Former dean criticises bishops' inquiry

The former senior dean at St Patrick's College, Maynooth, Father Gerard McGinnity, has expressed "serious and profound reservations…

The former senior dean at St Patrick's College, Maynooth, Father Gerard McGinnity, has expressed "serious and profound reservations" about the McCullough inquiry, writes Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent.

It was set up last week by the 17 bishop trustees at the college to investigate Father McGinnity's experiences and that of six senior seminarians there in 1983/4 when they complained to nine bishops about the sexual harassment of junior seminarians by then college vice-president Mgr Micheal Ledwith.

Last night Father McGinnity, now parish priest at Knockbridge, Co Louth, said he "shared the serious and profound reservations expressed by some of the former students concerning the internal or private inquiry announced by the bishops upon themselves".

Considering "the injustice" that had been done to him 18 years ago, "an injustice which has remained unrelieved and unacknowledged ever since", he said he could not have confidence in the structure of such an inquiry. In effect it was a case of the bishops "adjudicating upon their fellow bishops", he said. "With respect (a respect which I have struggled to preserve) I consider it both inappropriate and improper," he said.

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"An inquiry which is not independent but rather conducted under the auspices of that body undergoing inquiry is wrong in principle, it seems to me," he said.

Father McGinnity met the Birmingham inquiry team last Monday, as did one of the former senior seminarians, a priest. Both were happy with the meeting. The Birmingham inquiry was set up by the Government to look at Ferns diocese, of which Mgr Ledwith is a priest.