The Irish Times – Monday, January 18, 2010

PATSY McGARRY Religious Affairs Correspondent

THE FIRST person in Ireland to have gone public – in 1995 – about his abuse by a Catholic priest has formally left the Catholic Church.

Andrew Madden, who was abused when an altar boy in Cabra parish in Dublin by Ivan Payne, wrote to the Dublin archdiocese before Christmas saying he wished to leave the Church. He received notice of his “cessation of church membership by formal act of defection. . .” from church authorities last week.

He also received a letter, dated January 11th, from Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin expressing sadness at the decision to leave and saying it made him wonder whether the church could learn from it.

In a response to Archbishop Martin at the weekend, Mr Madden said that following publication of the Murphy report, he was “appalled, as I believe you may have been, by the behaviour of your fellow bishops as they did everything to try and hold onto office, four of them failing”.

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By MAEVE SHEEHAN
The Sunday Independent, Sunday January 17 2010

GARDAI (Irish Police) have stepped up an investigation into whether members of the
force or the clergy broke the law in protecting child sexual abusers.

A dedicated team of detectives working under an assistant garda
commissioner, John O’Mahony, is preparing to interview up to
half-a-dozen members of the force whose actions were criticised in Judge
Yvonne Murphy’s report on child abuse in the Dublin archdiocese. It is
understood that some individuals have already been interviewed but it is
not clear whether these are priests or former members of the force.

The report is not only focusing on gardai but also on the actions of
priests and clergy to see if there is evidence that they failed to act
in relation to a criminal act.

Those who are expected to be interviewed include the retired Cardinal
Desmond Connell and the retired chief superintendents Maurice O’Connor
and Joe McGovern. There have already been calls from victims groups that
Cardinal Connell be prosecuted.

Mr O’Connor was criticised in the report for having “inappropriate
dealings” with Bishop James Kavanagh, at a time when the paedophile Fr
Bill Carney, was investigated for indecent assault. The report found
that Bishop Kavanagh tried to influence the investigation but was
unsuccessful. Fr Carney was convicted because “lower-ranking gardai had
done their job properly”. The report said Chief Superintendent O’Connor
could not take credit for that.

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The Irish Times – Saturday, January 9, 2010

PATSY McGARRY Religious Affairs Correspondent

BISHOP OF Galway Martin Drennan has been criticised by abuse victim Andrew Madden for not responding to a request from him to meet people from Dublin’s Catholic archdiocese who were sexually abused by priests there.

Bishop Drennan was an auxiliary bishop of Dublin from 1997 to 2005. Mr Madden also accused the bishop of “arrogance” and of “being out of touch with reality” because of his refusal to answer any further questions on the Murphy report.

Meanwhile, moral theologian Fr Seán Fagan has said “it is not enough for Church leaders who discussed these problems in their monthly meetings for years to claim that they were not criticised by the Murphy report.”

He said: “God’s holy people who ARE the Catholic church find it hard to understand how they could preach the Gospel throughout their lives and never have the courage to say no to this massive collective blindness.”

Speaking last night Andrew Madden said of Bishop Drennan: “It is a measure of the man that he will meet priests in his diocese but has yet to respond to my invitation to him to meet Dublin victims of abuse. I e-mailed him on December 27th about such a meeting and he has not even responded.”

In a statement to the media on December 27th last, Mr Madden said: “Bishop Drennan advises against anger and adds insult to injury when he describes our calls for accountability as vengeful.

“He says he met with 60 priests from the Diocese of Galway and seems to enjoy their full support. I have today e-mailed the bishop and asked him to formally invite 60 victims of sexual abuse by priests in Dublin to come and meet him in Galway . . .”

Should Bishop Drennan remain on, Mr Madden said that it was his intention to make representations to the Government, when calling on it to extend the remit of the Murphy commission to other Catholic dioceses in Ireland, that it abandon the representative sample method.

Instead all allegations of abuse should be examined, he said. In employing the representative sample method in Dublin, the Murphy commission was attempting to establish the systems, structures and practices in the archdiocese which facilitated the abuse of children, he said.
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The Irish Times – Tuesday, January 5, 2010
PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

CALLS FOR the resignation of the Bishop of Galway, Martin Drennan, “are unfounded”, a former professor of moral theology at St Patrick’s College Maynooth has said.

Rev Dr Vincent Twomey also said: “If I was in any way guilty of inciting such calls, I am sincerely sorry and ask forgiveness.”

In a letter to The Irish Times today Fr Twomey says: “Since I am on record as calling for the resignation of the bishops mentioned in the Murphy report (December 3rd, 2009), I should have expressly excluded Dr Martin Drennan.”

He continues: “The present Bishop of Galway was not found guilty of either negligence or cover-up by the Murphy commission. The one substantial reference to Bishop Drennan in the report (51.1-51.2) indicates that, when he was auxiliary in Dublin, he acted appropriately in the case in question.

“The report itself concludes that ‘The archbishop acted correctly in immediately addressing the concerns and suspicions in this case.’ This amounts, if I am correct, to a recommendation of Bishop Drennan’s initial response with regard to a young priest acting suspiciously with young males.”

