Bishop Eamonn Casey flouted restrictions imposed upon him by the Vatican in several dioceses and for years after the ban on his ministry was imposed.
The disgraced former Bishop of Galway was not permitted to exercise public ministry, including saying public Mass, by the Vatican from 2005 up to his death in 2017, after several child abuse allegations were made against him.
But such was the level of secrecy in the Church, the Vatican’s ban was not communicated to some dioceses in Ireland, and nor were the public informed.
A major documentary by RTÉ in association with the Irish Mail on Sunday – Bishop Casey’s Buried Secrets, which airs tomorrow night – reveals that, after he was formally removed from ministry in 2007, Bishop Casey officiated or concelebrated Mass in three different dioceses on numerous occasions over at least three years.
Bishop Casey’s niece, Patricia Donovan, who reported him in 2005 for alleged sexual abuse, had repeatedly tried to hold the Church to account since the ban on his ministry was imposed – particularly after he apparently officiated at her own mother’s funeral in February 2007. She also sought to ensure that he would uphold these restrictions.
Ms Donovan told RTÉ: ‘I reported him here [in the UK], and as soon as it went over to Ireland; that’s when they stopped listening to me. I absolutely believed that he would never say Mass in public again, and that the Church would actually enforce that.’
Ian Elliott, the former head of the Church’s board for safeguarding children in the Catholic Church in Ireland, also told RTÉ: ‘Whether he is concelebrating or whether he was positioning himself in a situation where he was wearing clerical garb, where he was looking to present himself as someone who was in good standing in the Church; that’s wrong and shouldn’t have happened.’
Bishop Casey breached the Vatican’s order in the Galway and Limerick dioceses on a number of occasions, following his return to the Galway Diocese in February 2006.
He was forced to leave the Diocese of Arundel & Brighton in England in 2006, on foot of the allegations by his niece in 2005 – and retired to Shanaglish in south Galway.
The Galway Diocese ultimately had canonical responsibility for him. A spokesman for the Galway Diocese stated: ‘He was prohibited by the Congregation [for Bishops] from exercising public ministry and this prohibition was repeated to him and maintained throughout his years of residing in the diocese. This prohibition was a source of upset to Bishop Casey and on a few publicly documented occasions it is known he violated this prohibition. To the extent that such instances became known to [then] Bishop of Galway [Martin Drennan], the prohibition was renewed formally to Bishop Casey.’
The Limerick Leader newspaper also reported in June 2007 that Bishop Casey returned to Limerick and officiated at a jubilee Mass. On that occasion, he was pictured wearing vestments and standing on the altar with Fr Seamus Power as he posed for photographs.
A spokesman for the Limerick Diocese confirmed: ‘Bishop Casey did not seek or obtain permission from the diocese to be involved in the jubilee Mass in Holy Rosary Parish in 2007. It appears from our enquiries that Bishop Casey arrived unexpectedly, sat at the side of the sanctuary and did not concelebrate or officiate at the Mass.’
The Limerick Diocese also confirmed it was ‘not notified of any restrictions’ that were in place at that time on Bishop Casey – restrictions that remained in place up until his death.
‘These include the priest being required to show a Celebret or letter from his own diocese and signing the sacristy register.’
In April 2010, three years after the Vatican formally reiterated the ban to him, Dr Casey took part in the funeral Mass for his grandnephew, killed in a crash in Co. Wexford.
Despite the restrictions, he delivered a passage of the Gospel of St Matthew and gave out Communion. He also joined in the Eucharistic prayer with local priest Fr John Carroll.Fr Carroll, the priest officiating at the funeral Mass, told RTÉ he was not aware of any restrictions on Bishop Casey’s ministry at that time.
Fr Carroll said in a statement: ‘Permission was neither sought from – nor given by – Ferns Diocese (nor from or by any other group) – as I was not aware of any restrictions on his ministry.’
The sanctions imposed by Rome were eventually enforced, but due to the Vatican’s strict secrecy in handling sexual abuse allegations, few people knew why Bishop Casey was forbidden to say Mass.
Some had presumed wrongly it was due to his affair with Annie Murphy, and many parishioners and members of the clergy believed the Church was being unduly harsh.
Canon law expert Fr Tom Doyle argues the public had a right to know why Bishop Casey was formally removed from the ministry ‘so that the people who continued to defend him, to put their trust in him would know what was really going on and also to avoid this from happening to anybody else, which did not seem to have been a consideration, with the Vatican at least’.