IRELAND
Irish Independent
SARAH MACDONALD – 03 FEBRUARY 2014
THE bishop who was sent in to pick up the pieces in the Diocese of Ferns following the sensational resignation of Bishop Brendan Comiskey says the disgraced cleric “has a big heart”.
Bishop Eamon Walsh acted as caretaker of Ferns between 2002 and 2006 following Bishop Comiskey’s resignation in the wake of the BBC documentary ‘Suing the Pope’, which lifted the lid on Fr Sean Fortune’s abuse of Colm O’Gorman and others.
He described the former Bishop of Ferns, whose alcoholism and flamboyant lifestyle are believed to have left him incapable of confronting Sean Fortune and other abusive priests, as a man with “a big heart”.
“We always have to look beyond the failings that we all have and look at the bigger picture,” said Bishop Walsh. He was speaking out after Bishop Comiskey broke his decade-long silence in the Irish Independent at the weekend.
Bishop Comiskey practically vanished in recent years but has insisted that he was not in hiding. “I am not hiding. I am living like an ordinary Irish citizen. I am retired,” he said.
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