A MAJOR documentary on how the Catholic Church handled child sex abuse allegations against Bishop Eamonn Casey will be broadcast on RTÉ One tonight.
The Vatican has now confirmed that they formally removed him from ministry in 2007 after receiving multiple allegations from 2001 onwards, when the first known complaint was made.
The documentary is in association with the Irish Mail on Sunday and Mail reporter Anne Sheridan, formerly a reporter with the Limerick Leader.
The allegations received by the Church cover all three Irish dioceses where he served - Limerick, Kerry and Galway respectively - and span four decades, from the 1950s to the 1980s.
The Limerick Leader first reported in 2016 that High Court proceedings were filed against Bishop Casey and the Diocese of Limerick for personal injury damages in relation to one case taken against him in 2016.
Limerick Diocese has confirmed that it has received three allegations of child sexual abuse against Fr Casey relating to his time in Limerick in the 1960s. The Limerick Diocese received these three separate complaints in 2001, 2005 and 2014.
Two other complaints have been received by the Kerry Diocese and the Galway Diocese.
The documentary, Bishop Casey's Buried Secrets, will air further revelations this Monday night when it is broadcast on RTE One at 9.35pm.
Two complaints against Fr Casey made in Limerick resulted in significant settlements being made.
The first known complaint against Bishop Casey was received in 2001 by the Limerick Diocese. This later resulted in a settlement, which was confidential at the time, and was made through the Residential Institutions Redress Board after the woman dropped her High Court action against him and other named defendants.
Bishop Casey's niece, Patricia Donovan, from Limerick, made her complaint of alleged child sexual abuse against him in 2005. Her uncle was never charged in relation to her claims. Ms Donovan never received compensation from the Church but the Galway Diocese did pay for some counselling sessions for her.
A third complaint received in Limerick, made in 2014 and which went to the High Court in 2016, resulted in a settlement made by the Limerick Diocese of over €100,000 to another woman. The proceedings were lodged before he died and the settlement was awarded after his death.
Fr Casey consistently denied all the allegations against him.
He was never charged or convicted of any sexual crimes and remained a bishop until his death in March 2017.
After repeated requests for information, the Vatican confirmed to RTÉ that, by 2006, following unspecified "allegations", "Bishop Casey had been requested not to publicly exercise the ministry" and that this was "reiterated formally" a year later.
It also revealed that: "He was never reinstated...in spite of insistence from him and on his behalf" and "regardless of the outcome of the civil procedures".
The Vatican statement also reveals the ban was never lifted – despite appeals by Casey and his supporters that he should be allowed to return to ministry.
It was also never communicated to the public in his lifetime, with many members of the clergy and his parishioners struggling to understand why Bishop Casey was not allowed to say Mass. Under the restrictions set out by the Vatican on him, he was only allowed to attend Mass as a member of the congregation and could only say Mass in the privacy of his own home due to child safeguarding concerns.
The Vatican statement said: ‘We can confirm that Bishop Casey had been requested not to publicly exercise the ministry before 2006, in terms that were reiterated formally in 2007, and he was never reinstated in the following years in spite of insistence from him and on his behalf. When further allegations were produced in 2015, Bishop Casey was already suffering from various physical and mental problems. These were of the type that would have rendered his defence difficult.’
Former president Mary McAleese, who is a canon lawyer, and who is interviewed for this programme, said: "We know that there were significant allegations of sexually predatory conduct and from a number of different sources."
She said there may have been "a pattern of predatory behaviour" that would have to have been taken "very seriously and earnestly...because they are looking at it from the point of view of restoring him to a ministry where he would have full public access, and they may have been, and clearly were, worried about that, significantly worried about that".
The complaints sent from Irish dioceses to the Papal Nuncio for Rome’s attention covered the period of three serving Popes, from at least 2001 until after 2016, spanning the papacies of John Paul II, Benedict XVI and the current Pope Francis.
Canon law expert Fr Aidan McGrath said of the Vatican’s internal handling of the case: "A bishop himself, his only superior is the pope."
"So, who do you report a bishop to? That was never very clear, but certainly… any disciplinary action then would have been taken by the Congregation for Bishops. Now, they are not authorised to set up a tribunal and do an investigation… so they will weigh it up and then… acting on behalf of the pope, would have the authority to impose restrictions."