Two bishops were also strongly criticised for their the handling of these allegations.
The 271-page report graphically details repeated sexual abuse of boys and girls.
It reveals that serial abuser, Fr Sean Fortune, left a suicide note claiming that he had been abused by Bishop Brendan Comiskey.
The note was then destroyed by another priest because he believed it was an attempt to discredit Bishop Comiskey.
Last night Bishop Comiskey appealed for "forgiveness". The inquiry delivered a damning verdict that found him negligent.
It also emerged last night that a report was sent to the Vatican about an allegation of "inappropriate behaviour" made against Bishop Comiskey by a woman.
The allegation came to the attention of the South Eastern Health Board in the course of another investigation in 1990.
The claim was made by the parents of the girl who was over 16 years at the time.
The Ferns inquiry said the report to the Holy See concluded an offence had not been committed, but the fact that under the "influence of alcohol," Bishop Comiskey was alleged to have acted in such a manner, "was something that needed to be addressed."
Last night as the Diocese of Ferns was exposed as a haven for priests intent on abusing children the Primate of All-Ireland, Archbishop Sean Brady said the Church was ashamed of its failures to protect children.
He described the betrayal of trust by priests who abused children as "horrendous."
And it was confirmed that Bishop Eamon Walsh, Apostolic Administrator of Ferns, is also considering a day of atonement for the horrors of the past.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern promised Government action on the Report's recommendations adding: "It is a catalogue of serial abuse and gross dereliction of duty."
The allegations in the report covering the period 1966- 2005 range from single complaints against priests in the diocese to 26 allegations of abuse against one individual.
Of the 21 accused priests, 10 are now dead, three have been defrocked, seven are no longer on "normal duties," and another has retired.
However, just six of the priests who have already been convicted in the courts, or are deceased, are named in the report.
They are: Fr Sean Fortune, against whom 40 allegations of sex abuse are made, Fr Jim Grennan, Monsignor Micheal Ledwith, who was defrocked last month, Fr James Doyle, Fr Donal Collins, and Canon Martin Murphy
The identities of the rest - including one priest who is accused of carrying out a litany of appalling abuse against 10 women and young girls - are simply referred to by letters of the Greek alphabet.
Other shocking revelations include claims that:
* Fr Sean Fortune left a suicide note in which he claimed he was abused by Bishop Brendan Comiskey. The note was later found and destroyed by a priest Fr Gerald O'Leary, who thought the claims were a deliberate attempt to discredit the former Bishop of the Diocese.
* Serial abusers Fortune and Doyle were judged "unfit" for the priesthood by a Church psychiatrist, but Bishop Donal Herlihy went ahead and ordained them anyway.
* Fortune organised beach parties in Paulfour for youngsters where he provided them with drugs, alcohol and condoms.
* Former principle of St Peter's College, Fr Donal Collins, consistently abused boys over a 21 year period.
* The Vatican was aware of the allegations of abuse in the diocese, but failed to act on the information.
* Gardai also failed to act on allegations made by children in Monageer, where Fr Jim Grennan sexually abused 10 girls on the altar.
A further five cases came to light after August 31 last, but it was decided by the inquirythat to fully examine them would have led to an unacceptable delay.
Victim's spokesman Colm O'Gorman last night warned that unless there were changes in the law the abuse which happened in Ferns could very easily happen again.

Brian Dowling, David Quinn, Gene McKenna and Aideen Sheehan
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Tea and sympathy in towns and hamlets without a Prince

THE charismatic bishop formerly known as a Prince of the Church shuns the limelight now.
Yesterday, from Goverment Buildings to Gorey town, from the Wexford villages of Monageer to Ballindaggin, Brendan Comiskey's presence was urgently required for one final curtain call. But he failed to show up.
Call it stage fright, call it cowardice, but Bishop Comiskey chose instead to issue a brief and bland statement through his solicitor in response to the shocking report into child sexual abuse in the diocese - where his rule held sway for the later years of the period under investigation.
Instead, it fell to Bishop Eamonn Walsh to shoulder the burden of responsibility on behalf of a diocese where he had never ministered until an anxious hierarchy parachuted him in to clean up after four decades of mismanagement and misery.
He's been doing that since 2002, when Bishop Comiskey and his sins of omission headed for the hills.
ATROCITIES
Much has been reported and written about the atrocities committed on the innocent and the vulnerable in the Ferns diocese over the past 40 years or so.
What would be added to the sorry saga by compiling a comprehensive report into the crimes of trusted men against trusting children?
Might it not compound heartaches that the years had begun to heal?
Around Wexford yesterday, local radio vox pops found community opinion split between those who wanted the matter officially documented by the State and acknowledged by the Church and those who felt it was better to leave the past behind.
However, the decision had been already taken by the Government to publish Mr Justice Frank Murphy's report. Given what was already known, all that remained to see was how horrific the findings would turn out to be.
The Diocese of Ferns announced that a press conference would be held in the parochial house attached to St Michael's church in Gorey as soon as the report was made public.
It would take place in the parochial house attached to St Michael's church in the town - the venue chosen by Dr Walsh for a press conference when he was appointed apostolic administrator of the diocese three years ago.
By mid-afternoon, the Minister for Children, Brian Lenihan, had yet to release the report in Dublin, but the TV satellite vans were already parked in the grounds of St Michael's and a large contingent of journalists waited for Bishop Walsh to arrive.
Yesterday's event marked a milestone for the Irish Church and its relationship with its congregation. This was not an occasion to give people the "Maynooth" treatment, where visitors feel compelled to speak in hushed tones as they are led through marbled halls lined with portraits of powerful churchmen, and where curates tiptoe respectfully around men in ecclesiastical robes.
This was not a day for photographing bishops strolling up and down the quadrangle after their lunch, apparently so other-wordly they can't be approached by mere mortals.
The scene was so much different in Gorey last evening, even though there were clerics on hand from the diocesan press office and a leading PR executive from Dublin kept a discreet background presence.
As the hour of publication drew near, journalists were welcomed into the home of Monsignor Lory Kehoe, PP of St Michael's. In the kitchen, tea and coffee flowed and tins of biscuits were opened and the contents were pushed up beside slabs of fruit cake and home-baked muffins.
AWKWARD
This was sackcloth and ashes, disguised as oilcloth and Agas.
The kitchen table was covered in oilcloth, a comforting old Aga stove provided warmth and the Ronan Collins afternoon show played in the background on a fairly ancient radio.
The place looked just like you would expect an old country priest's kitchen to look. A cheery woman bustled in and out. Two local priests sat and tried to make conversation, but it was a little awkward for everyone.
"Sorry we're not meeting under better circumstances, Father." "Och, it's better to have everything out in the open."
Good men, tongue-tied and embarrassed, and you felt more angry than ever at those depraved animals who not only ruined young lives but made life hell for their well-meaning colleagues as well.
The press conference was held in Monsignor Keogh's dining room, a fusty place full of heavy old pieces of furniture and old-fashioned pictures.
Bishop Walsh stood behind a table that was covered in a tartan travel rug and read his statement.
He seems a kind and decent man, and when he said "I communicate best when I speak from the heart", you believed him.
CHAOTIC
It was chaotic in that small room. Boiling hot under the TV lights, crammed with people. You couldn't help thinking that, perhaps, another reason for choosing this venue was to show the modest living conditions of most clergy.
Bishop Walsh said all that was expected he would say, and he said it well. "When you read this litany of horrible, horrible gross abuse and rape, it leaves you speechless," he began.
Meanwhile, from his Order's headquarters in Dublin, Bishop Comiskey apologised through his solicitor for his inadequacies. He looked for forgiveness.
"My failings were not deliberate but, rather, were human failings," he pleaded.
He must pray the ordinary people are more understanding than his own unyielding church when he was a ruling Prince and when "human failings" made outcasts of sinners - like pregnant young women - who made mistakes.

Miriam Lord Back to Top

We must make sure that what has happened to me never happens again

Pat Jackman was abused by Fr Sean Fortune.

