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Final chapter of Cloyne Report unearths more damning evidence of cover up by Bishop and police

Chapter Nine published after High Court intervention

By
CATHAL DERVAN,
IrishCentral Staff Writer
Published Tuesday, December 20, 2011, 8:40 AM
Updated Tuesday, December 20, 2011, 1:54 PM

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The final chapter of the Cloyne Report bring more horror stories of the Catholic Church's cover up
The final chapter of the Cloyne Report bring more horror stories of the Catholic Church's cover up
Photo by AP


Shocking allegations of a cover-up into child sex abuse allegations against a Fr Ronat have come to light with the publication of the final chapter of the Cloyne Report – including claims that an investigating cleric tried to suggest a teenage victim was to blame.

The most troubling chapter of the Cloyne Report, Chapter Nine has finally been allowed into the public domain on the back of a ruling by Dublin’s High Court.

The Irish Examiner newspaper reports that the newly published chapter claims that the cleric asked to examine abuse allegations against Fr Ronat suggested the teenage girl was to blame.

The new section of the report also found that the bishop’s advisory committee tried to ensure the young woman’s complaints were not treated as child abuse while police buried an allegation of child abuse made by a young boy against the same priest.

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The paper reports that Archdeacon Chris Twohig, a cleric drafted in to investigate the priest identified only as Fr Ronat, offered a disturbing analysis of allegations of abuse made by a young woman when aged 15-19.

Archdeacon Twohig asked in his report if it could be deduced that the girl was harassing or ‘besetting Fr Ronat.

He wrote: “Might it not be possible that (the girl) is the Ophelia of Hamlet - sweet bells jangled.”
The Cloyne Report found the Archdeacon’s report lacked any evidence of a genuine investigation and was not impartial.

“It seems to the Commission to be largely concerned with providing reasons why this might not be classified as child sexual abuse. It also, notably, seeks to lay the blame for what occurred on the girl,” the inquiry found.

The Examiner also reports that Fr Ronat, who also served as a career guidance counsellor, is accused of giving teenagers wine, hypnotising them and abusing while hearing confessions in his bedroom.

The 19th cleric against whom allegations have been made in Cloyne, Fr Ronat also defied instructions to stop all standard priestly duties and was found to have been turned up at confirmations.

Chapter Nine also found that former bishop and Vatican aide John Magee and his right-hand man Monsignor Denis O’Callaghan, the vicar general in the Cork diocese of Cloyne, failed the victims of clerical abuse.

The inquiry states that the pair deliberately misled authorities and did not report allegations as recently as three years ago.

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See more: Sexual Abuse , Irish Catholic Church , Vatican , Catholic Priest
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15 Comments

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CaptainCon | Dec 21, 2011, 08:27 AM EST
Ephraim- you are right I think. If a 'RICO' style act existed in Irish law then the catholic church would have been wrapped up like a christmas present by now as there is certainly plenty of evidence in transfers of abusive priests from parish-to-parish, interference with evidence, lying by Bishops of a conspiracy to evafe the child safety laws. In fact, the notion that the church in Ireland attempts to run its own shadow 'legal' system in canon law should be evidence enough to determine them as a subversive organisation to the Republic. Priests take oaths to obey the church in Rome beyond any national loyalty and to me that is unacceptable and seditious.

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IrelandNorth | Dec 21, 2011, 07:31 AM EST
The Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church (HRC&AC), (as aslo the Anglican Communion), are counterfeit christianities, and not the true heirs apparent of an authentic Jesus Movement. Read the Gnostic Gospels, guys. The only church is in your own heart. The only saviour your-Self.

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merefalow | Dec 21, 2011, 06:33 AM EST
it goes on and on.they must NOT be allowed to police themselves,they are incapable of facing up to the evil men in the core of their organisation.they must be prosecuted by the civil authority,who in the past have been a lot to cosy with the church hierarchy,luckily this deference appears to be on the wane.

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EphraimKibbey | Dec 20, 2011, 09:49 PM EST
@JuneAnnette - That is a very apt way of looking at this world-wide problem. This Dutch lawyer may have hit upon just the right way of attacking and ending this predation. In America, we have a law that makes conspirasy to commit a crime a crime in itself, whether the crime takes place or not. Many people from US and international crime organizations were put away using this point of law. If the Catholic Church knowingly made it possible for these criminals to repeat their crimes by moving them to new locations with new unknowing populations, then the Chruch itself has conspired with the criminals and is as guilty as they are.

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stephen1553 | Dec 20, 2011, 04:12 PM EST
It is endless. And again we see the church tried to blame the victim if I read this one right. There are about 6 million Catholics in Ireland. Time that there are 5 million EX Catholics - like us. And do the math, if every molested kid got eg $100,000 US, multiply that by probably 100.000 molested kids in the USA (I'm going to try to get an estimate from SNAP the vatican would be a museum of horrors that the church did to the human race in the west. Just think of the treaty - concordant that cardinal Pacelli signed with hitler. It legitimized the nazi regime in the eyes of Germany's catholics, about 25 million (40%) And i havent dug into the concordants with Fascist Spain and Fascist Italy yet. My whole family with the exception of a couple older folks have left the church. Shouldn't you also?

