BishopAccountability.org
	Monsignor Admits: 'I Failed Abuse Victims The Corkman July 14, 2011 http://www.corkman.ie/news/monsignor-admits-i-failed-abuse-victims-2821932.html AFTER months of speculation the long awaited Cloyne report was finally released on Wednesday and as expected pulled few punches in its criticism of the way complaints of abuse against priests within the diocese were handled. The 400-page report was commissioned in 2009 and focused on the handling of abuse alledgations within the Cloyne diocese between January 1996 and February 2009. Mallow based Monsignor Denis O'Callaghan featured strongly in the report. The commission said that Mons O'Callaghan had failed to understand that the requirement to report complaints against clergy was for the protection of other children, and he did not notify of complaints against deceased priests until May 2003. The report added that Bishop Magee appointed Mgr O'Callaghan in charge of child protection measures unsupervised. In a statement issued by Mons O'Callaghan through a public relations company, he said that as the diocesan delegate for almost all of the period under review, he accepted his primary role in this failure of implementation. The 26-chapter report handles the allegations against 19 different priests - one of those being the former Bishop of Cloyne John Magee who now resides in Mitchelstown. The report said that there were concerns regarding the Bishop's interaction with a 17-year-old boy. According to the report, the teenager said the Bishop "declared that he loved him and told him that he had dreamt about him". The report also found that Bishop Magee took "little or no interest" in the management of clerical abuse cases until 2008, fully 23 years after the framework document on child sexual abuse was agreed by the Irish Bishops Conference. It also found that the primary responsibility for the failure to implement agreed child sexual abuse procedures lies with Bishop Magee. The report said that that between 1995 and 2005 there were 15 complaints against nine clergy in the diocese, which "very clearly" should have been reported, however nine were not. The report was complimentary about the role of the gardai, although it did raise concern about the force's approach in three cases.
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