The Vatican wanted a dangerous paedophile priest to serve 10 years in
a monastery rather than force him out of the Catholic Church, an
inquiry revealed today.
Irish clerics wanted to dismiss Tony Walsh - jailed for 16 years last week on 17 counts of child abuse - but Rome urged that he be allowed to remain in the clergy.
Nicknamed
Fr Filth, he attacked a young boy in the toilet of a pub in Dublin in
May 1994 after attending the funeral of his victim's grandfather as the
Catholic hierarchy in Rome debated how he should be dealt with.
Pope John Paul II dismissed Walsh in 1996 after a direct appeal for action by Cardinal Desmond Connell.
A
previously censored chapter of a report by the Commission of
Investigation into the Dublin Archdiocese, the Murphy Report, was
released today.
It described the defrocked priest as probably the
most notorious child sexual abuser to have come to its attention, and
who was likely to have assaulted hundreds of children.
Dublin-based
clerics investigated Walsh in the early 1990s and asked Rome to
laicise him in 1993.
Walsh appealed in October 1993 and the Vatican
called for the penalty to be reduced in June 1994.
The Pope was asked to intervene after the attack on the boy in a pub.
The
Commission stated: "This option of dismissing a priest directly by the
Pope is reserved for grave and clear cases and is regarded as an
extraordinary remedy, even when the normal penal process is inadequate."
Forty
people complained of being abused by Walsh and he admitted to "using
children for sexual gratification" once a fortnight over an eight-year
period.
The report stated that Archbishop Dermot Ryan, head of
the Archdiocese from 1972-1984, failed to properly investigate
complaints against several priests including Walsh.
The
Commission hit out at Rome's handling of the case - listed in the report
under the randomly selected but seemingly inappropriate pseudonym Fr
Jovito.
"The handling of that appeal in Rome was unsatisfactory," it said.
"The
fact that the original decision of dismissal was replaced with a
sentence that would have confined Fr Jovito to a monastery for 10
years suggests that after the 10-year period, Fr Jovito might have
been entitled to resume his clerical ministry.
"The whole
process was unduly cumbersome and at one stage it was suggested to the
Archbishop that he should start all over again and initiate a new
canonical process."
The report went on to say that a major factor
in Rome's decision to push for monastery service appears to have been
an inability to charge him by reason of paedophilia.
Walsh was posted to Ballyfermot Parish in west Dublin in 1978.
Two days after he arrived he was accused of a sex attack on a young boy.
SIC: II/IE