The Vatican tried to stop Dublin church leaders from defrocking a
particularly dangerous pedophile priest and relented only after he raped
a boy in a pub restroom, an investigation reported Friday.
Dublin
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said he fully accepted the findings of the
latest chapter in Ireland's investigation into child abuse by Catholic
Church figures.
Martin called Tony Walsh an "extremely devious
man" who should never have been ordained a priest, and said the report
highlighted how the church had grown too powerful and arrogant in 20th
century Ireland.
A state-ordered investigation into Dublin
Archdiocese cover-ups reported last year that Catholic officials had
shielded scores of priests from criminal investigation over several
decades and didn't report any crimes to the police until 1995.
The
findings sent shockwaves through the church and forced three Irish
bishops to resign.
A chapter dealing with Walsh was censored from
the original report because he was still facing a criminal trial.
The
Department of Justice published the chapter Friday following the
56-year-old Walsh's Dec. 6 conviction for repeatedly raping three boys
three decades ago. He received a 12-year prison sentence.
The
investigators — a judge and lawyers acting independently of the Irish
government — concluded that Walsh actually raped and molested hundreds
of boys while serving as a Dublin priest from 1978 to 1996, a rein of
terror that church leaders never effectively stopped.
They
described Walsh as "probably the most notorious child sexual abuser" of
the 46 cases they investigated covering the years 1975-2004. Walsh often
performed as an Elvis impersonator in a traveling Catholic
song-and-dance production popular with children called the "All Priests
Show."
The report found this increased his easy access to so many
victims.
The fact-finders based their conclusions on previously
confidential Dublin and Vatican documents and interviews with key church
figures that took five years to gather.
They found that Dublin
Archdiocese leaders spent several years arguing over whether Walsh
should be defrocked, sent to counselors in England, or assigned to
duties that kept him away from children.
They finally expelled him
from the priesthood at a 1993 canonical trial — the first in Ireland in
three decades.
But Walsh successfully appealed the verdict to the
Vatican, which ordered him to be sent for 10 years to a monastery
instead.
The investigators documented how Rome relented only after
police finally opened a 1995 criminal probe into the mountain of abuse
reports — including Walsh's recent sexual assault of a boy in a pub
restroom following the funeral of the victim's grandfather.
SIC: AFP/INT'L