WHEN I read the Ferns Report yesterday the thing I felt more than anything else was sadness. I know what I went through when the 'Suing the Pope' documentary came out on TV.
Every time this stuff emerges victims of clerical abuse feel it.
They may feel a certain vindication that the report has been published but the fact of the matter is that it will bring back an awful lot of memories for them.
I think another door has closed but I don't know if it will bring closure. I would really love to see the Church taking some meaningful steps to address their problems.
Everybody I have talked to believes they are still flustering, they're still not dealing with the problem directly.
They're still making sure that the people putting in claims against them spend six to eight years before they get any compensation.
What I don't understand is the palpable sense of anger from these people, the organisation of the Church seems to think - how dare they actually get up on their high horse and start going on about it.
I'm sorry but we're talking about buggering boys here.
It doesn't matter how precious your bloody priests are. I think innocence is an awful precious thing.
From what I know of the report its recommendations are really broad but they sound really good as they are largely focused at the government and the health board.
The responsibility for child protection should be on all of us.
Judging from the furore at the moment you would think the Catholic Church was responsible for abuse and nobody else but 85pc of abuse is by people who are known to the victim's family.
Child protection legislation is first and foremost the most important thing.
It is our job to protect children, not just the Church's, so I'm glad to see the Ferns Report recommendations include the health board and gardai.
The Church is getting incensed and I don't get a sense that they are holding up their hands and saying 'mea culpa'.
No one ever said sorry to me in the Church.
Bishop Brendan Comiskey did try to meet me and I presume he did intend to apologise but I did not go.
I go to my church on Sunday and I do find it hard sometimes to justify going there.
Some priests even say, 'Pat, you b****** why the f*** are you saying that?' The way I feel about Sean Fortune is complex, at the moment he's off the radar most of the time.
He raises his ugly head every now and again and the usual feelings - disgust, guilt even at times terror, come back.
I don't feel angry towards him any more. It's just kind of gone. I feel sorry for him.
I think John (Sean Fortune) himself was abused but abuse doesn't make an abuse victim. I do feel a kind of sorrow for the guy.
I think what's happened to me affects me around 10-15pc of the time, it used to be 60-70pc of the time.
I haven't gone back to work full time, just having someone bossing over you sends out all these fear signals.
I do feel sorry for some priests in the diocese because some of them are honest decent people who may have worked for an organisation that messed up.
It can't be undone, as terrible and awful as it is.
We found out broadly what happened in Ferns.
The fact of the matter is that we must focus on ensuring that what happened to me, what happened to Cathal, what happened to Damien, what happened to Donncha and the hundreds of young men who had the bravery to go to the Ferns inquiry, never happens again."

Pat Jackman Back to Top

I apologise

THE LATE Pope John Paul II in his Encyclical Letter 'Familiaris Consortio' stated: "The child is at the heart of the Kingdom of God."
The Ferns Inquiry Report has numbed the people and priests of the diocese. The serious impact of child abuse on a young victim is well understood today and the Ferns Inquiry has confirmed it for all by the explicit descriptions of the abuse which has occurred.
It is inexcusable that priests of the diocese sexually abused children. Core child protection principles are rooted in Gospel values, in the documents of the Church, in statutory guidelines, and in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Each child must be affirmed as a gift of God and he/she has a right to dignity of life and bodily integrity which must be respected, nurtured, and protected at all times.
Unfortunately, this has not always been the case with the number of priests who exercised their power over children to the detriment of the child's development and peace of mind.
It is impossible to attempt to describe the mental and emotional state of a child or teenager sexually abused by a priest, or the loneliness of carrying such a harrowing secret through the growing up years and into adulthood. Victims describe some of the elements of what they experienced: the fear of not being believed; being manipulated into thinking it was their fault; losing their trust in the Church and priests; being distrustful, confused and fear-filled in relationships.
I yet again sincerely apologise to all who have suffered in these or in any other way through the sexual abuse by a priest of the diocese or where that abuse was compounded by the response, or lack of response, by the diocese.
RECENT years have been difficult for the Church in many countries, where it has had to face up to its responsibilities for this corrupting offence.
This week it is the turn of the diocese of Ferns to face its past - both in terms of offending and the management of the situation. Mistakes have been made. This is not a time for excuses.
There are hard lessons to be learned from the findings of the inquiry. There is much to be done to repair the damage to those who were abused.
The diocese is committed to doing all it can to help in repairing the harm that has been done, being acutely aware that this will be a long process.
Those whose trust in priests and the Church has been shattered will have a real difficulty in accepting any help from the Church.
This is a bleak week for the diocese of Ferns and the only ray of hope is in the fact that structures are now in place to ensure the highest possible standards of child protection.
There is a diocesan child protection policy and code of conduct in place. The Diocesan Advisory Panel oversees the ongoing implementation of policy.
Education in child safety issues has been provided for the priests of the diocese, and it is now being provided for every parish in the diocese. These information sessions will help both laity and clergy to identify abuse wherever and in whatever circumstances it occurs. Widespread awareness of the issues involved in child safety will call us to ever-higher standards of practice.
The priests of the diocese are doing what they can by contributing financially to a trust which they have set up to help provide counselling to those affected by abuse.
ONE priest has described the sexual abuse of children by any person, but particularly by a priest, as a "desecration of God's creation", and this is a vivid description of the crime.
However, I do not want the good priests and people of the diocese of Ferns to be trapped in the past - they need to move on.
I pray there will be healing for all those affected and that everyone the Diocese will learn from the mistakes of the past, live with understanding to-day, and create a better tomorrow for all.
Bishop Eamonn Walsh is the Apostolic Administrator of Ferns.
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Call for new child-risk offence

Probe urges better Garda training, study and publicity campaign needed.
THE Murphy Report into clerical sex abuse in the Diocese of Ferns made a wide range of recommendations yesterday.
It puts forward the creation of a new criminal offence of recklessly endangering a child or failing to take steps to prevent the occurrence of child abuse.
The report says that there were cases where gardai had information about possible child sexual abuse by clergy but in the absence of a formal complaint did not take action.
The inquiry makes a series of recommendations for the church, the Government, the health services, the gardai and the community at large:
*It wants the Government to consider a new criminal offence where any person "wantonly or recklessly" does something that creates a risk of child abuse or fails to take steps to prevent the risk where there is a duty to act.
*To enhance public confidence in the reporting and investigative system, it wants investigating garda officers to be trained in how to interview children appropriately. It wants greater cooperation between bodies to combat child abuse.
*The regular meetings now held between the Diocese of Ferns, the Health Service Executive and gardai should be extended anywhere there is a series or continuing problems of child abuse. These meetings should also deal with "suspicions, rumour or innuendo" which arises about misconduct by any member of the clergy.
*New legislation should be introduced to allow the barring or restraint of any person from having unsupervised access to children if there is a belief that the person has or might abuse children in future.
*The report calls for a study of the health services powers to intervene where child sexual abuse is carried out by a non-family member and without the "connivance" of parents.
*The report says anyone who gets a complaint of child sexual abuse should immediately create a written record of the complaint and information maintained and passed on to those who can take action.
*It also wants a publicity campaign on child sexual abuse to safeguard children and efforts made by law to preserve and strengthen a more open environment of reporting abuse.
Yet the Inquiry also says the community can "cooperate in tackling this heinous crime" by reporting any relevant information to the gardai or those in charge of an alleged or suspected abuser.
Judge Murphy was struck by the hurt still borne by "mature and fair-minded victims" of the clerical abuse who gave evidence before him. Life imprisonment is an appropriate punishment for the more serious offences of child sexual abuse, he says.
The inquiry records its "revulsion at the extent, severity and duration" of the child sexual abuse perpetrated on children by priests in Ferns.
"The members of the Inquiry would express the hope that should the type of abuse chronicled in this Report ever occur again, there will be mechanisms and procedures in place which will enable victims promptly to report the abuse in the confidence that they would be believed and the certainty that appropriate action would be taken to terminate the wrongdoing," the report concludes.
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Abuse 'will happen again' if law is not changed.

IT is now up to the Director of Public Prosecutions to decide whether Bishop Brendan Comiskey should be investigated for his handling of child sex abuse cases in the diocese of Ferns, victims' spokesman Colm O'Gorman said last night.
Mr O'Gorman warned that unless there were changes in the law the abuse which happened in the Ferns diocese could happen again.
He said the "catalogue of failures" outlined in the report "cannot be excused as simply personal individual failure but must be seen as the failure of institutional Roman Catholic Church to act upon its detailed awareness and understanding of clerical sexual abuse in an effort to protect children".
He described the lack of prosecutions in the wake of more than 100 allegations against 21 priests in Ferns over a lengthy period as "the most damning indictment of Ireland's criminal justice system".
"I think it is one of the abiding scandals of this whole saga that out of these 26 cases (five of which came to light after the inquiry ended) and out of more than 100 allegations of some of the most heinous crimes on our statute books - crimes which carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment - one priest served a four-month suspended sentence and another served one year in prison."
But addressing a press conference in Dublin last night at which he welcomed the report's findings, he said yesterday's report did contain "some pretty damning indictments of Bishop Brendan Comiskey among others".
He added: "It may well be that those allegations and those assertions need some sort of investigation into his conduct, but that's matter for the DPP."

