Monsignor Admits Favouring Priests, Belfast Telegraph, July 13, 2011

Monsignor Admits Favouring Priests

Belfast Telegraph
July 13, 2011

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/republic-of-ireland/monsignor-admits-favouring-priests-16022827.html

Bishop Magee's second-in-command in Cloyne has admitted he sometimes had more concern for abusive priests than their victims

Bishop Magee's second-in-command in Cloyne has admitted he sometimes had more concern for abusive priests than their victims.

Retired Monsignor Denis O'Callaghan said he is deeply sorry for compounding the suffering of survivors of clerical sex attacks.

But in a statement he failed to fully explain why he was drawn to the plight of accused priests rather than the innocent victims.

"I acknowledge and I am sorry that, in responding to the allegations of abuse, I, in some instances, became emotionally and pastorally drawn to the plight of the accused priest, to the detriment of the pastoral response I intended to make to complainants," he said.

Monsignor O'Callaghan was vicar general in Cloyne and according to the inquiry was given a free hand to investigate allegations against priests. This was a failing blamed on John Magee.

He openly admits that he did not support Church policy, adopted in 1996 in the wake of the Brendan Smyth scandal, that all child sex abuse complaints must be reported to health services and gardai.

"I was not convinced that the procedures facilitated the pastoral response, either for complainants or those priests accused," he said.

Monsignor O'Callaghan accepts he was bound by the guidelines to protect children and should not have swayed from them.

He added: "I also do not wish to place the blame on failing to implement the procedures fully on anyone but myself.

"It is important for me to state that I was personally appalled by the abuse that had occurred. To be confronted with the reality of knowing that some of my colleagues abused children is dreadful."