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	Chapter 26 Bishop John Magee -- Page 319 Cloyne Report July 13, 2011 http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Cloyne_Rpt.pdf/Files/Cloyne_Rpt.pdf [full text] Introduction 26.1 On 30 December 2008, while the fallout from the recent publication of the Elliott report (see Chapter 6) was still reverberating throughout the Diocese of Cloyne and indeed beyond, the diocesan delegate, Fr Bermingham, received a telephone call from Joseph.117 Prompted by the contents of the Elliott report, Joseph had reviewed his own interactions with Bishop John Magee during a period when he had been contemplating entering the priesthood. He was concerned that the behaviour of the bishop towards him, which had not perturbed him at the time, was, on reflection, disquieting. Meeting with Fr Bermingham 26.2 After a number of telephone calls, Fr Bermingham arranged to meet Joseph on 2 January 2009. This was an awkward assignment for Fr Bermingham as the report concerned his bishop, to whom he owed respect and obedience. Fr Bermingham told the Commission that he was apprehensive about having to deal with the matter as none of the procedures in either the Framework Document (1996) or Our Children, Our Church (2005) set out how a delegate is to deal with a complaint against his bishop or a superior despite the fact that experience in other countries suggests that complaints against bishops are not unheard of. 26.3 At the meeting, which was also attended by Joseph’s father, Joseph gave a history of continuous involvement with the Church throughout his youth, first as an altar boy, then as a reader and latterly as an aspirant priest. In all of these capacities he had encountered Bishop Magee. He had attended annual vocations’ meetings organised by the bishop in the period under review when he was aged between 15 and 17. Following assessment, Joseph was accepted as a candidate for the priesthood for the Diocese of Cloyne. He was approximately 17? years old at that time but could not take up his place in the seminary until he was aged 18. By this stage, Bishop Magee and Joseph had each other’s mobile telephone numbers. If either wished to speak to the other, texting was usually used to arrange the appointments. 26.4 Later, because of changed family circumstances, Joseph decided not to take up his place in the seminary. Just before the start of the seminary year he met Bishop Magee to notify him of his decision. The meeting took place in the reception room at the bishop’s residence. It was the first time that Joseph had spent time alone with Bishop Magee. According to Joseph, that meeting marked a change in the bishop’s behaviour towards him, both in word and deed. Joseph reported to Fr Bermingham and has told the Commission that, in the course of this particular meeting, the bishop embraced him tightly and at the same time inquired of him as to whether that “felt good”. Joseph reported that this embrace was protracted; it lasted for approximately one minute. He stated that the bishop also kissed him on the forehead. Joseph had a number of further meetings alone with the bishop, some when he was under 18 and some when he was over 18. In the course of those meetings there were similar prolonged tight embraces and kisses on the forehead. There is some ambiguity about the precise age Joseph was when some of the alleged behaviour occurred. According to Joseph, the bishop declared that he loved him and told him that he had dreamt about him – this may have happened before he was 18 or soon thereafter. 26.5 It is important to note that Joseph’s contemporaneous reaction to the bishop’s behaviour was that his words and actions were “paternal”. Neither the words nor the gestures had made him feel uneasy at the time. As already stated, it was the publicity surrounding the publication of the Elliott report that had caused Joseph to review his interactions with the bishop. Following that publication, Joseph had read in the newspapers general details about the kind of inappropriate behaviour that a boy had experienced at the hands of an unnamed priest before he was abused by that priest. Joseph told the Commission that he began “to interpret what had happened between us from a fresh perspective and I began to think that maybe it wasn’t as innocent as I originally thought or assumed it was”. 26.6 Joseph was anxious to know how Fr Bermingham viewed the behaviour and the words which he had described. Fr Bermingham’s response was that, given the actual details revealed and Joseph’s age at the time, the behaviour described did not constitute an allegation of child sexual abuse. He did express the view to Joseph that the behaviour described was inappropriate to the occasion and to the relationship. He assured Joseph and his father that Church procedures in relation to these matters would be followed and that he would keep them advised as to developments.
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