IRELAND
RTÉ News
March 14, 2018
By Joe Little
The Catholic Church has said that paedophile priest, the late Malachy Finegan, ministered for three years in the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin.
Responding to a query from RTÉ News, a spokesman for the diocese said the disgraced cleric, who is known by his own northern Diocese of Dromore to have sexually abused minors, worked as a curate in Rosenallis, Co Laois from 1953 to 1956.
The spokesman added that the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin had “no knowledge or record of any complaint or allegation concerning Fr Finegan”.
Earlier this week the former President Mary McAleese called on the civil authorities in Northern Ireland to launch a public inquiry into the Diocese of Dromore’s response to complaints about Finegan’s abuse which, she said, stretch back as far as the early 1970s.
On 1 March Dr John McAreavey announced his resignation as Bishop of Dromore in the wake of revelations by some of Finegan’s victims that, in 2000, he had concelebrated mass in public with Finegan in spite of the church’s ban on the paedophile ministering in public.
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