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.
Continue reading »
