Among those championing such a drastic move is broadcaster Joe Duffy, whose popular call-in radio show, “Liveline,” often taps into the national psyche. Duffy said that the phone lines for his programme “just went on fire” after the new allegations, with furious callers demanding the bishop’s disinterment.

“For the church to remove him from the crypt would be a major act of atonement,” Duffy said. “But they don’t want to do it. They literally want it buried.”

To confront the clerical sins of the past, is it best to disinter the remains of a predatory bishop to reflect atonement by the church? Or, as some have argued, is it better to leave the remains where they are as an eternal reminder of pastoral betrayal?

Under usual circumstances, the Catholic hierarchy would not deign to engage in calls for exhumation. But with a remarkable July news release bearing an equally remarkable headline – “Statement from the Galway Diocese on the Interment of the Remains of Bishop Eamonn Casey” – church leaders signalled their recognition of a volatile subject that could not be prayed away.

Acknowledging that this was “a very sensitive issue that deeply affects people in different ways, and which has different facets,” the diocese said the matter would require “a period of careful consideration and consultation, which has already begun”.

“Time and space are required to adequately and appropriately bring this undertaking to completion,” the diocesan statement continued. “We will not be making any further public comment until we are in a position to provide an update.”

A host to the Pope – and a hypocrite

By the time Anne Sheridan, a veteran reporter, began investigating Casey’s past in 2016, the man was both the personification of clerical deceit and a remnant from another Irish time.

The ubiquitous clergyman rose to prominence in the 1960s as the outspoken chaplain for the down-and-out Irish emigrant community in London before eventually ascending in 1976 to the prestigious post of bishop of Galway. Widely seen as a refreshing change from the repressive Irish Catholicism of the time, he spoke out for social justice, bantered on late-night television shows and raced expensive sedans along narrow back roads. When Pope John Paul II visited Ireland in 1979, Casey was a de facto host – but also a hypocrite.

In the early 1970s, while serving as bishop of Kerry, he had an affair with his distant cousin Annie Murphy, then 25, who had come to Ireland from the United States to recover from a miscarriage and divorce. When she later gave birth to their son, Casey tried to pressure her into giving the infant up for adoption and then ignored the boy’s existence, all while publicly decrying the plight of unmarried mothers.

Murphy ended the relationship and returned with the boy, Peter, to the United States. Over the years, the bishop sent monthly support payments. But when he refused her demand to be more involved in their son’s life, Murphy filed a paternity suit in New York, after which Casey sent her $100,000 in diocesan funds for Peter’s education.

Murphy shared her story in 1992 with The Irish Times and was vilified in some quarters as a result. Casey resigned, left Ireland and before long was serving penance as a missionary in Ecuador.

After a spell in England, he returned in 2006 to a transformed Ireland, where seemingly endless scandal – including revelations of paedophile priests and cruel institutions for unwed mothers – had weakened the influence of the Catholic hierarchy on everyday Irish life.

Casey’s known offences seemed venial by comparison; he had repeatedly apologised, and had reconnected with his son. When he retired to the rural Galway community of Shanaglish, the locals celebrated his arrival with fireworks.

The aged bishop was living with Alzheimer’s disease in a nursing home in 2016 when Sheridan received an anonymous letter concerning the man, someone she had heard about all her life. Like Casey, she had grown up in Kerry, where everyone knew about the larger-than-life cleric and his reckless driving, memorialised in a cheeky song by folk singer Christy Moore.

The documentary that aired in July, “Bishop Casey’s Buried Secrets,” which relied in part on Sheridan’s reporting for the Limerick Leader and the Irish Mail on Sunday newspapers, revealed that five women had independently complained to church authorities of having been sexually abused as children by Casey. The complaints, dating back decades, involved all three Irish dioceses in which he served.

Sheridan and two RTÉ producers, Roger Childs and Birthe Tonseth, reported that the Galway Diocese had insisted for years that it knew of only one allegation, which was filed with police but did not result in prosecution. Finally, though, the diocese acknowledged having five child abuse allegations in its files, in addition to two complaints from women who said that the bishop’s abuse of their trust had involved sexual acts.

Sheridan discovered that one child abuse complaint, filed in 2001, had resulted in a confidential settlement, while another was settled by the Limerick Diocese with a payment of more than US$100,000 ($162,000) after Casey’s death.

The documentary centred on Patricia Donovan, a niece of the bishop, who said that he had sexually abused her for at least a decade, beginning when she was 5, in the 1960s. She portrayed him as a fearless paedophile who “thought he could do what he liked, when he liked, how he liked”.

Donovan filed complaints with police and church officials in England – where she lived – in late 2005, and then shortly afterward with authorities in Ireland. Her allegations, described as credible by a leading child safeguarding consultant who appears in the documentary, did not result in criminal charges. Still, they prompted church officials in England to push for Casey to leave their country.

He returned to Ireland to retire, but by then the Vatican had quietly restricted his ministry, prohibiting him from conducting priestly duties in public. He did anyway.

In a written statement to Sheridan, a spokesperson for the Galway Diocese said: “This prohibition was a source of upset to Bishop Casey and on a few publicly documented occasions, it is known he violated this prohibition.”

Pastoral betrayal

The latest revelations have sparked rage. Catholic Church cover-ups of paedophile priests had become all too familiar in Ireland, but this case involved a notorious bishop who in later years had been treated almost like a lovable rogue.

“Betrayal is the word now used most frequently when Bishop Casey’s legacy is raised,” Sheridan said.

Compounding that sense of betrayal are memories of the send-off given to Casey by the church hierarchy: a packed cathedral that included Ireland’s President, Michael D. Higgins, scores of clerics and a solemn recessional leading to the exclusive crypt below.

Only those steeped in Catholic protocol would have detected the modifications to ritual designed to play down his elevated status as a bishop, or noticed the absence of any archbishop or Vatican representative. The service was both loud and quiet.

Now, people are revisiting that ceremony and demanding that Casey’s remains be removed from the cathedral’s resting place of honour. Even the country’s Prime Minister, Simon Harris, has chimed in. He welcomed plans by the national police to review its Casey case file, and urged the Galway Diocese “to ensure their further consideration and consultation is victim focused”.

The Limerick Diocese, meanwhile, has indicated that it is prepared to receive those remains, saying in a statement that, if necessary, it “would fully co-operate to facilitate such a move”.

Until the Catholic hierarchy decides what, if anything, to do, Eamonn Casey will stay put, beside the remains of six other bishops beneath a sacred edifice in the ancient city of Galway.

The cathedral, formally known as the Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and St Nicholas, is a favoured stop for Brian Nolan, the owner of Galway Walks tours. He has led who-knows-how-many visitors down the narrow city streets and across the River Corrib to stand in its looming shadow.

He explains that its construction began in 1958 on the site of the old city jail. That it was built with locally quarried limestone. That its floors are Connemara marble.

Nolan does not refer to the notorious cleric interred in the crypt beneath that marble – though he has an opinion: leave the man where he is.

“If I ever saw a metaphor for a place I didn’t want to be, it’s down there,” he said. “It’s cold, it’s unloved, it’s unvisited.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Written by: Dan Barry

Photographs by: Paulo Nunes dos Santos

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