LIMERICK (IRELAND)
Extra.ie [Dublin, Ireland]
July 24, 2024
By Anne Sheridan
A priest who was a nephew of disgraced Bishop Eamonn Casey should not have been moved from one diocese to another after he too was accused of child sexual abuse, the Limerick Diocese has confirmed.
The Limerick Diocese received multiple accusations against Fr Michael Donovan, who was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Limerick in 1983 and who was removed from all ministry 12 years later, in 1995.
Three of these accusations were also disclosed to gardaí, and two alleged victims made formal complaints to the Limerick Diocese.
Details of Fr Donovan’s alleged abuse were disclosed in an RTÉ documentary, Bishop Casey’s Buried Secrets, in association with the Irish Mail on Sunday (MoS), on Monday night.
The MoS revealed in 2019 that Fr Donovan was also accused of abusing his sister, Patricia Donovan, who also reported her uncle, Bishop Casey, for alleged child sexual abuse.
Fr Donovan remained out of ministry until his death in 2018, while the documentary also revealed that Bishop Casey was also banned from ministry by the Vatican for at least the last 12 years of his life, until the day he died in 2017.
Following the first complaint made against him in 1990, Fr Donovan was moved to Ennistymon in Co. Clare – a parish which falls under the Galway Diocese – by his uncle, Eamonn Casey, who was then-Bishop of Galway. When Fr Donovan was moved from the diocese of Limerick to Galway in 1995, Dr Jeremiah Newman was then-Bishop of Limerick.
The Limerick Diocese said it had no record of how this appointment was made, adding: ‘It is clear that this appointment would have to have been approved by Bishop Newman.’
The current Bishop of Limerick, Dr Brendan Leahy, also stated: ‘Moving the priest in question under these circumstances was unacceptable and should not have happened.’
Canon lawyer Fr Tom Doyle told the programme: ‘For that [the move] to happen, Casey would have had to cut a deal with the Bishop of Limerick, and I am quite certain that the reason it was cut, was made known to the Bishop of Limerick.’
In 2004, Ms Donovan reported her brother for alleged abuse when she learned that he was teaching English as a foreign language to students in Poland.
Ms Donovan told the documentary of her brother: ‘Michael wasn’t a priest when he abused me…. Michael was extraordinarily violent. There were no niceties with Michael, you know. It was like I was his possession. It horrified me to find out that he was teaching English as a foreign language in Poland.
‘I was thinking that, actually, was there nobody going to do anything to stop him in the Church?’ In 1990, the Limerick Diocese was informed by gardaí that Fr Donovan was involved in what was described as inappropriate conduct with a child.
The altar boy was allegedly sexually abused in Limerick in 1989, when he was aged 12. This first accusation against Fr Donovan resulted in a settlement of £30,000, the Limerick Leader reported at that time.
In 2011, the diocese was contacted by a relative of an adult about a concern that there may have been a historical incident involving Fr Donovan with that person as a child. No complaint was made but the diocese reported this matter to the gardaí.
After the MoS article in 2019, which exposed the allegations against both Bishop Casey and Fr Donovan, the diocese was again contacted about Fr Donovan.
A spokesperson said: ‘The diocese received a query from a statutory authority regarding Fr Donovan’s status. We informed them that he was recently deceased. The query appears to have been in the context of another historical complaint. The diocese has not received any complaint about this matter.’ A spokesperson for the Limerick Diocese said they contacted the local bishop in Poland and from 2011 ‘regular contact was established with him and we were aware of where he resided from then until his death in 2018’.
While there were five allegations of child sexual abuse against Bishop Casey, he was also never charged or convicted of any crime. Ms Donovan reported her allegations against her brother to police in the UK in July 2004, and to gardaí, in September 2004.
Files obtained by the MoS detail that a former Bishop of Limerick, Donal Murray, had forbidden Fr Donovan from presenting himself as a priest in his diocese.
The Diocese of Galway, Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora previously confirmed no complaints involving Fr Donovan concerning the safeguarding of children or vulnerable adults were ever made directly to their diocese. ‘On 19th November 1995, Fr Donovan was stepped aside from ministry by Bishop James McLoughlin. Fr Donovan returned immediately to Limerick and never again ministered in this diocese.
‘While at all times honouring the wishes of survivors of abuse, [then] Bishop Brendan Kelly, Bishop of GK&K, offers to meet with any person who has suffered abuse by clergy or others.’
Fr Donovan was based in Limerick from 1983 to 1990, then for a period in Ennistymon, Co. Clare, and then in Galway from 1990 to 1995, at the Church of the Resurrection and at St Patrick’s Church. After his death, no death notice was ever published.
In November 1995, then-Bishop of Galway Dr James McLoughlin announced the removal of Fr Donovan at Mass, and Bishop McLoughlin said that the Church did not provide funds for the damages. The Limerick Diocese has now confirmed that it paid those damages.
The matter was raised in the Dáil in 1995, with calls for an inquiry as to why there was no prosecution by the DPP