In a major documentary in association with the Irish Mail on Sunday to be aired on Monday on RTÉ One, it will also be revealed that Dr Casey was accused of sexually abusing a child during his time as Bishop of Galway in the 1980s.
For the first time, complaints received by the Church also show that he allegedly had sexual relationships with a number of adult women in the 1960s – a decade before he fathered a son, Peter, with his distant American cousin Annie Murphy in 1974.
The Galway Diocese has said that these relationships with adult women, which were reported to them in 2011 and date back to the 1960s, were relationships where Bishop Casey ‘abused their trust’. He was also accused of making an unwanted sexual advance to another woman in Limerick, which was rejected, Church records show.
By the time of his death in 2017 members of the Catholic Church knew of all eight allegations against children and women – but nonetheless a decision was taken by the Galway Diocese to inter him in the Bishops’ Crypt within Galway Cathedral.
The Galway Diocese has also confirmed they had more allegations on him in their files than it previously disclosed. It told the Irish Mail on Sunday in 2019 it had one allegation on file. But it later admitted it had five allegations of child sexual abuse on file.
The five allegations of child sexual abuse were reported in every Irish diocese he served – Limerick, Kerry and Galway – and took place from the 1950s to the 1980s.
Among those five complaints is one by Bishop Casey’s niece Patricia Donovan, from Limerick, who claims that she was raped and sexually assaulted by him from the age of five in 1967 for more than a decade. She reported her claims in 2005 but Bishop Casey was never charged or convicted for any sexual offence.
The Irish Mail on Sunday revealed that the Vatican banned Bishop Casey from public ministry for life in 2007 after it received a number of allegations against him. The ban on his ministry was placed on him before 2006, the Vatican said, and it was re-iterated in 2007. It remained in place until the day he died on March 13, 2017, but it was never communicated to the public during his lifetime.
Ian Elliott, the former head of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Irish Catholic Church, who has direct knowledge of Ms Donovan’s complaint, told Monday night’s programme: ‘I found the report, the story that Patricia had shared, to be entirely credible. I felt that she was relaying to me what she had experienced and that made me even more determined to ensure that the restrictions [on his ministry] were adhered to.’
Asked for his view now of Bishop Casey, he said: ‘That he was an offender, a sexual predator.’He added: ‘The fact of the matter is that individuals have come forward and spoken about numerous sexual activities, some consensual, others not. Many involved very young people. That is wrong and there is no justification for that and it should have been stopped. Those that have been distressed and hurt should be helped and supported by the Church. That is a major priority.’
The Limerick Diocese, which paid over €100,000 in a settlement to one of Bishop Casey’s accusers who took a case in the High Court in 2016 for damages for alleged sexual abuse, issued a statement on behalf of the current Bishop, Dr Brendan Leahy.
Bishop Leahy, who has access to all documents relating to complaints made in his diocese, said: ‘I express deep sorrow and regret to anyone who has been wounded by clerical abuse, including the people referred to in this documentary. They deserve our respect, belief and support. Without commenting on any specific allegation, I have no reason to disbelieve any of the allegations made.’
The MoS also revealed that the very first known complaint of abuse made against Bishop Casey in 2001 went missing after it was received by the Limerick Diocese and passed on to the Diocese of Arundel & Brighton, where he was working at the time.
The receipt of that allegation should have seen him suspended immediately pending further investigation. But instead he remained active in that parish, mainly as a hospital chaplain, for another four years until Ms Donovan reported him in 2005. He was suspended from ministry and returned to Galway, which had canonical responsibility for him, to retire.
The MoS revealed in 2019 that the late Bishop Casey faced at least four allegations of child sexual abuse, with two of those resulting in large financial settlements being made to two of the women.
In addition, Ms Donovan also publicly revealed for the first time in the MoS her allegations that she was raped and sexually abused by her famous uncle.
Now, on foot of a series of MoS exposés, RTÉ is set to air a 90-minute documentary on Monday night.
Entitled ‘Bishop Casey’s Buried Secrets’, it reveals further allegations of child abuse and other relationships with women, which have not been publicly disclosed until now. Speaking for the first time on camera, Ms Donovan claims he first raped her at the age of five and that the abuse continued for years.
She told RTÉ: ‘Some of the things he did to me, and where he did them. The horror of being raped by him when I was five, the violence. And it just carried on in that vein. He had no fear of being caught.
‘He thought he could do what he liked, when he liked, how he liked. He was almost, like, incensed that I would dare fight against him, that I would dare try and hurt him, I would dare try and stop him. It didn’t make any difference.’
The Diocese of Galway has now confirmed that in total they received eight allegations against Bishop Casey – five were allegations of child abuse, two involved sexual relations with women, and another complaint of an unwanted sexual advance was also received in Limerick.
Galway Diocese had confirmed that ‘two people came forward with complaints that, while they were adults, Bishop Casey had abused their trust and that such abuse involved sexual acts. These complaints were also notified to the Garda and HSE.’
A spokesman for the Galway Diocese confirmed: ‘At the time of his death, the diocesan records indicate awareness on the part of the Diocese of Galway of five people who had complained of childhood sexual abuse against Bishop Casey.’
For most of her adult life, Ms Donovan believed she was the only person who had accused him.
But she learned via the MoS in 2019 two women had received substantial settlements, one through the Residential Institutions Redress Board and another following a High Court case.