As many as 100 people are expected to demonstrate outside the Armagh residence of Catholic primate Archbishop Seán Brady from noon tomorrow at the ill-treatment of priests who suffered for trying to alert bishops to concerns about clerical sex abuse.
An ad-hoc group of members of rosary and prayer groups around the country are angry at the treatment of Fr Gerard McGinnity and other whistleblower priests who were banished for trying to alert the bishops to concerns about abuse.
Speaking to The Irish Times from Mullingar last night, Sarah Anne McGivney said: "The bishops have to be accountable for their treatment of good priests." Fr McGinnity "had been victimised and was entitled to have his position back. He was put through hell for 20 years and has suffered an awful lot. There are other priests too," she said.
In 1984 Fr McGinnity, then senior dean at St Patrick's College, Maynooth, contacted the college bishop/trustees to express concern about the then vice-president of the college, Mgr Micheál Ledwith. He did so following representations to him by six senior seminarians.
Fr McGinnity was persuaded by the bishops to take a sabbatical year and was later posted as curate to a rural parish in the Armagh diocese before being appointed dean of discipline at St Patrick's Grammar School, Armagh, where he was for 10 years. He is currently parish priest in Knockbridge, Co Louth.
In 1985 Mgr Ledwith became president of Maynooth, a position he held until June 1995. In 2002 the college bishop/trustees confirmed his departure followed an allegation of sexual abuse against a minor. There was a subsequent allegation in 2000.