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New Developments on Stories Featured in Catholic World Report

BISHOP REBUTS CHARGES

BUT MANY IRISH FAITHFUL ASK FOR HIS RESIGNATION

An Irish bishop who fled his diocese last year, pursued by sexual and financial scandals, has condemned the "wild, sensational, and totally unfounded allegations" made against him.

Bishop Brendan Comiskey of Ferns, in County Wexford, left Ireland last year to undergo treatment for an alcohol problem at a clinic in the United States. Before he left, the bishop was embroild in a controversy over alleged cover-ups of clerical pedophilia. Reports were also published in Irish newspapers questioning the bishop's purchase of an apartment in the Irish capital, Dublin, and his vacation trips to a posh hotel in Bangkok, Thailand.

Last autum Bishop Comiskey was called to Rome to explain his views on clerical celibacy, after clashing in public disputes on the issue with the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal Cahal Daly.

Following his sudden departure to the US, Bishop Comiskey announced on two occasions that he was preparing to return to his diocese, but in each case he failed to arrive as promised. He eventually did tun up to celebrate Mass at Enniscorthy Cathedral in mid-February.

During a 50-minute sermon to a packed congregation on that occasion, the bishop promised that he would answer all the allegations made against him. He admitted that he had made mistakes in his handling of allegations of clerical sex abuse, but said he had not been able to reveal certain information because it had been given to him confidentially.

Comiskey said reports that he had refused to cooperate with police in two pedophilia cases had caused him great pain. "They are total lies which will be exposed in the course of time," he added. "The wild, sensational, and totally unfounded allegations that I would sacrifice the innocence of a child to protect some drinking buddy--or any other buddy--is particularly vicious, untrue, and cruel."

"I can tell you most solemnly that I have always acted in the utmost good faith and have never, ever, obstructed an investigation into acts or omissions of any priest directly or indirectly under my authority or control," the bishop insisted.

He admitted that he had not always given law-enforcement authorities all of the information in his possession, but added: "I now stand accused because I now know how these cases--some of which go back to the 1970s--should be handled in 1996. I should have known that 15 years ago. If that be so, I am guilty. But hindsight is as wise as it is useless."

At one point the bishop broke down as he spoke of his anger at the way "the good name of my mother and father has been dragged through the mire."

Bishop Comiskey apologized for his sudden flight from the diocese five months ago, but said that he had been unable to admit publicly that he intended to seek professional treatment for alcoholism. He said his failure to return to Ferns on the two promised occasions was due to the insistence of his doctors that he should return only when he was fully ready.

The bishop denied that he had been under the influence of alcohol last year when he gave a newspaper interview calling for a continuing debate on priestly celibacy. "I was under the influence of the reality of what it is for me--and I suspect many priests--to live genuinely and authentically what is, for many of us, a lonely life. Pedestals are the loneliest places in Ireland, and great breeding grounds for present and future alcoholics," he continued.

At a two-hour news conference a week after his return, Bishop Comiskey said six cases of clerical sex abuse had come to his attention since he became bishop in 1984. He admitted failing to pass one of these cases along to public authorities, but he said that he had never refused to be interviewed by the police.

He said some information had come to him from people who insisted on confidentiality, saying to him, "I don't want this to go beyond this room." Other information came under the seal of confession. Bishop Comiskey reported, "It took all of us a long time to arrive at today's guidelines, that we should tell the person confiding the information to us in advance that we can't give an assurance any longer of confidentiality."

Bishop Comiskey said that he never misused or misappropriated diocesan funds, and had never been arrested in his life. In reference to an incident that occurred during a vacation in Thailand, he said, "If you are asking me did I consort with prostitutes, I did not."

Just before the bishop returned to Ireland, a report in a Wexford newspaper suggested that 47 percent of the people in his Ferns diocese thought he should resign his episcopal office. But Father Colm Kilcoyne, in a column published by the Sunday Tribune, had a very different perspective:

Brendan Comiskey could be a godsend to the Irish Church just now. He has lost the credibility that goes with the American management style, the laugh, the sound-bite, and the general air of belonging to the street-wise wing of the Church. That died in a clinic somewhere. Instead he has the authority of failure and weakness.

-Kieron Wood

A GOVERNMENT CONSPIRACY?

PRELATE POINTS TO GOVERNMENT AGENTS

Archbishop Juan Sandoval of Guadalajara, Mexico, has issued a public statement indicating his belief that Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo was murdered in 1993 by police forces.

The archbishop's announcement is the latest and most direct contradiction of the Mexican government's official position: that Cardinal Posadas was killed accidentally, by drug traffickers who mistook the prelate for another intended victim.

The cause of Cardinal Posadas' death has been a source of contention between Church officials and government authorities since May 24, 1993, when a group of gunmen approached the cardinal's car at the Guadalajara airport, and fired a volley of shots that killed both the prelate and his driver.

Almost immediately after the murder, the government attributed Posadas' death to an accident, and linked it to the city's burgeoning drug traffic. But in a country whose people have grown accustomed to hearing stories of government corruption, many people were not prepared to accept that explanation. Their skepticism has grown in intervening years, as a parade of top Mexican government officials, past and present, have been accused of involvement in graft, drug traffic, and even political assassination.

The immediate circumstances of the Posadas murder lend credence to conspiracy theories, too. Although dozens of witnesses saw the killing, the gunmen were allowed to walk through the airport unimpeded, and board a flight to Tijuana; in fact, that flight was held up for 20 minutes, and left only when the gunmen boarded. The trip to Tijuana took two hours, and yet when the flight landed there were no law-enforcement authorities waiting to arrest the suspects. Instead, they climbed into a waiting car and disappeared.

"Everybody knows Cardinal Posadas was not confused but murdered on purpose," Archbishop Sandoval said in February. "There were many taxi drivers, workers, and passengers at the airport the day of the murder, who saw everything and who have talked."

Indeed, according to many different witnesses, the cardinal was murdered by policemen who had arrived at the airport 10 hours before their victim. "They were expecting him" the archbishop said. "When Cardinal Posadas arrived to the airport (to pick up the papal nuncio, Bishop Girolamo Prigione), the policemen were using walkie-talkies. They had large weapons, identification plates and caps. Finally, Archbishop Sandoval added, after killing the cardinal the assailants tried to distract potential witnesses by an "uncontrolling rage of shooting."

Aside from eyewitness testimony, the archbishop pointed out that he also bases his belief on the results of an autopsy. According to the coroner's report, Cardinal Posadas was victim of a direct assassination. The cardinal's corpse showed that he was shot directly, and repeatedly, from a distance of only a few feet. The gunman certainly would have been able to identify his victim.

Archbishop Sandoval is not the only Mexican who rejects the government's "confusion" theory. Several other political leaders have pointed out that on the day of his death, Cardinal Posadas was wearing his clerical clothes, with a large pectoral cross on his chest. It is highly unlikely that a gunman would have mistaken a man in those clothes for a drug merchant.

Why would someone kill a Catholic cardinal? Cardinal Posadas had spoken out forcefully against the drug traffic that was steadily transforming his city. So the "narcos" may indeed have appointed his assassins. Some Mexicans theorize that the prelate had uncovered some other, deeper conspiracies. But whatever the reason for his death, Catholic leaders in Guadalajara are adamant: Cardinal Posadas did not die by accident.

- Alejandro Bermudez