Comiskey steps down

By Stephen McKinley

Bishop Brendan Comiskey, spiritual head of the Irish Catholic Church’s diocese of Ferns, resigned Monday amid claims that he had badly mishandled sexual misconduct allegations in his County Wexford-based jurisdiction.

Comiskey had been under growing pressure to step down since a BBC television documentary in February focused on one case in particular, his handling of the case of Fr. Sean Fortune. The documentary was rebroadcast on RTE Tuesday evening, a day after Bishop Comiskey announced his resignation.

In his own defense, Comiskey said that he thought that he had “done his best,” but that “clearly that was not good enough.”

Fortune committed suicide in 1999 while on bail. He had been facing 29 charges of sexual assault on young boys.

Complaints about Fortune dated back to the 1970s and partly covered a period when he had worked at a South Belfast orphanage.

Comiskey, who has been a frequent visitor to New York during St Patrick’s week, said that he would travel to the Vatican later in the week to formally present his resignation to Pope John Paul II.

Four of Fr. Fortune’s victims, who appeared in the BBC documentary, commented on Comiskey’s resignation.

Colm O’Gorman, Pat Jackman, Donncha McGloin and Damien McAleen said that they would hold a press conference on Wednesday. They said that they were upset that Comiskey had resigned because it did not serve any purpose, and that, as McGloin put it, the resignation created “the danger that people will say ‘that’s sufficient.’ ”

In his statement, Comiskey continued, “the sexual abuse of children is deeply abhorrent to me.” He apologized to the four men whose cases were featured in the BBC documentary and “to all who have been abused by priests of the diocese.”

“I apologize also to the families of victims and to all others who have been offended or hurt in different ways by Fr. Sean Fortune,” he continued.

“In endeavoring to deal with the complexity and the conflict, which always surrounded Fr. Fortune, and already existed prior to my appointment as Bishop of Ferns in 1984, I can only assure you that I did my best. Clearly, that was not good enough.”

Comiskey said that he had confronted Fortune often, had removed him from ministering, sought professional advice and tried both gentle and firm approaches.

“And yet I never managed to achieve any level of satisfactory outcome,” he said. “Fr. Fortune committed very grave wrongs and hurt many people.

“Despite the difficulties he presented in management terms, I should have adopted a more informed and more concerted effort in my dealings with him and for this I ask forgiveness.”

The Ferns case carries echoes of others in U.S. Catholic dioceses recently. Sampling of U.S. public opinion has suggested that the Catholic church hierarchy had failed in its dealing with sexual misconduct cases by not seeking professional opinion, by seeking to move priests from one parish to another, and by failing to act firmly enough against sexual abusers.

Cardinal Desmond Connell, the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, said he was “deeply saddened” by Bishop Comiskey’s resignation. Connell also condemned the “grave and repugnant evil of child abuse.

In a statement, Connell said: “We realize that the whole church in Ireland is suffering at this time from the scandal caused by this evil and the manner in which it was dealt with at times. It is a scandal which has evoked entirely justified outrage.”

Lessons for Boston?

The Boston Globe, meanwhile, reported a leading Catholic expert on the problem of sexual abuse by priests as suggesting that Comiskey’s resignation could be an important precedent.

In Boston, where the problem has been especially exposed in recent months, there have been widespread calls for the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law, spiritual head of the Boston archdiocese.

The Globe reported the Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, who as a canon lawyer working at the Vatican Embassy in Washington wrote a 1985 study on sexual abuse by priests, as saying that Comiskey’s move could prove revolutionary for the rest of the church.

Bishop Comiskey had set “a new standard for accountability,” Doyle told the paper.

“Bishop Comiskey is the first bishop to have placed the victims before himself. Other bishops have apologized, but Bishop Comiskey is the first one to admit that apologies are not enough.”

Doyle said the Irish prelate’s resignation would place more pressure on Cardinal Law to resign.

“Cardinal Law should read Bishop Comiskey’s resignation speech. He should memorize it,” Doyle said. “He is thinking clearly and acting courageously. He is saying the church is not about the bishops, it’s about the people. He is the first bishop to show humility.”

However, Ray Flynn, head of the group Catholic Alliance and former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, did not agree that Bishop Comiskey’s resignation was relevant to the situation faced by Cardinal Law.

“I don’t think so. It’s apples and oranges,” Flynn told the Echo.

Flynn said that a major difference was that Cardinal Law did not face the kind of personal problems that Bishop Comiskey had endured, not least a well-publicized struggle with alcohol.

“It will be determined that Law was given some terrible medical advice and bad legal advice,” Flynn said. “But if Law resigned, a new archbishop would be faced with a potentially chaotic situation that he might find difficult to control. It’s a very difficult job.”

At the same time, Flynn, who said he had personally met with Bishop Comiskey on one occasion, said that he now expected much of Cardinal Law.

“He’s got to stay here and finish it,” Flynn said. “Law has what it takes. He blew this one. He didn’t pay close enough attention and was too forgiving and nanve. He’s got to put in place a no-tolerance policy and the proper team to cope with this [pedophilia] problem. He’s got to deliver on this one.”