Meanwhile, an online petition calling for the resignations of people named in the Murphy report was said to be “going well, but slow” yesterday. Dublin Catholic social activist Brendan Butler launched the petition last week.

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The Irish Times – Saturday, January 2, 2010

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

INTERVIEW: Bishop Martin Drennan responds to questions concerning his time in the Dublin Archdiocese

BISHOP MARTIN Drennan of Galway replied yesterday to four questions posed to him by this newspaper last Tuesday concerning the handling of allegations of child sex abuse made against the late Fr Noel Reynolds.

The allegations were made to the archdiocese after Bishop Drennan was ordained an Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin in September 1997 and also affected his areas of responsibility in the archdiocese, which were south Dublin and north Wicklow.

The questions and responses follow.

Was he aware of information available to the archdiocese about Fr Reynolds while he was chaplain at the National Rehabilitation Institute in Dún Laoghaire up to July 1998 and which was located within his area of the archdiocese? If so did he do anything about this?

Was he aware of the meeting attended by priests* of his own area of the archdiocese concerning Fr Reynolds? If so, did he do anything relevant following that meeting?

“What the report says is that priests in all the places where Fr Reynolds worked were brought together (cf 35.43), not all the priests of my area of responsibility. They were told about the allegations against Fr Reynolds. I did not attend that meeting, but I did have a meeting with the then parish priest of Glendalough, because of the implications for a parish and especially for a school in my area and because of the possibility of other victims coming forward.”

*The reference in the question is to priests of Glendalough parish.

Was he aware of the legal stance* adopted by the archdiocese against Martha and Mary after they initiated legal action in 2001? If so, did he do anything about it?

“I was not aware of the legal stance taken . . . The Murphy report draws attention to breakdown in communication in the archdiocese. At the time of my appointment, I was not furnished with information concerning priests working in my pastoral area.

“During the period covered by the Murphy report, when I was an auxiliary bishop in the archdiocese, the Archbishop made all major decisions, which was his responsibility by virtue of his office.”

*In opposing a legal action by Martha and Mary the archdiocese argued that, as it was not a legal entity, no claims could be made against it where allegations of abuse by Fr Reynolds of Martha and Mary were concerned. It denied it was the priest’s employer or had any supervisory role in relation to him. It claimed Cardinal Connell was not responsible in law for any alleged wrongdoings by the priest. It said the wrongs alleged against Fr Reynolds were criminal acts and were not a part of his duties.

The Irish Times – Wednesday, December 30, 2009

PATSY McGARRY Religious Affairs Correspondent

THE AUGUSTINIAN priest who walked in atonement from Cobh to Dublin for clerical child sex abuse victims a year ago says the Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan “must have known something” about the the handling of clerical child sex abuse allegations in Dublin while there as auxiliary bishop between 1997 and 2005.

Beginning his walk on December 29th last year, Fr Michael Mernagh said he believed the Bishop of Cloyne Dr John Magee should step down after it emerged weeks earlier that child-protection measures in the diocese were “inadequate, even dangerous.”

This was revealed in a report by a Catholic agency, the National Board for Safeguarding Children.

Since then Dr Magee has stood down from governance in the diocese, which is currently being investigated by the Murphy commission.

Fr Mernagh maintained a three- day vigil outside St Colman’s Cathedral in Cobh, seat of Dr Magee, over Christmas 2008 in protest at the revelations.

He ended his 300km walk at Dublin’s Pro Cathedral on January 6th last, where he was applauded by a waiting crowd and embraced by Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin.

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By JOHN COONEY

Tuesday December 29 2009

AT a Mass in Dublin’s St Michan’s Church marking the opening of the law term, in October 2000, a Catholic bishop ascended the high moral ground in his sermon to the legal and judicial luminaries when he lambasted the British media tactic of “naming and shaming” convicted offenders.

This lamentable practice “has had frightening consequences”, intoned the bishop to an audience which would have included Frank ‘Ferns’ Murphy, Sean ‘Industrial schools’ Ryan and Yvonne ‘Dublin’ Murphy, all three shortly to become immortalised for “naming and shaming” archbishops, auxiliary bishops and religious superiors who covered up heinous crimes against innocent children by paedophile priests.

That day’s preacher-bishop was an Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin, Dr Martin Drennan, who nine years later as Bishop of Galway was named in the archdiocese of Dublin report but remains unashamed and unmoved by the appeals of victims Andrew Madden and Marie Collins to step down.

The Kilkenny-born bishop has gone into hiding leaving behind his spokesman to say that he did no wrong and that he was not criticised by Judge Yvonne Murphy for referring for treatment a priest, named as ‘Father Guido’, who had a passion for taking photographs of naked adolescents, especially rugby players.

Not mentioned by the Galway spokesman is that further investigation by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin led to this cleric’s departure from the priesthood. The fact that Archbishop Martin included Bishop Drennan in his call for examination of consciences speaks volumes.

