Bishop Eamonn Walsh, recently appointed by the Vatican to the diocese of Ferns, has suspended a priest of the diocese while allegations of sex abuse are being investigated.
The priest, whose name is known to The Irish Times, is understood to have been serving as a curate in a rural parish, but the alleged abuse is said to have occurred in a Wexford town.
The diocesan spokesman, Father John Carroll, refused to confirm or deny the suspension, saying it was not the policy of the diocese to do so in such circumstances.
He also reaffirmed Bishop Walsh's commitment that the diocese would co-operate fully with requests for documents by the Birmingham inquiry, which was set up to examine the issue of child sex abuse involving priests of the Ferns diocese - whether serving in Ferns or elsewhere - and how this might best be investigated.
The Birmingham inquiry is now approaching the halfway mark of its three-month tenure and to date it has received no documents from the Ferns diocese.
A request for all files relating to any priest alleged to have been involved in child sex abuse has been with the diocese for over four weeks. However, it is understood documents may be made available in coming days.
Meanwhile, The Irish Times has learned that six senior seminarians at St Patrick's College Maynooth were so concerned about the sexual harassment of junior seminarians at the college by a senior clerical academic that they contacted nine bishops about the matter in 1983 and 1984.
The senior seminarians, five of whom were later ordained and three of whom remain priests, arranged separate meetings with the then Catholic primate, Cardinal Tomas Ó Fiaich; Cardinal Cahal Daly, then Bishop of Down and Connor; Bishop Colm O'Reilly of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise; Archbishop Joseph Cassidy, then Bishop of Clonfert; Bishop Brendan Comiskey, who became Bishop of Ferns in 1984; Bishop Eamonn Casey of Galway; Bishop Edward Daly of Derry; and the since deceased bishops Dr Patrick Lennon, an auxiliary bishop in Armagh, and Bishop John Ahern of Cloyne.
They met the bishops in groups of not less than two, but to no avail. One bishop advised them to "go back and say your prayers."
The group did hear subsequently that Bishop Casey took up their cause, but was frustrated in his efforts to have the matter dealt with by other bishops.
The senior clerical academic concerned was later promoted within St Patrick's. He has since left the college, and has been the subject of further sex abuse allegations.
Meanwhile Father Joseph Briody, a curate at Ballyshannon, Co Donegal, has written in the current issue of The Irish Catholic about drunkenness among seminarians, seminarians who had girlfriends and carried condoms, and seminarians having "inappropriate relationships with other men" at Maynooth during the mid-1990s.
He also knew of many "who went to their bishops to complain and got little satisfaction" about this behaviour, he said.
On priestly formation at Maynooth at that time, he said: "There was little emphasis on chastity, morality, purity, character, virtue, self-control, self-sacrifice, ongoing conversion and fidelity."
He also said some priests openly admitted that they got ordained under the impression that the rule on celibacy would change within years.
