Oh, how we laughed in the summer of 1992. The T-shirt vendors made hay while the Bishop Eamonn Casey revelations shone. “Wear a condom just in Casey” was one slogan to mock the disgraced bishop. The wit and irreverence now seem very inadequate, redolent of a time when some of us felt all we were doing was calling out a randy, hypocritical bishop who could not resist the temptations of a young American woman, Annie Murphy, and that the exposure of his secret might actually help to foster constructive debate about the Catholic Church and celibacy.
We were soon to learn there was more to the scandal than initial headlines suggested, including the advantage he took of Murphy, the pressures heaped on her to give their son Peter up for adoption and her forced stint at the St Patrick’s mother and baby home. Now, through the distressing details and claims in this week’s programme, Bishop Casey’s Buried Secrets, the accusation is that Casey was a rapist and serial paedophile, assisted by cover up and Vatican inaction. The programme makes you wonder if we were being naive in thinking that, compared to subsequent revelations, Casey’s “occasions of sin” were of a different order.
Trawling the archive of Casey’s public pronouncements, it is striking that his own betrayals were paralleled by trenchant denunciations of the supposed sins of others along with a determination to make edgy comments about celibacy, while still holding the official line. Many of his declarations now seem to take on ironic and dark meanings. In 1986, in an interview for Hot Press magazine, he said sexuality was “at the core of everything … if that isn’t right in your life little is”. He insisted being a celibate cleric did not mean a rejection of sexuality: “I’m as sexual as anyone else and there are a thousand ways in which to express that sexuality.”
[ Bishop Casey’s Buried Secrets review: ‘He had no fear of being caught’Opens in new window ]
Two months before the story of his relationship with Murphy was broken by Conor O’Clery of this newspaper, Casey had lunch with author John Ardagh during which Casey denounced an increase in sexual activity and spoke of his work for those young, unwed and pregnant: “One cannot pick and choose with the church’s teaching.”
Casey revelled in publicity, prominence and the sound of his own voice. RTÉ archive footage shows him inviting studio guests to join him in a sing-along as he sang, “If you’re Irish come into the parlour,” and then moved on to a rendition of The Foggy Dew. One of the audience guests was Fr Michael Cleary, a fellow megalomaniac whose life and career incorporated hypocrisy, misogyny, bullying and manipulation. Cleary cherished celibacy and the priestly role in public, while privately taking advantage of a vulnerable young woman, Phyllis Hamilton, refusing to acknowledge parentage of their son Ross who was sometimes by Cleary’s side in studio as he relished reiterating the teaching of the church on sexual morality when hosting his radio phone-in show on 98FM.
Casey consistently sold himself as a champion of the dispossessed and social justice. He was a founder trustee of the Shelter National Campaign for the Homeless and became chairman of Shelter in 1968. As Bishop of Kerry, he initiated new social services and sponsored a “full life for youth” programme, aimed at nurturing the talent of the youth in his diocese. He remained active in emigrant welfare, served on various commissions and bishops’ conferences relating to mass media, social welfare and the third world, and was a critic of American foreign policy. He was also prominent in the right to life debate in 1983, arguing such a right was “antecedent to all churches. It is there before there was ever a church”.
His approach to agitation, community development and support for unmarried mothers was summed up by his contention that “one powerful single voice is more important and more effective than a number of voices, each of which is in competition with the other, for public attention”. He clearly also used that power to satisfy his sexual appetites.
Another archival clip includes Casey reflecting on his religious vocation. He said he did not feel there was any particular time he received his calling, but suggested the sort of family he came from had a significant bearing on how he saw the role of the priest, as that of “go between man and God”. It was all very humble sounding. Now, we have testimony from his own niece, Patricia Donovan, that Casey first raped her when she was five years old. “He had no fear of being caught,” she remarked.
The Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, Eamon Martin, was recently asked how long he thought the Catholic Church would be haunted by the abuse crisis. He replied, “Hopefully, forever.” As this week’s programme reminds us, this was the only appropriate answer.