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E-mailNew Catholic church crisis as Irish Archbishop suspended by Vatican in sex abuse probe
Archbishop believed to be in U.S. after being removed from post
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An Irish-born Archbishop has been suspended by the Vatican over an allegation that he carried on a 20-year relationship with a woman that began when she was only 14.
The archbishop is currently said to be in the U.S. and once served in New Jersey.
Archbishop Richard Burke, from Fethard, County Tipperary, a member of the Kiltegan Fathers, a missionary order in County Wicklow, has been removed from his post as Archbishop of Benin in Nigeria after church officials described the person who made the allegations, Dolores Attwood (40) now resident in Canada as as "a credible witness."
It is believed the abuse started in 1983 when Ms Atwood was just 14 and a patient in a Catholic hospital in Nigeria. She kept notes, tickets and other documentation of the relationship which she gave to Catholic authorities.
Atwood stated she was 14 and in hospital in Wari Nigeria in April 1983 when Burke, then a priest, kissed her in her bed and fondled her when the lights went out.
"I was sick in the hospital with fever and Fr. Burke came to visit me. When he and I were alone in my hospital room he touched and kissed me in a very inappropriate manner," she said.
She says that they had full intercourse a month later.
She said the relationship went on for five more years until Burke left Nigeria for the U.S.
Atwood states, "During the past 25 years I did not tell anyone of our relationship, because he told me not to talk about it to anyone no matter what and also fear of the negative impacts on him and the Catholic Church. Richard Burke left Nigeria in 1989 when he was sent to New Jersey in the USA and then back to Ireland with St. Patrick’s Society.
"In 1993 I met my husband, who was a Canadian volunteer working in Nigeria, while I was studying at University. My husband and I were married in 1995 in Canada and have had 3 children together. From 1989 to 1995 Father Burke and I continued communications by letters.
"When I told him that I was planning to get married in 1994, he became upset with me and told me that I should never tell anyone about the relationship between himself and I.
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