Comiskey now being unfairly scapegoated, says victim

One of the four men who spoke of his abuse by Fr Sean Fortune on the BBC's Suing the Pope programme, which led to the Ferns Inquiry, said yesterday that he believed Bishop Brendan Comiskey was being unfairly scapegoated.

Speaking after Mass at Rowe St Church in Wexford yesterday, Pat Jackman said he had been reading the relevant sections of the Ferns Inquiry report and had concluded Bishop Comiskey could not have done much more at the time.

Mr Jackman is a member of the church choir which performed at the Mass yesterday.

There was also a question of forgiveness involved, he said. He had forgiven Bishop Comiskey and he felt others should now do so too.

People leaving the (opera) festival thanksgiving Mass, at which there was standing room only, were reflective.

Labour councillor David Hynes felt there should now be a State inquiry into what went on in every diocese.

Liz Foley from High Street said she had separated out her faith from the institution and had tried to persuade her three grown-up daughters to do the same.

"The priests are only God's shop attendants," she said.

Patricia Murphy from Dublin felt the entire business was "very sad" and that enforced celibacy was a problem as a way of life.

Albert Murphy from Killinalick believed Bishop Eamonn Walsh was "110 per cent a gentleman. No one else could have done the job he has done [ in Ferns]".

Fr Jim Fegan, administrator to Rowe St church, said "people have been wonderful, ringing up to know were we alright".

He and they had acknowledged the nettle had to be grasped and it had been grasped, he said.

Fr Fegan recalled the lump in the throat at 10 o'clock Mass yesterday as he read the bishop's pastoral letter when he came to the lines on how the priesthood had been sullied by the actions of some.

"That's my profession. It was like a punch in the gut," he said. And "the horror stories in the report. To read it and to think other priests went out and did this . . ."

In his homily yesterday Bishop Walsh spoke of how the gospel reading, chosen for the first festival mass in 1965, was "so relevant for today".

In it Jesus is addressing the people about the scribes and Pharisees:

". . .do not be guided by what they do: since they do not practice what they preach.

"They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men's shoulders, but will they lift a finger to move them? Not they! Everything they do is to attract attention, like wearing broader phylacteries and longer tassels, like wanting to take the place of honour at banquets and the front seats in the synagogues, being greeted obsequiously in the market squares and having people call them Rabbi.

"You, however, must not allow yourselves to be called Rabbi, since you have only one Master, and you are all brothers.

"You must call no one on earth your father, since you only have one Father, and he is in heaven . . . The greatest among you must be your servant.

"Anyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and anyone who humbles himself will be exalted."