IRELAND
Irish Independent
[with video]
Bishop Comiskey breaks his silence on Ferns scandal: ‘Church was no worse for abuse than anywhere else’
01 FEBRUARY 2014
THE disgraced former Bishop of Ferns Brendan Comiskey has broken his silence for the first time about the clerical sex abuse scandal that forced his dramatic resignation 12 years ago.
The 79-year-old, who retreated from public life following revelations that he failed to protect children from paedophile priests in his Wexford diocese, told the Irish Independent: “I did my best and it wasn’t good enough and that’s it.”
He said he was part of the “tragic history” of the period and wasn’t going to make excuses for it.
But Bishop Comiskey, a reformed alcoholic who retains the honorary title of Bishop Emeritus, claimed that an “extraordinary amount” of revelations concerning child abuse in the wider Irish society were yet to be exposed.
And he claimed that there was “no more” sexual abuse going on in the Catholic Church than among the rest of the population.
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