Bishop Lashes Out Over Treatment

Bishop Dermot O'Mahony has lashed out over the treatment by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of the priests and bishops mentioned in the shocking Murphy Commission Report.

The Irish Catholic news paper reported this morning that in letters of correspondence between members of the Council of Priests on December 30, Bishop O'Mahony, a retired auxiliary bishop mentioned throughout the Murphy Report, outlined a number of criticisms of the archbishop.

Amongst the letters Bishop O'Mahony complained that Archbishop Martin had done nothing to defend the clergy against accusations contained within the report into sexual abuse that the "majority of clergy knew and did nothing."

Bishop O'Mahony also revealed he told the archbishop at a meeting of the Diocesan Council on November 30 that his criticisms and full acceptance of the reports findings were unfair.

"You were out of the diocese for 31 years and had no idea how traumatic it was for those of us who had to deal with allegations without protocols or guidelines or experience in the matter of child sexual abuse," Bishop O'Mahony said at the time.

The former Bishop had also been implicated in an RTÉ Prime Time and Star Newspaper investigation in 1997 looking into Fr Ivan Payne who was working under the Bishops charge in the Dublin Archdiocese.

Father Payne was later convicted at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on January 26, 1998 of 14 sample charges of sexually abusing eight boys aged between 11 and 14 years old between 1968 and 1987.

Bishop O'Mahony was accused of avoiding contact with Gardaí and the investigating programmes. However, at the time of the original revelations, the Bishop claimed he was in the US convalescing from heart surgery.

In response to the allegations the then Bishop said: "I wish to state that I was unable to speak to the Gardai during their investigation of the Ivan Payne case because I was convalescing in the USA after a serious illness. The Gardai did make an attempt to contact me on numerous occasions but an equivalent number of unsuccessful attempts at contact was made by my office.

"When my secretary finally spoke to Detective Sergeant Sherry, she explained the difficulty of my illness to him. Detective Sergeant Sherry kindly said that he would speak to the DPP and explain my present unavailability. He also said that he would let her know the outcome of this consultation. But there was no further contact from the Gardai."

Archbishop Martin had claimed Bishop O'Mahony showed neither remorse nor apology for the mishandling of clerical child abuse complaints.

Publication of the letters sent between two senior churchmen is an extremely unusual breach of the normally tight-control of church information by ecclesiastical authorities.

(DW/GK)