Eugene Moloney
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Confession a nightmare for 10 girls

CONFESSION should have been a solemn occasion for the young girls in the Wexford parish of Monageer.
But as they knelt on the altar, they were subjected to a litany of abuse at the hands of their parish priest, Fr James Grennan.
Their horrific story emerged in 1988 when 10 girls aged 12 to 13 alleged to their school principal, Pat Higgins, that they had been sexually molested by Fr Grennan while he heard their confessions on the altar in the parish church of Monageer.
It was the first recorded allegation of child sexual abuse by a member of the diocesan clergy dealt with by the gardai.
But local Bishop Brendan Comiskey dismissed the girls' allegations and this was compounded weeks later when Fr Grennan appeared on the church altar for Confirmation with the bishop at his side.
After their sensational allegations, seven of the girls were later interviewed by Dr Geraldine Nolan, director of the newly established 'Validation Unit' in Waterford in the South Eastern Health Board.
The substance of their complaints was similar. While the rest of the class remained in their seats and were told to keep their eyes closed, Fr Grennan sat on a chair on the altar as the girls knelt for their confession on red cushions.
According to Dr Nolan's report, Fr Grennan would then grasp the child's hands in his and pull them towards his private parts.
"The zip would be described as half down and there was never any allegation of his putting their hands inside of the unzipped area."
The Ferns report said the inquiry had met eight witnesses - three of whom were among the group of 10 girls who made the original allegations.
One of them, named as Olivia, was "personally petrified" of Fr Grennan and while she was kneeling on the altar, he would put her hands on her private parts and lick her jaw and stick his tongue into her ear while asking her about a particular commandment.
Fergus had been an altar boy who served with Fr Grennan for eight months before the priest's death in May 1991. He alleged he had been sexually abused by Fr Grennan soon after he began as an altar boy and took an overdose of medication before Fr Grennan's funeral in order to avoid attending it.
Another witness, Deborah, who met Bishop Walsh in May 2002, alleged Fr Grennan abused her for a number of years, starting when she was just five in the mid-1970s.
She claimed she wrote twice to Bishop Comiskey in 1993 and 1995 but he denied ever receiving any correspondence from her. Deborah committed suicide in 2002 at the age of 31.
The report found the garda response to the complaints was "wholly unsatisfactory" and regretted that a report was not forwarded to the DPP as recommended by investigating officers.
Fr Grennan died in May 1994, aged 61.

Fergus Black
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'He pushed me into a toilet and raped me'

PAEDOPHILE Fr Sean Fortune sexually abused one victim when he was 12 and again when he was a married man, the report reveals.
The victim - referred to as Colin - kept his ordeal a secret for years but finally broke his silence and spoke to the Inquiry after two years of counselling. He told the Inquiry that the first assault took place in a public toilet in 1979 when he was just 12. Fr Fortune pushed him into the cubicle and bolted the door. He then raped him.
Because the young boy came from a difficult family background he felt he could not disclose any of the abuse he had suffered to his parents or anyone else.
Colin married in 1987. Some years later he was standing on the side of a street in Wexford with his baby son when Fr Fortune came up behind him and spoke to him. The priest said he needed work done at his house in Ballymurn and if he was not prepared to do it, he would tell his wife and other people what had happened when he was 12.
Because he was terrified that his wife would hear about what had happened he agreed to go to Ballymurn and did so for 10 months.
"Colin said that on almost every occasion when he attended Fr Fortune in Ballymurn he was obliged to perform oral sex," the report says.

Frank Khan
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Canon preyed on girl (14) and made her pregnant.

SEXUAL predator Canon Martin Clancy made a 14-year-old pregnant and threatened three years later to have the child taken away if she told anyone he was the father.
The serial child abuser preyed on at least five girls about which the Murphy Inquiry knows - but certainly many more - from at least 1965 to his death in 1993.
Clancy served in Ballindaggin, near Enniscorthy, from the early 1970s and moved to Kiltealy, north Wexford, in 1991.
Ciara was aged 11 when she was dragged into a dressing room at a concert in 1971 by Clancy. She was molested and the interference escalated, sometimes in his house or in a car, until full sexual intercourse took place when she was 14.
She became pregnant as a result and went to England in 1974, leaving a note for her parents telling of her condition but not identifying the father. Her mother took her home six weeks later, and her daughter, Rachel - now aged 30 - was born in 1975.
Canon Clancy gave Ciara two cheques of IR£500 each for the baby's upkeep when she was 16, but a year later threatened to take the baby away if she identified him as the father.
Ciara, now married, came forward in 2003 and has settled "amicably" with the Diocese of Ferns, Bishop Eamon Walsh said at a press conference last night.
Maeve also went to England, this time at the age of 15, to escape from Fr Clancy, but returned a year later. She had been abused in her bedroom for three years from 1965, on three or four occasions every week.
He would molest her while questioning her about her development and on one occasion asked her to his house where he had full sexual intercourse with her. Two years before he died - more than a quarter of a century after he first molested her - Canon Clancy arrived at her door and attempted to kiss her.
Clare suffered abuse from the age of 12 and told the inquiry she was aware of other girls similarly abused by Clancy. He put his hand underneath her shirt or blouse and fondled her breasts while she was playing music.
He then started putting his hand up her skirt and inside her underwear. After several incidents, she began wearing trousers, but the abuse continued.
Her father, Patrick, suffered "serious health problems" after learning of the abuse.
Judy was in fifth class in Ballindaggin national school in the early 1970s, where Fr Clancy had taken charge of sex education classes. Sent to his house by the principal, he led her into a study.
CONFRONTATIONS
He stripped the 12-year-old and physically examined her, feeling her "very intimately and painfully". Some children, three of them known to Judy, told their parents what was going on. There were confrontations with Clancy, and a suggestion that one parishioner physically assaulted him.
She told the inquiry: "I was a child when I went into that room in that house. But when I left I was not a child."
Kate was sexually abused at the same school from the age of eight. Canon Clancy often took her out of class to give her 'music lessons' in school or in his house nearby. The abuse started with touching and culminated in rape, which continued on a weekly basis until she was 12. The abuse only stopped when Clancy left Ballindaggin and was moved to Kiltealy in 1991.
After his death, Kate got counselling arranged by her school principal, Sr Madeleine Ryan, who told Bishop Comiskey and asked him to pay for it. He agreed.
After Clancy's death in 1991, the mother of his child was sent a cheque for IR£3,000 by the executor of his estate, Fr John Sinnott. It was described as money invested by Canon Clancy to be used for her "further musical education".

Senan Molony
Political Correspondent
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Professionals must be obliged to whistle-blow, says Barnardo's

Barnardo's Fergus Finlay: 'Children must be priority'

MANDATORY reporting obliging professionals to whistle-blow to the authorities if they know or suspect cases of child abuse was called for last night by the charity, Barnardo's.
It said a system should be put in place so that the needs of children were prioritised when abuse had occurred or was in danger of occurring.
Reacting to the Ferns report, Barnardo's chief executive Fergus Finlay said: "Child protection must be the ultimate priority for Government and society".
He added: "We know that the abuse of children is facilitated by a closed and secretive environment. That secrecy must be replaced by the introduction of obligatory mandatory reporting, underpinned by law."
The call was echoed by the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
"This cruelty, consisting not just of sexual abuse of children, but of institutionalised silence and inaction, served not only to traumatise and hurt children but also served to make these children feel that they were to blame for the abuse perpetrated on them," a spokesman said.
INQUIRY
"Many of these children, now adults, still carry the emotional and psychological impact of their experiences. What happened in the Diocese of Ferns is not unique. It is another stark example of how Irish society has traditionally failed to deal adequately with the exploitation of children."
The ISPCC said residential child abuse, including that detailed in the Kilkenny Incest Inquiry Report and the Kelly Fitzgerald Inquiry Report, highlights examples of how Irish society has failed to protect children. "Such a monumental failure of child-protection systems must never be allowed to occur again," it said.
"The ISPCC is calling for a commitment from all political parties to fully implement all of the recommendations of the Ferns Inquiry Report."
Vulnerable children are still being abused and must be listened to, the State children's rights watchdog stressed last night.
Emily Logan, the Ombudsman for Children, called for increased rights for children under the law. She said abuse is still a reality for some children in the country and the law needs to be changed to improve the responses to complaints.
While the Ferns inquiry covers the 1960s to 1980s, the Ombudsman said it was important we don't fool ourselves into thinking that child abuse only happened in the past.
"It is evident that people were only listened to when they were adults. To me that is quiteastonishing," she said.
"My concern is people might box this as something that happened historically," she added.
Although there may not be institutional abuse, Ms Logan said there are children being abused in their families.

