BISHOP JOHN MAGEE: AN INCIDENT in which Bishop John
Magee gave a 17-year-old aspirant priest a prolonged embrace is one of
the complaints dealt with in the report.
Bishop Magee is the only one of the 19 clerics to be named.
The
complaint about Bishop Magee was dealt with appropriately but
illustrates the need to have a clear mechanism for dealing with
complaints against bishops, according to the Murphy commission.
In
December 2008, the diocesan delegate in Cloyne, Fr Bill Bermingham,
received a phone-call from Joseph, who had once contemplated entering
the priesthood.
In a meeting with Fr Bermingham, Joseph gave a
history of continuous involvement with the church throughout his youth
and regularly encountered Bishop Magee.
At 17½, he was accepted as a
candidate for the priesthood but could not take up his place in the
seminary until he was 18.
By this stage, Joseph and Bishop Magee had each other’s mobile numbers and texted to make appointments.
Later,
because of changed family circumstances, Joseph decided not to take up
his place in the seminary.
He met Bishop Magee in his residence to tell
him of his decision. It was, he told Fr Bermingham, the first time he
had spent time alone with the bishop.
He said that during the
meeting, Bishop Magee embraced him tightly, asked whether he “felt good”
and kissed him on the forehead. “Joseph reported that this embrace was
protracted; it lasted for approximately one minute.”
He had a
number of further meetings with the bishop, some when he was under 18
and some when he was over 18.
During these meetings, there were similar
prolonged tight embraces and kisses on the forehead.
“According to
Joseph, the bishop declared that he loved him and told him that he had
dreamt about him – this may have happened before he was 18 or soon
after.”
At the time, Joseph considered the bishop’s words and actions as “paternal” and neither made him feel uneasy.
However,
he later reviewed his interactions with the bishop and told the
commission that he began “to interpret what had happened between us from
a fresh perspective and I began to think that maybe it wasn’t as
innocent as I originally thought or assumed it was”.
Fr Bermingham
contacted Ian Elliott of the Church’s National Board for Safeguarding
Children and they agreed that what had occurred was not child abuse and
was not reportable to the HSE or the Garda.
However, it did amount to a “boundary infringement” and constituted inappropriate behaviour.
Fr Bermingham was also required to report the matter to his superior, who was of course Bishop Magee.
He
told the commission that, when he met him in January 2009, Bishop Magee
stated words to the effect that he would never harm that young man.
Fr
Bermingham then told Dermot Clifford, Archbishop of Cashel and Emly and
the metropolitan archbishop for the Cloyne diocese, that Bishop Magee
had admitted to the gestures described by Joseph.
Archbishop
Clifford phoned Cardinal Seán Brady to tell him of the complaint and
informed the papal nuncio, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza.
Archbishop
Clifford then spoke to Bishop Magee about the complaint.
According to
Archbishop Clifford, Bishop Magee denied that he had kissed Joseph on
the forehead but said he had made the sign of the cross on his forehead.
He admitted saying to Joseph that he had dreamt of him and explained this by saying that he dreamt of him “as a lovely priest”.
Bishop
Magee explained that his intention in saying that he loved Joseph was
to comfort the young man when he was upset with family problems.
Archbishop
Clifford contacted the boundary counsellor and expressed concerns that
Bishop Magee might infringe boundaries again because he appeared to be
in a vulnerable state.
At the end of January, the Irish bishops
met to discuss child protection issues.
Archbishop Clifford told the
commission the meeting heard strong opinions for and against the
resignation of Bishop Magee.
After the meeting, Bishop Magee was asked
to consider various options, including standing aside as bishop to allow
an administrator to take over.
The papal nuncio also had a
private meeting with Bishop Magee.
The commission says it does not know
what was said at this meeting but it appears he asked the bishop to
stand down while the commission was doing its work.
In March, Fr
Bermingham reported the complaint to the HSE and the Garda after
Archbishop Clifford and he decided that the better course of action was
to report.
“One interpretation could be that it was grooming, another
could be that he felt very sorry for him,” the archbishop told the
commission.
Archbishop Clifford met Joseph later in March. Joseph
claims that at this meeting the archbishop put a lot of energy into
defending Bishop Magee’s actions and said the embrace was “an Italianate
gesture”, a habit picked up from his years in Rome.
Archbishop Clifford denied he had put a lot of energy into defending the bishop’s actions.
Joseph
told gardaí he did not want them to investigate and the Director of
Public Prosecutions directed that there be no prosecution as no criminal
offence had occurred.
The church authorities proposed no further action and Bishop Magee resigned in March 2010.
The
commission says the case raises issues about “soft information” and how
it is dealt with.
It also illustrates the desirability of having a
person independent of the diocese as the designated child protection
officer.
In relation to the naming of Bishop Magee, the report says it was not possible to report the complaint without identifying him.
The
handling by church authorities of concerns in relation to a bishop was
different from that applying to priests, and there was only one bishop
in Cloyne.