Ireland’s High Court has announced that they will allow the publication of the missing chapter, Chapter 19, of “The Murphy Report” on clerical abuse in Dublin.
One in Four, a survivors support group, says the chapter is likely to be published before Christmas. They say that this chapter will show that children were sexually abused by a known pedophile priest because the Archdiocese failed to act.
The 29-page chapter will contain references and testimonies from the boys Tony Walsh abused. “David” one of the boys he abused spoke to the commission about Walsh.
The report also investigates the church tribunal in Dublin in 1992. The tribunal found that Walsh should be laicized because of allegations of sexual abuse.
The report says “only two canonical trials took place over the 30-year period [investigated]. Both were at the instigation of [then] Archbishop Connell and the Commission gives him credit for initiating the two penal processes which led to the dismissal of Fr Bill Carney in 1990”.
“Archbishop Connell was one of the first bishops in the world to initiate canonical trials in the modern era. He did so in relation to [Tony Walsh] Fr Bill Carney in 1990.”
Three canon lawyers, the recently retired bishop of Killaloe, Willie Walsh, the current Bishop of Dromore, John McAreavey and Fr Paddy Corcoran were on the board of the tribunal that laicized Walsh in 1992. Bishop Willie Walsh says that he had understood the tribunal had contacted the police. They had not.
Walsh appealed the tribunal decision. The process then took another three years. In 1994 Walsh sexually abused an 11-year-old at his grandfather’s funeral. Walsh was dressed as a priest. The boy’s parents contacted the police. Walsh went to jail for one year and was released.
Walsh’s laicization was then completed. He spent a decade living in monastery. Once Walsh was convicted in court Archbishop Desmond Connell flew to Rome and insisted he be laicized.
Nearly all of the report was published on November 26, 2009. It details the findings of the Murphy Commission on how the Catholic Church and State authorities handled clerical child sex abuse allegations in Dublin between 1975 and 2003. It includes abuse carried out by 46 priests.
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