Frank Khan
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Comiskey was seriously negligent on abuse claims.

BISHOP Brendan Comiskey was seriously negligent in his handling of serious allegations of child abuse, according to the Ferns Report.

The findings of the report amount to a scathing indictment of his responses to abuse allegations between 1984 and 2002, particularly those involving Fr Sean Fortune.
In total, Bishop Comiskey received allegations of abuse in respect of 14 priests, ten of whom were living at the time.
The key findings against Bishop Comiskey include:
* Any inquiries he instituted never reached the standard of proof that he set.
* When he was given medical advice regarding a priest accused of abuse he was unwilling or unable to implement it.
* In some instances he did not fully inform medical experts of the full history of priests against whom allegations were made.
* It was "extremely negligent" not to inform medical experts of Fr Fortune's full history whenhe was referred for assessment.
* He consistently failed to have a priest step aside pending the outcome of an investigation.
* The investigations he did commence were an inappropriate and inadequate response to serious criminal allegations, and
* There was no adequate explanation for his failure to deal effectively with Fr Sean Fortune given the information he had from the outset.

PROPER RESPONSE
According to the Report, Bishop Comiskey accepted that the proper response to an allegation of child abuse against a priest was to remove him from active ministry pending a determination of the allegation - yet no priest was everstood aside from ministry by him.
Priests were moved out of the diocese but no child protection measures were ever put in place to ensure that children in the diocese where the priest was sent were not placed in danger.
In cases where an allegation of abuse was made against a priest and denied, Bishop Comiskey instituted an inquiry but, in a damning indictment, the Report finds: "For the greater part, these inquiries and investigations were protracted and inconclusive and in all cases failed to meet the standard of proof required by the Bishop."
Where a complainant who made an allegation against a priest who was deceased and who sought financial assistance to pay for counseling the financial assistance was given.
The most serious findings against Bishop Comiskey relate to his handling of allegations against the now deceased Fr Sean Fortune.
Last night, in a statement issued through his solicitors, the Bishop acknowledged that he had been negligent in handling some abuse allegations, especially concerning Fr Fortune.

SERIOUS RISK
Although the Bishop became concerned about Fr Fortune's relationship with young men in late 1985, the Report says the fact Fr Fortune was allowed continue his activities in Poulfour parish in Wexford, in the mid-1980s, at a time when it was known he posed a serious risk "was wholly inappropriate".
Even though Fr Fortune was referred a number of times for medical assessments, following abuse allegations, the Report says it was "extremely negligent" that his full history was not provided to the medical experts involved.
The Report finds that Bishop Comiskey's decision to subsequently appoint Fr Fortune to Ballymurn parish in 1989 after receiving a medical report that he knew was based on inadequate information, was "ill-advised and dangerous".
According to the Report, it is "difficult to comprehend" the Bishop's failure to remove Fr Fortune from Ballymurn parish when he received more complaints of abuse in 1991.
Overall, it states "the evidence available to Bishop Comiskey was compelling, and dictated the immediate removal of Fr Fortune from ministry".
The report reveals that when an allegation or suspicion arose the Bishop requested the priest to attend a psychiatrist or psychologist.
Bishop Comiskey admitted to the Inquiry that prior to 1990 he would never have reported an allegation of abuse against a priest to the civil authorities.

Brian Dowling
Political Correspondent
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The bishop responds.

THE statement of Bishop Brendan Comiskey:

"I welcome the publication of the Report of the Ferns Inquiry.
"I would again like to say how sorry I am for my inadequacies and for my failings and askfor forgiveness forthem. I answered comprehensively the questions asked of me throughout the Ferns Inquiry.
"The Inquiry has concluded that my responses as Bishop of Ferns were inadequate to many of the allegations of child sexual abuse. It has also concluded that I was negligent in my handling of some of these and in particular that of Fr Sean Fortune.
"At the time of my resignation I acknowledged my failings in this regard and I do so again now and I apologise to those who suffered as a result of my failings and whose suffering was increased by them.
"While I acknowledge and regret my failings, I emphasise that these were not deliberatebut rather were human failings."
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Abuse a sore subject where priest preyed on village children.

IT may be over 15 years since Jim Grennan preyed on the children of Monageer, but it is still an off-limit subject.
Yesterday the Ferns Report lifted the lid on the systematic abuse of children in Wexford for decades, but the community where it happened is silent.
Parents collecting their children from the national school jumped into their cars and sped off when approached for comment.
Those who would talk in the tiny picturesque village nestled in the Wexford hills would not give their names.
One of Grennan's victims said she and and her family had said all they have to say.
The young woman who was among the many girls abused, some of them on the altar of the local church, is trying to get on with her life.
One young mother of four, whose children attend the local school, said she knew nothing about the abuse until she arrived in Monageer to live. "I'm looking forward to reading the report" she said, "and I want to know what went on here."
Another woman who was a victim of abuse in her own family said she wanted to make the point that not every priest in the Diocese of Ferns had done wrong or should suffer because of it.
She said one priest in particular in a nearby parish had helped her get over her suffering.
In the Monageer Tavern, a local man remembered how the abuse revelations turned mothers against daughters and ripped the community apart. "Some people believed the girls and others didn't. But I think they'll be glad when the report comes out and there may be some closure."
He remembered Fr Grennan as a well respected priest who was committed to improving the area, including local footpaths and lights.
But they were oblivious to the dark secrets of his ministry. In the church where he carried out his monstrous acts, children practised for a school mass today. "This is our school, let peace be found here" they sang.
In the foyer of the church was a stark reminder of Fr Grennan's legacy. The Diocese of Ferns has hung a new policy statement for all to see.
There are more than 13 points on the statement designed to ensure a safe environment for children and young people.
It discourages casual visits by children and young people to the homes of volunteers, priests and youth workers. It also prohibits children staying at the parochial house unless they are attended by parents or guardians.

Anne-Marie Walsh
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The grim crimes of four priests who are now dead.

FOUR now dead priests - identified under the Greek alphabet as Lamda, Zeta, Sigma and Theta - have been linked to ghastly crimes by the Ferns report.
Fr Lamda abused "Jonathon" as a young altar boy, the victim writing to Bishop Brendan Comiskey about it in 1996.
Comiskey replied: "I'm very, very sorry to learn of your desperate pain and suffering as a young boy. Nothing could be more cruel or destructive, we have all learnt to our eternal regret as a church." But the letter was not produced to the inquiry until it had almost finished its work.
Fr Zeta was complained about in an unsigned letter in March 1996 as having committed sexual offences against schoolboys at a particular institution in the 1980s. Fr Zeta was still alive in 1996, but the diocese did not carry out any investigation.
Fr Sigma was named by a woman named Breda as her sexual abuser in Monageer and Knock over a four-year period in the late 1970s, beginning when she was eight years old. He took her into his bed and raped her.
Fr Theta was named by a man named Don, who said he attempted to rape the 14-year-old at a Dublin hotel, having booked a twin room.
Another priest - named in the report as Fr Upsilon - is still alive, having stood aside from his ministry as a parish priest in October 2004 after the diocese became aware of a claim of child sexual abuse.
A man named Denis alleged abuse by Upsilon over an eight-year period from the late 1970s to early 1980s.

Senan Molony
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No defrocking for ex-parish priest despite 20 years of abuse claims.

