Roman Catholic Diocese of Clogher - Sexual Abuse

Sexual Abuse

In 2011 London-based law firm Jeff Anderson-Ann Olivarius Law said they were to take action in Minnesota against a retired priest from the Clogher diocese who was moved to the US in the 1980s. Also in 2011 a Nevada clerical abuse survivor sued the diocese, claiming that Father Francis Markey, who had been suspended three times by the diocese of Clogher between the years 1964 and 1974 due to allegations of sexually abusing children. According to the lawsuit he was sent for treatment each time and then reinstated into the priesthood, before eventually being moved to Nevada. In that same year the Sunday Business Post newspaper reported that the Bishop, Joseph Duffy, had admitted both to failing to pass abuse claims to police in 1989, and to being party to victims and families being made to sign oaths of non-disclosure. A separate case in the 1970s and 1980s involved Bishop Duffy's uncle,Canon Peter Joe Duffy, who abused at least three victims. The abuse came to light in 2013 and the diocese paid compensation. Other priests of the diocese involved in abuse of children include Fr. Eugene Lewis (jailed for four years on eleven counts of indecent assault); Fr. John McCabe (20 months imprisonment on abuse charges) and Fr Jeremiah McGrath, described by the Belfast Telegraph as "the very antithesis of what a priest should be. A lying, manipulative facilitator for a vicious paedophile": jailed for five years in 2007 for indecently assaulting a 12-year old girl and facilitating another person to rape her whilst working in North West England after spending time in the diocese of Clogher.

In 2013 a report from the Church's own investigatory body reported a total of 45 allegations against 13 priests in the diocese between 1975 and 2012, and identified unsatisfactory responses to complaints, failure to address risky behaviour and the missing of preventative opportunities. Retired bishop Joseph Duffy accepted the criticism. However, the Report did acknowledge that current procedures for dealing with allegations of abuse in the diocese had improved significantly and it praised Bishop MacDaid's approach to the issue.