Comments by Former Fernsbishop Anger Abuse Victims
Irish Independent
April 18, 2006
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?
ca=9&si=1599737&issue_id=13930
DISGRACED Bishop Brendan Comiskey yesterday emerged from the shadows for his first public appearance since the publication of the damning Ferns Report and declared he has found peace.
Speaking to the Irish Independent three years after resigning over his inadequate handling of clerical child sex abuse scandals in Ferns, he said: "I have found peace with myself. I feel fulfilled."
The former Bishop of Ferns was severely criticised in last October's Ferns Inquiry for his handling of notorious paedophiles such as the disgraced and deceased clerics Sean Fortune and Jim Grennan.
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Bishop Comiskey with actor John McArdle after the funeral mass for Dr Peter Kavanagh at Inishkeen, Co Monaghan yesterday. Photo by the Martin Nolan |
Victims of clerical sex abuse last night gave a mixed reaction to the retired bishop's claim of a new state of mind and spirit.
Colm O'Gorman, head of the One-in-Four group, said Bishop Comiskey would have to live with his own conscience.
"Brendan Comiskey is no longer a bishop and has no particular role to play any more. He came out of the report badly but he has to learn to live with that in his own conscience.
"And if he has, then that's a matter for him," he told the Irish Independent.
But John Kelly, head of Survivors of Child Abuse (Soca), said he was "astonished" Bishop Comiskey could find peace without explaining his actions to victims of abuse in Ferns.
"I think it's astonishing that this man, who was effectively on the run with questions to answer, has evaded all those questions.
"It's deeply offensive for him not to explain his actions to the victims at least. He is at peace? All I can say to that is that he may well be at peace but the numerous victims of clerical sex abuse are not at peace.
"For all of them, they can never be at peace.
"It's appalling for him to come out and say that he is at peace when victims have a life sentence."
Abuse survivor Andrew Madden added: "If I was the bishop referred to in the Ferns Report, I certainly wouldn't be at peace with myself four months later. I would be in a state of emotional, spiritual and personal turmoil over my record of handling allegations of sex abuse against my priests.
"It's good for him that he can be at peace while the victims have no sense of justice."
Bishop Comiskey, who is originally from Co Monaghan, made the comments after preaching at the funeral Mass of his long-time personal friend, Peter Kavanagh, the younger brother of poet Patrick.
It was the first public appearance covered by the media of the 70-year-old since his controversial standing-down as bishop of the scandal-ridden diocese of Ferns in 2002.
After the ceremony, the reformed alcoholic, who is now counselling alcoholics in Dublin, said: "I am doing well. But I am not talking."
But as he was about to be driven away by family friends in a blue Mercedes car, he turned back and added: "I am as much at peace as I am going to find in this world."
The publication of the Ferns report had left a shadow hanging over Bishop Comiskey after former Supreme Court Judge Frank Murphy found his investigations into sexual abuse allegations against priests were "an inappropriate and inadequate response".
The report concluded he "failed to recognise the paramount need to protect children, as a matter of urgency, from potential abusers".
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