A FORMER parish priest identified only as 'Fr Gamma' is now living in retirement and has not been defrocked, despite a litany of complaints against him by females in north Wexford. The DPP decided not to prosecute.
But allegations have been made of the most vile abuse over 20 years by victims who were as young as seven, eight and nine at the time. Other targets were adult women.
Marie was aged eight and preparing for her First Holy Communion when Gamma stroked her at confession, beginning affectionately, but soon bringing his hand up her legs to her private parts. She "presumed it was the test for Holy Communion".
She was interfered with on "numerous" other occasions, including confession. She remembered feeling sore, painful and uncomfortable.
In later life, Marie developed an addiction to alcohol, overspent and became a shoplifter. She attempted suicide on three occasions, and attributes her regular depression to the priest's actions.
"She feels her life is ruined and shattered and she is in heavy financial trouble," the Ferns Inquiry report notes.
Julie was nine when Gamma came to her home, told her mother he was going to pray over her, and put his hand inside her clothes when she was sitting on a couch and directly onto her vagina. When she tried to squirm out of the probing, Gamma drove his elbow into her side "to prevent any movement".

FEAR
She felt paralysed with fear on other occasions, when he would talk to others in the room to distract from what he was doing.
Grace was regularly sexually abused from age 10 to 13. Fr Gamma stood behind her on the pulpit and interfered with her as she practised reading Mass lessons from the Bible. On another occasion in her home, he exposed himself and demanded oral sex.
She was afraid to mention the abuse, and only recently told her family after being hospitalised for a stress-related illness and seeing a 'PrimeTime' programme.
In 2002, told about complaints to the gardai, Gamma agreed to go for assessment at the request of Bishop Walsh. He stepped aside as parish priest, but soon refused to attend any further assessments.
In October 2002, Bishop Walsh was informed that Fr Gamma had been attending a swimming pool in the afternoons when children were present. He ordered him not to attend before adults-only time at 7pm. But in January 2003 he was seen there at 5.30pm.
In April 2003, the bishop ordered him to resign as parish priest. He is currently maintained by the diocese and supervised and monitored by a nun.
A file is currently before the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome and their response is awaited.
The inquiry found that the four-month delay in asking Gamma to step aside from his parish work was 'inappropriate.'

Senan Molony
Political Correspondent
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High profile judge led inquiry team.

JUSTICE Francis Murphy was appointed to lead the inquiry when it was announced in 2003. Before his retirement from the Supreme Court in 2002, he had been involved in several high profile cases and inquiries.
Among the more recent was an inquiry into allegations surrounding District Judge Donnchadh O Buachalla and the Catherine Nevin trial.
In the Ferns Report he was also joined by Dr Helen Buckley, a specialist in child protection from Trinity College Dublin; and Dr Laraine Joyce, deputy director of the Office for Health Management.
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WHAT THEY SAID:

"It is a catalogue of serial abuse and gross dereliction of duty in the diocese of Ferns . . . I think it is shocking to everybody's sense of how children should be protected . . . The report brings out the full horror of the situation . . . and catalogues the continuing failure to respond adequately in Ferns until recent years." - Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
'The details of the Ferns Report brought shame on a civilised society . . . It is a shocking wake-up" call to the Church and the State." - FG leader Enda Kenny
"Most Irish people will be shocked that the institutional church was used in this fashion as a cover for child abusers . . . The Dail should hang its head in shame at the way it has turned a blind eye to this appalling period in our history." - Labour leader Pat Rabbitte
"There's a great feeling that things have been hushed up for too long. People want to see it all come out, so it can be dealt with at last." - Wexford shop keeper
"From this situation we hope for new life, new hearts, new hope." - Sr Peter Leech, Bride Street Convent, Wexford
"Above all, we want a fresh beginning - a new beginning for all concerned, so we can begin the healing process." - Current principal of St Peter's College, Wexford, Pat Quigley
"On behalf of the Government I want to condemn in the strongest possible terms the repeated failure and gross dereliction of duties of those in positions of trust in the Diocese of Ferns who engaged in acts of child abuse or failed to take effective steps to defend and vindicate the rights of the children concerned." - Children's Minister Brian Lenihan
"The revelations make for very uncomfortable reading. The pages retelling the pain of those who have suffered, are especially heartbreaking. I apologise to all those people who have suffered. As priests they should have been protecting and nurturing the talents of these young people. The betrayal of trust is horrendous." - All-Ireland Primate Sean Brady
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Gardai's probe into Fr Grennan 'was poor and very reluctant'

A GARDA investigation into complaints of child sex abuse against one of the worst offenders, Father James Grennan, is heavily criticised in the Ferns report.
The report says gardai investigated abuse complaints against eight priests of the Ferns diocese and the Director of Public Prosecutions gave the go-ahead for criminal proceedings in three of those cases.
But most of its criticism of the Gardai is reserved for the handling of the Grennan case - their response to the complaints lodged in 1988 was described as wholly unsatisfactory.
Mr Justice Frank Murphy endorsed the findings of an internal inquiry headed by then Det Supt Dermot Dwyer, who concluded that the original investigation was poorly directed and displayed a marked reluctance to intervene with the clergy.
Supt Dwyer said the case had not been investigated fully as the senior officers involved apparently believed there was not sufficient corroboration to justify this action.
Criminal proceedings against the officers involved for subverting the course of justice had been considered, but the internal report recommended no charges be brought.
It also concluded there was no evidence of any collusion between Church and State organisations to stifle, obstruct or abandon the investigation.
Mr Justice Murphy accepted those findings, although he said there were grounds for suspecting that, prior to 1990, some members of the Garda force might have been reluctant to pursue investigations involving clergy in the diocese.
He said he regretted that the investigation report had not been forwarded to the DPP as recommended by Supt Dwyer's team.
Chief Supt Jim Doyle told the inquiry he recalled being informed by Supt Vincent Smith of the allegations of sexual abuse of schoolchildren in Monageer by Fr Grennan.
But the chief said he had never seen a file, the statements of the children or a Health Board report which conflicted with Supt Smith's recollection.
The Ferns report said it was important to ensure that all complaints and allegations relating to child sexual abuse were fully investigated and a report sent to the DPP at the earliest opportunity.
Mr Justice Murphy said he was satisfied current procedures meant a file on a serious garda investigation would be referred to the DPP for his directions and advice.
He also recommended that where a complaint of sexual abuse had been made by females, particularly a minor, at least one member of the investigation team should be female.
The report pointed out that, in two of three cases that went to court, convictions had been secured, while the third case had been dropped after the accused had committed suicide.
It was critical of the failure of the gardai to keep adequate records of complaints or allegations made prior to the early 1990s but said that defect had since been remedied.
The report also highlighted the failure of the gardai to make further inquiries in the case of Canon Martin Clancy, although it appreciated there were difficulties in conducting an investigation without the co-operation of the victim.

Tom Brady
Security Editor
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Poor communication hit investigations.

A LACK of proper formal communication in the Monageer case between the Eastern Health Board and gardai was criticised in the report.
A more effective investigation and satisfactory outcome would have been likely had monitoring been better, the report found.
It said it appreciated the "speed and urgency" of the health board in dealing with this case - but pointed to the legal restrictions it faced.
The board had "raised expectations" among complainants and their school principal that it could "resolve the matter" when the reality was its powers were restricted.
While health boards have express powers in dealing with sex abuse by a parent or guardian it has none where it is perpetrated by a third party.
In this case Dr Patrick Judge, the board's Director of Community Care was not authorised to notify the Diocese, as he did, that Fr James Grennan had abused schoolgirls in Monageer.
Dr Judge did not have authority when he asked for Fr Grennan's removal from the confirmation ceremony or from the parish.
He did not have legal powers when he asked the school principal to keep the priest away from them.
The report told how the Monageer case involving allegations of abuse by Fr Grennan came to light in 1988. It was the first time the health board had received an allegation of abuse about a priest.
On April 26 1988, 10 girls approached the principal of their school, Mr Higgins, saying Fr Grennan - the chaplain and chairman of the school board -had touched them under their skirts and inside their clothing. The principal contacted Childline who advised him to refer the matter to the health board giving him a contact number of Joe Symth. Mr Symth asked a social worker to visit the school on April 27 and met with the girls.
A meeting was set up and the girls were interviewed collectively.
This group interview was criticised by the report saying they should be spoken to individually to avoid "contaminating evidence" for future court proceedings and this could have jeopardised a prosecution.
The social worker believed there was substance to the allegations and their parents were asked to bring them to the Community Child Centre in Waterford Regional Hospital for assessemnt by the Validation Unit Medical Officer, Dr Geraldine Nolan on May 4 1988.
Dr Nolan said the children's stories, taken individually were credible and not made for any malicious motive. Her report contained a finding that Fr Grennan has been abusing the girls .She recommended they be protected from further abuse.

Eilish O'Regan
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Abuse of boys began before Fortune was even ordained.

