A CATHOLIC priest removed from editing a church magazine after publishing articles about clerical child sex abuse has criticised the religious orders’ response to the Ryan Report.Fr Kevin Hegarty, who fell foul of the bishops in 1993 when he was editor of Intercom, also said compulsory celibacy, the culture of authoritarianism and attitudes to sexuality in the Church must be reviewed in light of the report’s findings
"I expected the report to be devastating but it was even more devastating than I thought," he told RTÉ. "It ends the argument that abuse was a failure of the system — abuse was the system."
He said he was disturbed that the responses from the orders following publication of the report had to be "dragged out" after several days of silence. "What I do not see so far is a coherent response," he said, adding: "This is a crisis for Irish Catholicism."
"No response is adequate for the pain and torment that those abused suffered," he said, adding that the least the Church should do is look honestly at the culture that helped create the level of abuse perpetrated.
Among the issues the hierarchy would have to explore was the compulsory celibacy rule and their attitude to sexuality generally.
"There are people called to celibacy but many people called to ministry may not be called to celibacy."
He also said there may be a need for an inquiry into the behaviour of priests in boarding schools.
Fr Hegarty, a priest of the Killala Diocese at the time, published an article in December 1993 challenging the Church to tackle the issue of clerical child sex abuse.
In late 1994 he was assigned to a full-time curacy in the remote Kilmore parish which effectively prevented him travelling to Dublin to edit the magazine.
He later learned the decision was taken after a meeting of the Episcopal Conference at which he was deemed to have damaged the morale of priests and religious orders.
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