Bishop Brendan Comiskey, who resigned following claims he failed to deal properly with child sexual abuse allegations, has died aged 89.
The once rapidly rising and articulate member of the Catholic hierarchy resigned as Bishop of Ferns in 2002 after the BBC aired a documentary called Suing the Pope, which uncovered more than 100 allegations of abuse by 21 priests over more than three decades.
The documentary alleged Comiskey had failed to protect children from paedophile priests and had participated in the cover-up of allegations of child sexual abuse.
The allegations were followed by an inquiry into child sexual abuse. The Ferns Report, published by the government in 2005, shed more light on a catalogue of abuse going back to the tenure of Comiskey’s predecessor, Donal Herlihy, as Bishop of Ferns.
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The report found Comiskey’s handling of allegations and complaints had been “an inappropriate and inadequate response”. It concluded that he had “failed to recognise the paramount need to protect children, as a matter of urgency, from potential abusers”.
Many cases of child sexual abuse by clerics in the diocese happened under Comiskey’s leadership, the Ferns report further found.
It emerged that Fr Sean Fortune, a now notorious abuser accused of the rape and molestation of 29 boys, was one of the priests who was protected by silence. He died by suicide in March 1999 while awaiting trial.
One of those who was abused by Fortune, the founder of the charity One in Four Colm O’Gorman, has said he does not think the former bishop should be a scapegoat.
Speaking to South East Radio, Mr O’Gorman said his first thought was sadness and “genuine and heartfelt condolences to his family, his friends and those who loved him”.
“The man has died, and that is sad,” he said.
One in Four supports adults who have experienced childhood sexual abuse, as well as their families and those who have engaged in sexually harmful behaviour.
“I’m concerned that he might be uniquely scapegoated for what happened, not just in the Diocese of Ferns but beyond it. Brendan Comiskey was Bishop of Ferns during the period that he was Bishop of Ferns, but Ferns wasn’t unique, and his management of political child sex abuse and Ferns was not unique.
“He managed it in the way that he was directed to manage it by canon law and by the Vatican”, he said.