EVEN before he was ordained a priest the warnings about Fr Sean Fortune had started.
But the first boy to complain of being raped by him in 1976 was angrily told he would be thrown out of school for saying such things about the young student priest.
Almost 20 years and dozens of complaints later the litany of abuse was a "blister waiting to burst" according to gardai investigating the horrific claims.

WARNING
As early as 1982 the church authorities had been given a clear warning by UCD Professor of Psychology Feichin O'Doherty of grave concerns about Fr Fortune and behaviour with boy scouts that "might even be classified as indecent assault".
Fr Fortune had behaviour problems before and during his seminary days and did not seem able to understand the seriousness of these, the professor concluded.
"I told him of the dangers a vulnerable personality such as his would be exposed to in certain professions, the priesthood and teaching among them," he said in a 1982 letter to the then Bishop of Ferns Dr Donal Herlihy who had referred Fortune for assessment.
However, Bishop Herlihy appointed Fr Fortune as curate of Poulfur parish in Fethard-on-Sea, which even given the limited understanding of child sexual abuse seemed to the Inquiry an "extraordinarily ill-advised decision".
Very quickly there were complaints about youth clubs Fortune set up which were referred to the Papal Nuncio and the Holy See in Rome.
Soon after Bishop Brendan Comiskey was appointed to the Dioceses in 1984 he received further complaints from parishioners detailing a range of problems including "unsupervised parties on the beach at which alcohol, drugs and contraceptives were in use".
Fortune was referred for more psychiatric assessment in the next few years where urgent treatment was prescribed, but the Inquiry said it was difficult to understand how Bishop Comiskey failed to read the warning signals and address himself to the problem of protecting children.
In 1987 Fortune was sent to London where he took a media course and began teaching successfully but did not attend treatment courses required of him.

PSYCHOTHERAPIST
He returned to Ireland in 1988 and attended a psychotherapist but engaged solicitors to block a Canon Law inquiry set up by Bishop Comiskey, but agreed to further assessment in England.
However, the inquiry noted that failure to inform the psychiatrist in London, Dr Christie-Brown, of the child sexual abuse allegations against Fortune was "extremely negligent".
Fortune returned to Ballymurn in Ferns in 1989 and Comiskey said he had put adequate monitoring in place although the Parish Priest Fr Michael McCarthy said he was told nothing about the abuse, which the Inquiry found astonishing.
Although no further allegations of sexual abuse were made from this time, there were complaints from parents about lewd jokes in class and his behaviour on a School Board of Management, but Fr Fortune remained in the Parish until his arrest by gardai in 1995 following a complaint of sexual abuse in the 1980s.
Fr Fortune was charged with 66 offences but after various legal delays committed suicide in March 1999 before they could be heard.
In total the Ferns report details 26 separate cases of sexual abuse by Fr Sean Fortune against specific individuals including rape, masturbation and oral sex.
He frequently molested boys on trips away or in his car and told them it was natural but not to tell anyone as they would not be believed.
The Inquiry concluded that there were inexcusable and dangerous failings in the handling of Fr Sean Fortune's career and the many complaints made against him and if guidelines for priestly training had been followed he would never have been ordained.

Aideen Sheehan
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Pious sentiments ignored den of iniquity.

DONAL Herlihy is the "courteous" bishop unmercifully damned in the Murphy Report for his negligent rule over the diocese of Ferns during two critical decades when he harboured evil priestly child rapists.
He believed in the devout Catholic family as a spiritual machine factory for nurturing a crop of vocations to the celibate priesthood.

STAPLE DIET
Renowned as a classical scholar, admired as an episcopal stylist and a bon viveur of good wines and whiskey, Bishop Herlihy revealingly enunciated his out-of-touch ideological vision at the opening of Vocations Week in 1978
. His sermon was characteristic of the more dully-expressed staple diet of Irish bishops of the 1960s into the 1980s. Literally, in purple prose, Lord Bishop of Ferns defined the family, especially one huddling together nightly to say the Rosary, as "the seed-bed of really excellent vocations".
"If parents can make their homes authentically Christian," he intoned, "and by that I mean places where piety and virtue are cultivated, where children grow up in wisdom and age and grace; where the lifestyle is worship and reverence and prayer, then we will not be talking of diminishing vocations." In his triumphalist vision of a Catholic Ireland he predicted that "we will have an uninterrupted flow of candidates to the priesthood and the religious life."
Even as Bishop Herlihy uttered these pious sentiments, in St Peter's College, the local diocesan seminary under his control, Sean Fortune, a trainee priest and notorious serial-paedophile, was within a year of ordination into the sacred ministry of supposedly life-long celibates. Fortune, who committed suicide rather than face court judgment on 29 charges of sexually abusing boys including Colm O'Gorman, was already satisfying his bestial urges within the hallowed precincts of St Peter's. The "unfit" Fortune was one of those ordained by Bishop Herlihy.
Other named and shamed in the Murphy Report, such as Fr Jim Grennan, Fr Donal Collins and Fr Tom Doyle, were already practised predators of adolescent flesh.
Herlihy's treatment of Collins was symptomatic: after serving his penance in England for two years before being put back on the ecclesiastical promotions ladder, Collins rose to the top as President of St Peter's before being finally caught. Hush-up and send the offender to a new parish was Herlihy's policy. Ironically, in July 1981 the former Rector of the Irish College in Rome, was rewarded for his pastoral stewardship of Ferns by being made a Freeman of Wexford.
"His leadership of the diocese has been particularly positive, enlightened and dignified," the scroll read. Astonishingly, at Herlihy's funeral Mass in April 1983, the then Primate of All Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh, Cardinal Tomas O Fiaich lauded his deceased brother bishop for possessing "the indistinguishable quality of Romanitas to a high degree".
"The ancient city of Wexford had no more cultured scholar on its roll of freemen," O Fiaich enthused. Herlihy was a devoted priest of over 50 years who "helped hundreds of young men on the road to the priesthood".

EPITAPH
In the shadow of the Murphy Report, O Fiaich's eulogy of Herlihy ranks as an epitaph for a highly secretive male clericalist system to which a diffident laity gave absolute obedience, even at the price of feeling that the loftiest honour in life was to have a son inducted into the priesthood.
Despite the professed remorse of today's church leadership in Ireland, the Rome of Pope Benedict XVI as late as last weekend ruled out any change of obligatory celibacy.
Vocations-directors are still peddling Herlihy's vision.
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Suicide note accused bishop of rape.

DETAILS of a suicide letter written by Fr Sean Fortune before he killed himself are sensationally revealed in the Ferns report.
It says that the letter was destroyed by Fr Gerald O'Leary who testified to the inquiry about its contents. According to Fr O'Leary, and an unnamed employee of Fr Fortune who also saw the letter, it condemned all those who accused him of child abuse as "a pack of liars" and accused Bishop Comiskey of being "responsible for all this as he had raped and buggered me". He did not want Bishop Comiskey at his funeral. Fr O'Leary, Dr Comiskey and the inquiry dismissed the allegations contained in the letter as baseless.
The employee told the inquiry that she found the suicide note in Fr Fortune's bedroom after he killed himself on March 13, 1999 while awaiting trial.

David Quinn
Religious Correspondent
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Bishop 'ill-advised' in allowing teacher return to his school.

THE decision to allow Fr Donal Collins to return to his position as teacher at a boarding school was "extremely ill-advised".
Fr Collins was sent to a London parish in 1966 after it was alleged he inspected and measured the penises of up to 20 boys in the dormitory of St Peter's College under the pretext of checking their development.
In his report, Justice Frank Murphy strongly criticised the decision of Bishop Donal Herlihy not to inform diocesan authorities in Westminster of the reason behind the priest's transfer.
Two years later, Bishop Herlihy decided to reinstate Fr Collins, believing that the problem had been solved and that it would be "unfair and vindictive" to pursue the matter further.
Fr Collins remained at the school for another 23 years, during which time he was appointed principal and continued to abuse a number of young boarders. It was within seven months of his being appointed principal in 1989 that Bishop Comiskey received the first allegation of sexual abuse against him.
Clerical witnesses told the inquiry they were not aware of any improper behaviour by Fr Collins until this point. However, past pupils and a lay teacher reported that his continuing behaviour with young boys was well known in the school and it was clear that sexual abuse was occurring.
After initially denying any abuse had taken place, Fr Collins eventually pleaded guilty to four charges of indecent assault and one charge of gross indecency at Wexford Circuit Criminal Court in March 1998. He was sentenced to four years imprisonment on each charge but was released a year later.
Justice Murphy said Bishop Herlihy's decision to allow Fr Collins to return to St Peter's in 1966 was "extremely ill-advised as subsequent events were to prove in a comprehensive and tragic fashion".
He added that while sexual abuse was widely regarded as a moral rather than a medical or social problem at that time, the bishop should still have monitored Fr Collins on his return to Ireland, given the high numbers of alleged victims involved.
"The failure of Bishop Herlihy or those in authority in St Peter's who knew of the 1966 allegations to do so was inadequate and inappropriate even by the standards of the time," he said.
The inquiry heard that at least six priests in the diocese and associated with the school knew of the "troubling rumours" surrounding Fr Collins and the reason for his removal to London, but none voiced their concerns when he was put forward as a candidate for principal.
Following his retirement in 1991, Fr Collins attended a university in Florida, ostensibly for a course of study, but Bishop Comiskey told the inquiry the real purpose was for the priest to seek psychologial counselling.
While in the US, he was attached to a parish where he took part in ministering to the sick.