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Collette2 | Dec 20, 2011, 02:54 PM EST
Get the message SeamusMor, the inaction of these scoundrels and thorns in the side of the decent clergy we hear about, is not water under the bridge. The phsyical, emotional and spiritual lives that have been shattered can never be replaced, this side of heaven. We need to take a leaf out of the book/s of our Jewish brothers and sisters, who claim "we will never forget", and go all the way to the intenational courts of law. Somebody's bells are jangling here and nothing to do with Orphelia.

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CaptainCon | Dec 20, 2011, 02:00 PM EST
Personally I don't care who or what somebody prays to if it gets thrm through the day. I do want to see paedophile priests and their facilitators in a cell though.

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Intercessor | Dec 20, 2011, 11:58 AM EST
I'm sick and tired, to the point of nauseation, when I hear about the "Profound Sorrow," a member of the Hierarchy exhibits after being confronted with his criminal acts of NOT reporting incidences of Priest Pedophilia. If Magee broke Irish Law by not reporting incidences of abuse regarding "Fr. Ronant" and others, I hope that he'll experience what it feels like to trade in his expensive vestments for a generic prison garment!

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CaptainCon | Dec 20, 2011, 11:52 AM EST
Anyone who says these are 'water under the bridge' is clearly disregarding the victims for whom the water never goes under the bridge. It is a saying used in the hope of shoving the problem away and pretending that the passage of time makes these incidents and the cover-up somehow less serious. So much for 'morals'.

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RockNReel | Dec 20, 2011, 11:03 AM EST
It may be water under the bridge for SeamusMor here, but certainly not for the poor innocent victims who suffer dreadful abuse at the hands of pedophiles in the Catholic Church and the fact that the Bishops and Gardai in Ireland covered it up make it even more revolting. How can those individual garda and bishops live with themselves I wonder? Knowing that by covering it up they allowed those perverts to abuse all over again. I would say the people of Ireland today do not think its water under the bridge and now more than ever they want these devils named and shamed. The perverts used the fact that the catholic church was held in high esteem in Ireland --far too high in my opinion--and they knew that those innocent kids were too afraid to speak out . But Not Any More !! The "Outing" of these pedophile priests is gathering more momentum by the day in Ireland and more and more evidence is being gathered by the day. Rightly so !!!

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CaptainCon | Dec 20, 2011, 10:54 AM EST
You have a point colkelly. It is true that sectarianism was never present in Ireland until christianity sauntered down the gangplank. There is no record of any religious feud or battle before christianity. People were accepting of polytheism and saw nothing in overall gods with an array of local gods and paid respect to all of them when in someone else's area. It is a sobering thought. I've often said we were colonised twice- once physically by the island next foor and once pscyhologically by the catholic church and I honestly don't know which did more damage to our original culture.

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joan1954 | Dec 20, 2011, 10:38 AM EST
How much of this issue extends back to Eamon De Valera's time with his cozy relationship with the Church especially with McQuaid who now has allegations against him pending. Now people I am talking 1920's onward.

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SeamusMor | Dec 20, 2011, 10:31 AM EST
This was sick and wrong, but it's also water under the bridge. New guidelines require sex abuse allegations to be immediately reported to civil authorities, and those guidelines are being followed.

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colkelley | Dec 20, 2011, 09:55 AM EST
And people wonder why I say that the WORST thing that ever happened to the Irish was turning from the Old Gods to Papist tyranny.

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CaptainCon | Dec 20, 2011, 09:31 AM EST
I read through Chapter 9 of the report last night and it is a litany of inactions, evasions, attempts to dismiss credible claims made by a number of corroborating complainants unconnected with each other over a number of years. A garda places a report in a drawer and forgets about it- a retired garda appears to be have been giving advice to Monsignor O'Callaghan and by extension this 'Ronat' character on how to handle eventual garda enquiries. Strangely enough this retired Garda also seemed to be quite sure that the DPP would not press charges- I wonder why he was quite so confident of that? No doubt the usual deflectors will be along in a while to try to explain away the report they have no intention of reading as malicious allegations- when in fact it is clear from the report itself that there was a serious issue with this priest in Cloyne- even to the point where certain nuns were aware of his repeated behaviour and attempt at one novitiate nun it seems. By the way the law changed in 2006 to bring in the possibility of criminal charges for failing to report such issues to the authorities (Garda) and yet now we hear that Bishop Magee broke the law by not doing so roughly three years ago which would be in 2008. I look forward to hearing that Bishop Magee and Monsignor O'Callaghan have been questioned by the Gardai under caution- or will be interested to see whether the state is STILL trying to ignore criminal behaviour by members of the church hierarchy. Over to you Garda.

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