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	Bishop Willie Walsh Defends Role in Handling of Church Inquiry By Dan Keenan and Jamie Smyth Irish Times December 18, 2010 http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/1218/1224285836812.html CHURCH REACTION: THE GARDA knew in 1991 that allegations against Fr Tony Walsh were being investigated by senior clergy, Bishop Willie Walsh has said. He told The Irish Times last night he understood the Garda was investigating the case and he defended his handling of a church inquiry that he chaired into Walsh. The canonical inquiry, which was set up in March 1991, recommended in August 1993 that Walsh be removed from the priesthood. This he described as the most serious action which could be taken against a priest and he was "taken aback" by the subsequent decision by the Vatican to commute the penalty in June 1994. "It was a sad thing that he was allowed to continue to abuse. Even after we brought in the verdict that he be expelled from the priesthood, he continued to abuse," said Bishop Walsh. "There is a sense of shock and sadness and obviously I am very sad for the people who were abused by him. My own role and that of Bishop McAreavey [of Dromore] was in the overall context was a small one, but we did carry out the inquiry with care and diligence and we did impose the strongest possible penalty available to us." Of the Vatican decision, Bishop Walsh said: "Being honest, I was taken aback because we regarded the issue as very, very serious even though we were only aware of a small number of complaints." He continued: "We weren't under any illusions – this person was a paedophile and by expulsion from the priesthood, it wasn't necessarily going to reform him. At least it was removing that privileged access to children." Bishop Walsh confirmed he spoke to a Garda sergeant in August 1991 about Walsh "and while I didn't see it as necessary to go through the details but I would have told the sergeant that we were investigating complaints of child sexual abuse against this man. "At that time I assumed that the guards were au fait with it. I didn't make any formal complaint to the gardaí, I suppose nowadays the first thing if one were asked to do a task like that the first thing one would ask would be: 'Is everything known to this diocese? Has everything been passed on to the gardaí? I wasn't as conscious of that but I was aware of the fact that the gardaí were investigating the case. So it wasn't in any way an attempt to cover up or that sort of thing. . . "The report effectively approves of what we did and we certainly took it very seriously." Earlier, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin praised Cardinal Desmond Connell for fighting very hard to have Walsh removed from the priesthood. "I think it was the right thing to do and I think he was courageous in doing it." But he strongly criticised the church in Ireland for acting "as a world apart". Archbishop Martin also apologised "unreservedly for the hurt caused and for the way the church managed these matters".
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