Breda Heffernan
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Priest began abusing boys when he was still a student.

FATHER James Doyle began abusing young boys in the early 1970s when he was a student and junior member in St Peter's seminary.
In the report, a boy named as "Matthew" said that Doyle returned drunk to the seminary one night and attempted to molest him. It was reported to the Dean, who was said to be "dismissive" of the complaint, and Doyle went on to be ordained.
Another boy, who was four years his junior, alleged he was lying in bed when the senior student came into his cubicle and started to fondle him.
After Doyle was ordained, further complaints were made in the 1970s and '80s from unidentifiable hitchhikers.
One reported it to the Gardai, who did not pursue it after Doyle agreed to seek treatment in Belfast. A year later Doyle attempted to abuse another hitchhiker and the matter was reported to Bishop Herlihy.
In the early 1990s, Doyle sexually assaulted 12-year-old Adam on a visit to the boy's home. The boy's father heard him scream "Stop" and discovered Doyle standing over him. The boy was crouched in the corner with his back to the wall and Doyle had one hand on the boy's crotch and the other on his buttocks.
Bishop Comiskey was informed and he recommended that they bring the boy to their GP. He was aware that any allegations of abuse had to be reported to the Health Board. The Gardai were then contacted and Doyle was charged with indecent assault and common assault. He pleaded guilty and received a three-month suspended sentence. The inquiry concluded that the South Eastern Health Board "acted appropriately" and that a case conference they called set an important precedent.
However, it was critical of the Gardai, who did not keep any notes of the allegations made prior to 1990,despite at least three members of the force being aware of allegations.
It was also critical of the way the diocese dealt with the allegations.
The first allegations of abuse were brought to the attention of Bishop Herlihy in 1980. He sent Doyle to Professor Feichin O'Doherty in 1982 for psychological assessment and it was recommended that he should have a change of role "away from young people". However, Bishop Herlihy, and later Bishop Comiskey, failed to act on Prof O'Doherty's recommendations.
After being accused of abusing Adam, Doyle was given leave of absence and went to Dublin for treatment for alcohol dependency - but not for sex abuse.
Doyle went for further treatment in Birmingham and afterwards began to work as chaplain in a mixed secondary school. Bishop Comiskey said he was "satisfied" as the school knew his full history.
Doyle returned to Ireland and Archbishop Desmond Connell forbade him from "exercising any ministry in the diocese". This included saying Mass and the wearing of clerical dress.
Bishop Eamonn Walsh later issued a precept restricting him from unsupervised access with minors, which the inquiry said was appropriate.
Doyle was defrocked in December 2004.

Edel Kennedy
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New sex offence to become law.

A NEW criminal offence is to be created in response to a recommendation in the Ferns report.
Justice Minister Michael McDowell said last night he would introduce amendments to the Criminal Justice Bill to take account of proposals set out by Mr Justice Frank Murphy.
The report recommends a new offence of engaging in conduct that creates a substantive risk of bodily injury or sexual abuse to a child, or of failing to take reasonable steps to alleviate such risk. It says the implications of this new offence for teachers, childcare workers and other professionals would have to be fully explored.
And the minister promised to examine legal aid provisions to ensure such aid became available to both complainants and priests against whom allegations were made.

Tom Brady
Security Editor
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Prelate repeats apology and asks for forgiveness.

ONCE one of the most high-profile clerics in the country, these days Bishop Brendan Comiskey is virtually invisible.
He no longer has anything to do with the Diocese of Ferns and is living with the Sacred Heart Fathers.
The controversial bishop, who resigned as bishop after the controversy surrounding the BBC documentary 'Suing the Pope', was criticised in the report for his failure to "stand aside from ministry those priests against whom allegations had been made and in respect of whom information was or should have been available to the bishop".
Apostolic Administrator Bishop Eamonn Walsh yesterday said he would not add to what the report said in relation to Dr Comiskey except to say that he accepted what was in it.
"I accept what it says about anybody in it," Dr Walsh said. "Bishop Comiskey is a retired bishop. He resides with his religious order. He may respond today. I understand he has prepared a statement but I have not seen it."
In a statement issued last night, Bishop Comiskey said he welcomed the report. "I would again like to say how sorry I am for my inadequacies and for my failings and ask for forgiveness for them," he said.
He retreated from public view after his resignation.
In his resignation statement, Comiskey said he had done his best to deal with Fr Fortune, who committed suicide in 1999 while on bail facing 29 charges of serious sexual assaults on young boys.

Kathy Donaghy
and Paul Melia
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Diocese considers 'day of atonement'.

A DAY of atonement in the Diocese of Ferns for the horrors committed by priests in the past is being considered, the Irish Independent has learned.
Bishop Eamonn Walsh, Apostolic Administrator of the diocese, last night confirmed he had talked to a number of people about having such a 'day of atonement' in the wake of the explosive Ferns report.
"I would be open to that," Bishop Walsh said, adding he would need to sit down with the victims' groups in the diocese to see what would be the best way to go about it. He said it was a question of timing.
"We have a lot of repairing before we think of doing that. I would like to do it in a way that's compatible with restorative justice."
The bishop said up to eight priests identified in the report had been taken aside by him and removed from ministry - one as recently as this summer.
"As soon as I receive the complaint, the person is asked to stand aside."
From there, the priest concerned is assessed by therapeutic assessment teams. Bishop Walsh said unless they got what he called a "total clearance" where there was a mistaken complaint, they had to find an alternative occupation for the person outside of ministry.

Kathy Donaghy and Paul Melia
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Vatican 'defrocks' Ledwith.

Move for dismissal of former college president carried out last month.
Micheal Ledwith, the former President of St Patrick's College, Maynooth, was last month "defrocked" by the Vatican, the Ferns report reveals.
The report details the allegations of abuse made against Ledwith and the sequence of events which led to his retirement from Maynooth and his eventual dismissal from the priesthood at the request of the acting Bishop of Ferns, Dr Eamonn Walsh.
It details the response of the Hierarchy to the various allegations of abuse, and to more general allegations made by seminarians about Ledwith's "extravagant" lifestyle while at Maynooth.

IGNORED
The most serious allegation against Ledwith was made by a man named "Raymond", who alleged in 1994 that he was abused by Ledwith, starting in the early 1980s when he was 13 and continuing until he was 15. Ledwith strongly denies the allegations.
Raymond said he approached various members of the Hierarchy about his allegations. He said he was sent away by the then Bishop of Limerick, Dr Jeremiah Newman. Following that, he met Cardinal Cahal Daly, who referred him to Bishop Brendan Comiskey.
Bishop Comiskey set up a canonical investigation and had the diocese pay for counselling for him.
Ledwith subsequently reached a financial settlement with Raymond which bound them both to confidentiality. Neither of the two men would discuss the alleged abuse with the inquiry. The reports also details how a second man, Shane, who was a student at Maynooth, claimed in 2000 he was raped by Ledwith in November 1994.
In June 2001, Shane withdrew the allegation and said no rape took place and the sexual encounter was consensual. Ledwith denies ever knowing Shane and denies any sexual encounter took place.
The second category of allegations against Ledwith concerned a claim by six seminarians at Maynooth about his alleged "sexual orientation and propensity". They also thought he showed favouritism towards certain students.
These allegations were brought to Fr Gerard McGinnity as Dean at St Patrick's, who then brought them to Cardinal Tomas O Fiaich, Archbishop Dermot Ryan and Bishop Kevin McNamara, all now dead. The report details the response of the various bishops, including Eamon Casey and Brendan Comiskey, and the inquiry concludes that, in total, the concerns of Fr McGinnity and the seminarians were "inadequately investigated".
It relates how Fr McGinnity went on leave and was then told by Cardinal O Fiaich that he would not be returning to Maynooth. It says the treatment of Fr McGinnity could only act to deter others from making "bona fide" complaints to church authorities.
The report says the inquiry is "satisfied that Cardinal Daly, Bishop Brendan Comiskey and Bishop Walsh acted promptly and effectively in extending support to Raymond and his family".
It also details the circumstances of the departure of Ledwith from Maynooth.

