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Allegations of a gay subculture rock Maynooth, Ireland’s top seminary
By Dara Kelly
Ireland’s national seminary, St. Patrick's College in Maynooth, has strongly denied its president’s just announced sabbatical is in any way connected to recent anonymous claims of a gay subculture in the Catholic seminary. A statement published on the college's website last week that said Monsignor Hugh Connolly “has advised the staff of his plans to take sabbatical leave for the academic year 2016-2017,” raised eyebrows because it coincides with the last year of his tenure as president of the national seminary, which currently has more than 60 men studying for the priesthood. The statement continued, explaining that Connolly would remain as president until the completion of his term in the summer of 2017 and he would continue to exercise certain administrative duties throughout the year. Connolly’s departure comes in the wake of controversial allegations made about life in the seminary. The Irish Catholic reported that an anonymous source had claimed in a letter to college authorities last year that some seminarians had been guilty of misconduct of a homosexual nature. College authorities indicated that they could not act on allegations made by someone who would not publicly support them, however. Meanwhile a number of student priests were reportedly asked to take time out of the seminary studies last year because they were judged to be “too conservative” even for the buttoned down atmosphere of the seminary, an allegation college authorities have denied. Maynooth vice-president Father Michael Mullaney will reportedly serve as acting-president and assume day-to-day responsibility for running the college in the interim. Bishop Pat Buckley, an outspoken rebel cleric who was excommunicated in 1998, told the press that the timing of Connolly’s departure tells a story in itself. "This sabbatical comes as the Maynooth gay scandal rages,” he told the press. "Why not finish the last year of his term and then take the sabbatical at the natural juncture of leaving the presidency and going back to teach?" Buckley, who is openly gay, compared the departure of Connolly with a recent story in The Irish Catholic, which said a letter making allegations of inappropriate behavior by some seminarians in Maynooth had been sent to the Irish bishops and that St. Patrick's College was investigating the matter. In his blog, Bishop Buckley claimed the national seminary in Maynooth, like the Irish College in Rome, "have been in deep trouble for decades - mainly due to the homosexual subculture that exists in both places.” Buckley has railed against what he calls the hypocrisy of the church’s public teachings on the issue, considering what some of its clerics do in private. “Other priests have married women or entered civil partnerships with men. But they’d all left the church beforehand – none continued with their ministry. I’ve been battling against the Catholic church as an institution for 25 years. I’m old and wise enough not to lose sleep worrying over what the hierarchy thinks,” he previously told The Sunday Tribune. A previous head of the Maynooth seminary, Monsignor Michael Ledwith, resigned in 1994 six months before his term of office was due to end. Allegations of the sexual abuse of a minor male were made shortly after his resignation. The Ferns Report, an official Irish government inquiry into the allegations of clerical sexual abuse, was highly critical of Ledwith's behavior after the allegations came to light, stating that "as with many other priests accused of child abuse" Ledwith "attacked the (legal) process rather than facing any charges.”
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