IRELAND
New Ross Echo
The Vatican never, at any time, directly intervened in the affairs of the Diocese of Ferns whilst it operated under the aegis of Bishops Donal Herlihy and Brendan Comiskey, a former professor of Canon Law this week stated.
And the reason it didn’t is because Rome knew nothing of the allegations of abuse surfacing in Ferns.
Speaking on Thursday, Monsignor Maurice Dooley told The Echo that the structure of the Church is such that each diocese acts as an independent republic, whose head, the bishop, seldom, if ever, consults with Rome over problems arising in his diocese.
A former representative of the Pope on the Bioethics Committee of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, Monsignor Maurice Dooley lectured on Canon Law at St. Patrick’s College in Thurles prior to being made parish priest of Loughmore in 1992.