DISMISSED
When Raymond made the allegation against Ledwith in 1994, Bishop Comiskey asked Ledwith to go to America to be assessed at a treatment centre. He did not do so, but Bishop Comiskey set up an inquiry into the allegations.
At this point Ledwith was on leave in the US and Bishop Comiskey wrote to the Bishop of Seattle to inform him of the allegation against Ledwith. However,, under canon law the lapse of time prevented Bishop Comiskey dismissing Ledwith from the priesthood.
In the meantime, the trustees of Maynooth, consisting of senior members of the Hierarchy, conducted their own investigation into the allegations against Ledwith. This was ended when Ledwith retired from St Patrick's College in 1996.
In 2003 Bishop Walsh moved to have Ledwith dismissed from the clerical state, using new fast-track procedures introduced by the Vatican. The dismissal took place this September.

David Quinn
Religious Affairs Correspondent
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Town scarred by scandal wants chance of a fresh start.

WEXFORD Town was yesterday hoping for a fresh beginning, as the sins of the past were aired collectively for the first time.
Old wounds were being revisited, causing great pain to the 100 victims cited in the Ferns report, and to countless others over the four decades of abuse experienced in the diocese.
But there was also a strong resolve that those 21 priests responsible for the crimes against children, and those who helped to cover them up, should face justice.
A shop assistant on the town's Main Street, who asked not to be named, said several of her school friends had experienced the abuse at first hand. She was unwavering in her belief that the perpetrators should be exposed.
"People do care about this report," she said. "They care a lot.
"We all know who the priest is around here who did it, but I don't think he's going to be named in the report. I can't see why not. Everyone knows who he is - what difference does it make if someone from Donegal, who is never going to come here, knows it too?" she asked.
"There's a great feeling that things have been hushed up for too long. People want to see it all come out, so it can be dealt with at last in a proper fashion."
Sister Peter Leech, of the Convent of Perpetual Adoration on Bride Street, said the Church had to accept its failures and build on them to create a better future.
"From this horrendous situation we hope for new life, new hearts, new hope," she said.
"Christ who died on the cross was, at the time in the eyes of humanity, the greatest failure of all time. But from him came the light of the world and the resurrection. We might not look the same but God is still in the Church today."
She added: "We might not be great in hindsight, but in reality we do the best we can. We are hoping now for a new beginning."
The mood was sombre at St Peter's College, the secondary school on the site of the former priests' seminary where many abusers either studied or committed their crimes. It emerged yesterday this included the school's former head, the now defrocked Donal Collins.
Current principal Pat Quigley has prepared his school for the publication of the report over a number of years, but was concerned his modern school should not be stigmatised by the tragedies of the past, some of which dated back to the 1960s.
He expressed his sympathy for the victims and for the families affected, who would have to face their darkest moments once more with the release of the report, but he also expressed his hopes of a fresh start for the school.
Perhaps the biggest indicator of change is the policy statement from the Diocese of Ferns, pinned in a prominent position in the entrance to all Wexford churches.
"The diocese undertakes to do all in its power to create a safe environment for children and to ensure their protection from physical, sexual and emotional abuse."

Helen Bruce
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Sex 'rife' in seminary but paedophile ring unproven.

THE inquiry found no evidence of a paedophile ring in St Peter's College. However, some students and lay members of the college described a "high level of sexual activity both with adults and children".
The majority of the priests investigated attended seminary training in St Peter's, with only a few attending Maynooth College, Kildare.
"It is established that Fr Donal Collins, who was a distinguised teacher in St Peter's from 1964 and who was vice-president from 1983 until 1988 and principal from 1988 to 1991, consistently abused boys over a 20-year period."
Many of the priests linked to the school were to go on and abuse children in parishes in the diocese. Within a random five-year period selected by the inquiry, the investigation team found that 10 priests who were in St Peter's had been accused of sexual abuse.
St Peter's boarding school closed in 1997 and the seminary in 1998. It is now a secondary school for boys. The inquiry emphasised that this report was not a reflection of standards in St Peter's at present.
On the broader issues of seminary admission and training, the report highlights the significant changes that have taken place in recent years.
The problem of unsuitable priests was raised in 1971 in a research paper to the Synod of Bishops in Rome. The Church was also alerted that emotional immaturity was a potential problem among trainee priests in 1976. The response to such studies was slow but rigorous standards are now in place in Maynooth to ensure that only men who are emotionally, intellectually and sexually mature are admitted to ordination.

Gerry Mulligan
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Church 'ashamed' at failure.

PRIESTS who abused children are guilty of an "horrendous betrayal of trust", the Primate of All Ireland, Archbishop Sean Brady said in his response to the Ferns Report.
The Archbishop said he was deeply shocked at the findings, and promised that the Church's updated child protection policy, 'Our Children: Our Church', will be implemented as soon as possible.
A spokesman for the hierarchy confirmed last night that the Vatican has given its approval to the national office which will oversee religious orders, as well as the country's 26 dioceses, and be headed by a lay person with unprecedented powers over the handling of abuse allegations.
Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin said the report has played a vital role in "bringing into the open the detail surrounding years of sexual abuse by priests which caused horrendous damage to so many people and their families. We must do what we can to ensure it never happens again."
He reiterated that since becoming Archbishop of Dublin last year he had "personally commissioned an independent audit of files in Archbishop's House concerning priests so that all relevant information is available to me". And he urged anyone with concerns about anyone working in the Dublin diocese to come forward with information.
In his statement, Archbishop Brady remarked: "I am deeply shocked and saddened by the findings of the inquiry into child sexual abuse by priests in the diocese of Ferns. The revelations make for very uncomfortable reading. The pages retelling the pain experienced by those who suffered, are especially heartbreaking."
He offered his apology to victims of abuse and said that the Church is "ashamed" of its past failure to protect children.
He added: "I apologise to all those people who have suffered lasting hurt at the hands of abusers in the Church. As priests they should have been protecting and nurturing the talents of these young people. The betrayal of trust is horrendous. Today the Church is ashamed of its past failings regarding child protection."

CLOSURE
He continued: "I welcome the publication of the report prepared by Mr Justice Frank Murphy, to which we will give very careful consideration.
"I sincerely hope that its publication will be an important step in helping all those who have suffered so terribly to heal the pain they have experienced and to get the strength to put this awful chapter of their lives behind them.
"The Church stands ready to assist them in any way it can in bringing closure to their trauma and in helping them to rebuild their lives."
Archbishop Brady says he is praying for the abused and their saddened families "that they will be able to achieve healing and peace in their lives".

David Quinn
Religious Affairs Correspondent
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Crocodile tears from politicians now serve only to sting the victims' wounds.

POLITICIANS are queuing up with their ritual denunciations now, but they did nothing to help when the abuse was going on and when their condemnation might have saved a child, or countless children.
So many crocodile tears being shed over the airwaves and across acres of newsprint will have the effect, not of ointment, but of acid in the wounds of those who suffered.
That Wexford's Oireachtas and European Parliament members were given a private preview of the Ferns Inquiry report yesterday was not so much an act of democracy as a slap in the face to those betrayed by their elected representatives' inaction over the long, lonely years.
Even after the edifice began to crumble, when Bishop Comiskey fled to the US in 1995, all the constituency TDs put their names to a pamphlet distributed throughout the county, entitled "Natural Justice", which castigated the media for hounding, what it called, a good man. Not one national politician in the region dissented from the consensus.
"Bishop Comiskey is greatly missed from the diocese at this time," said Avril Doyle, then a junior minister at the Department of the Taoiseach. "His frank and informal statements on ma

MORE CHILD ABUSE REVELATIONS Irish Indo 17/02/06:

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THE PRINCES OF THE CHURCH ARE ON THE RUN. 31/10/05

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Irish Indo 17/02/06: