Fr Vincent Twomey SVD has said that all priests and clergy are more or less implicated in the old culture that existed in the Irish Catholic Church. Dr Twomey was responding to questions put to him by The Irish Catholic about his time in Maynooth as a lecturer where he was also a colleague of Martin Drennan, now Bishop of Galway.
Both men served under now disgraced President Michael Ledwith who resigned in 1994 following allegations of child sexual abuse.
Both Dr Twomey and Dr Martin Drennan were members of the teaching staff when Micheal Ledwith was President of Maynooth for 10 years.
Previous to that, Mr Ledwith was Professor of Systematic Theology for 16 years, was Dean of the Faculty Of Theology and Vice President. He also served on an international Vatican theological commission.
Asked if he knew anything about the behaviour of Msgr Ledwith when he was president of Maynooth college during Fr Twomey's time there, Dr Twomey stated that he knew nothing about it. A spokesman for Bishop Drennan said the Bishop would not be commenting.
Fr Twomey added: ''And yet, we are all more or less implicated in the clericalist, authoritarian broader culture that existed in the Church at the time, which allowed such behaviour to go undetected or be ignored.''
Dr Twomey said that he attempted to analyse the roots of that culture in his book The End of Irish Catholicism?
On Tuesday, Dr Twomey appeared to step back from his earlier call reported on December 3 for all bishops named in the Murphy Report who ''were deemed guilty of putting the interests of the institution above the safety and welfare of children'' to ''resign immediately from their current pastoral positions''. Dr Twomey says that the only bishop he mentioned by name was Dr Murray.
Dr Twomey said that, since Bishop Drennan was actually commended by the Murphy Commission for his handling of the one case that mentioned him, then calls for his resignation were unfounded.
However, when put to him, he said he would reflect on the case of Bishop Ray Field who was made an auxiliary in 1997, the same time as Bishop Drennan, and after guidelines on child protection had been introduced.
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