IRELAND
RTE News
16 December 2004 13:49
A spokesman for the Vatican has confirmed that Pope John Paul II has dismissed two priests of the Ferns Diocese in Co Wexford from the clerical state.
The official in the powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith would not name the two priests concerned, but said they had been convicted by the civil courts of child abuse.
Fr Donal Collins was a given a four-year sentence with three years suspended in 1998 for indecent assault and gross indecency against teenage boys.
In 1990 Fr James Doyle was convicted of indecent assault on a teenage boy and given a suspended sentence of one year.