Bishops sorry for failure to investigate complaints of abuse

A report commissioned by the 17 bishops/trustees at St Patrick's College, Maynooth into events there in 1983 and 1984 found it "very difficult to reconcile" accounts given by Bishop Eamonn Casey and Bishop Brendan Comiskey "with the almost complete lack of knowledge of these events on the part of the other bishops".

On foot of the report by Denis McCullough SC, the Catholic primate Archbishop Seán Brady and the other trustee bishops at the college yesterday apologised to Fr Gerard McGinnity, a former senior dean at the college, and a group of former seminarians there. They did so for their (the bishops) failure to properly investigate the complaints about then college vice-president Monsignor Micheal Ledwith.

Instead, it was arranged that Fr McGinnity be removed as senior dean and attempts were made to have the seminarians stopped from proceeding to the diaconate, a step towards full priestly ordination. This effort was successfully resisted by Fr McGinnity before his departure.

Mgr Ledwith became president at the college in 1985. In 1994, he left the post unexpectedly. In June 2002, the college trustees confirmed that he had made confidential settlements with two former seminarians, in 1995 and 2000, following allegations of sexual abuse which Mgr Ledwith continued to deny.

In June 2002, the college trustees employed Mr McCullough SC to investigate "media reports that complaints were made alleging sexual harassment of junior seminarians at the college in the early 1980s and that the complaints did not receive a proper response." His findings were published yesterday.

He concluded that, whereas all parties to whom he spoke agreed there were no complaints made by the seminarians themselves to bishops about sexual harassment by Mgr Ledwith of seminarians at Maynooth College, there had been "concerns of apparent propensities rather than accusations of actual crime or specific offences" conveyed to a number of bishops by Fr McGinnity.

In preparing his report, Mr McCullough contacted seven former seminarians, four still priests, and five of whom co-operated with him. Fr McGinnity declined to do so. He also interviewed Cardinal Cahal Daly, Bishop Edward Daly, Bishop Colm O'Reilly, Archbishop Joseph Cassidy, Bishop Eamonn Casey, Bishop Brendan Comiskey, former college president Mgr Michael Olden, and Mgr Ledwith.

Mr McCullough found it "very difficult to reconcile the accounts given to me by Bishop Casey and Bishop Comiskey with the almost complete lack of knowledge of these events on the part of the other bishops to whom I spoke". He found the investigation by Bishop Casey into Fr McGinnity's complaints "abrupt and truncated".

Yesterday, Archbishop Brady said the Maynooth trustees accepted the report and the trustees were satisfied that Fr McGinnity and the former seminarians acted in good faith. They further regretted any hurt suffered.

Last night Fr McGinnity said he would "wait and see what the Church will do. It is easy to utter words, but when you've been ousted from your position and for 20 years are denigrated as a result, how can a few words melt away the incalculable damage suffered?"

Mr McCullough's report is available at www.maynoothcollege.ie under "press releases".