Before leaving his mansion on Galway’s plush Taylor’s Hill, Bishop Drennan had ample time to take to heart the words in the resignation statement of the Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, Jim Moriarty, that “from the time I became an auxiliary bishop, I should have challenged the prevailing culture” of cover-ups prevailing in the archdiocese of Dublin from January 1, 1975 to April 30, 2004.

Where and when during his eight-year stint in Dublin from 1997 to 2005 is Bishop Drennan on the public record as speaking out to challenge that system of cover-up which was embedded under the equivocating authority of Cardinal Desmond Connell? Please supply chapter and verse, Bishop Drennan, if your conscience is as undisturbed as you claim.

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The Irish Times – Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Martin Drennan was auxiliary bishop in Dublin when one of the worst abuse cases came to light. Did he know about it? If so, what did he do, asks PATSY McGARRY

ALLEGATIONS OF serious sexual abuse against a priest were brought to the attention of Dublin’s Catholic archdiocese by two sisters in 1998 during Bishop Martin Drennan’s tenure as auxiliary bishop there. The bishop was ordained auxiliary on September 21st, 1997, and remained in Dublin until installed as Bishop of Galway on July 3rd, 2005.

The sisters, called “Martha” and “Mary” here to protect their identities, spoke to this reporter in June 2003. In February 1998, their mother went to the chancellor of the archdiocese, Msgr John Dolan, to report the abuse of one of her daughters by Fr Noel Reynolds 20 years previously when he was based in Kilmore Road parish in Dublin’s north city.

He was curate there from 1969 to 1978. She did not name him, nor was she asked to. She was told that, as her daughter was an adult, then it was she who would have to make the complaint. The mother was pessimistic about this happening due to the circumstances of her daughter’s life. Nothing was done.

Later in 1998, a nun who was a social worker at a drug treatment centre contacted Mgr Dolan to say a woman being treated there alleged she had been abused by Fr Reynolds when she was nine. The nun named the priest.

She also expressed concern about Fr Reynolds being chaplain then at the National Rehabilitation Institute, where there were children. Cardinal Connell was told of this in May 1998. Fr Reynolds was removed from the National Rehabilitation Institute in July 1998. The hospital was not told why.

Fr Reynolds had been appointed to the institute in July 1997.

In May 1997, two months before Fr Reynolds’s appointment at the institute, church authorities in Dublin were told by Dr Patrick Walsh of the Granada Institute that Fr Reynolds “should not be involved in non-structured or informal interactions with children . . .” There were 94 patients under 18 while he was at the institute.

(The Murphy report said Fr Reynolds admitted in March 1996 to then chancellor Msgr Alex Stenson that he was sexually attracted to children.)

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The Irish Times – Tuesday, December 29, 2009
PATSY McGARRY Religious Affairs Correspondent

THE “HONOURABLE thing for the Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan to do is to resign,” Maeve Lewis, chief executive with the One in Four group, has said.

Calls have been made for the bishop’s resignation also through newly-launched online and Facebook petitions.

Ms Lewis said that the bishop “has to take collective responsibility”.

She asked: “How many children were abused in Dublin between 1997 and 2005 when he was in a position of authority?”

She said:

“It will be immeasurably damaging to both survivors and the Catholic Church if this process is dragged out indefinitely. We call on all concerned to provide real moral leadership by finding the courage to acknowledge responsibility for their actions and inactions and to resign immediately.”

At this Christmas time, she called on “members of the Catholic Church to stand up for the survivors of clerical abuse and to find ways, either individually or as congregations, to convey your feelings to the leadership of the church”. Reflecting on 2009, she described it as “a terrible year for Ireland.

The Ryan report and the Murphy report have revealed a horrifying world where vulnerable children were tortured and abused. The children were not invisible, but many people stood aside and failed to intervene.

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The Irish Times – Monday, December 28, 2009

OPINION: Martin Drennan is the last bishop standing of all those who served in Dublin during the intensive cover-up of clerical child sex abuse, writes MARY RAFTERY

THE STRONGEST impression one gets of Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan these days is of someone who has lived a life blissfully disconnected from reality.

He, of course, is the last bishop standing of all those who served in Dublin during the period of intensive cover-up of clerical child sexual abuse discovered by the Murphy commission.

The bishop believes himself to be different from all the others mentioned in the report, as he alone was not asked to give evidence to the commission. This he appears to equate to some form of vindication.

He has further stated on radio that he believes that as his appointment as bishop in 1997 post-dates the watershed publication of guidelines on clerical child abuse cases, known variously as the “1996 Framework Document” or the “Green Book”, his time in Dublin was entirely blameless.

In this context, Bishop Drennan stated last week that “in 1995 the Dublin diocese decided on a policy of reporting all allegations to the Gardaí”. He added that from 1996 onwards “all allegations were reported to the HSE and the Gardaí.” This is an extraordinary statement. For example, we know from the Murphy report that in 1995, the names of “at least 12 priests” against whom complaints of child abuse had been made were withheld from the Garda by the Dublin archdiocese. At that time, Archbishop Desmond Connell provided the Garda with details of only 17 of the priests against whom complaints had been made.

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