"I’d be very happy if he was sitting here in this
seat and it’s a pity that he isn’t," the visibly-shaken archbishop said
at a press conference in Cork yesterday.
The diocese’s caretaker bishop, who is also the Archbishop of Cashel and Emly, described himself as "having distanced himself from John Magee" in recent years and hadn’t any contact with him recently.
He said he believed that the former Bishop of Cloyne was out of the country.
Responding to the revelation that he knew in 2009 of an allegation of abuse against Dr Magee and yet still refused to call for him to step aside, he said: "I wasn’t going to make a judgement on Bishop’s Magee’s future as I saw it, over this particular incident which hadn’t been investigated at all.
"I was asked by the commission on a sinister interpretation, if I believed it was grooming. I said that on a sinister interpretation, it was grooming but on a benign interpretation it was a young man who was distraught and Bishop Magee attempted to console him and acted inappropriately."
The Cloyne apostolic administrator said the blame for what happened in the Co Cork diocese lay squarely with Dr Magee.
He said it was "indefensible" that the diocese had made two copies of a meeting with a suspect priest — one for Rome and for gardaí, both with contradictory narratives. He said it was "concealment" and "an embarrassment".
"Bishop Magee handed everything over to Monsignor Denis O’Callagahan. He took advice from him on what to do. And for that reason, even though he was the main person, I don’t think he was informed as well as he should have been by Mgr Denis O’Callaghan. Nor did he take enough interest to make sure he would be informed," he said.
Archbishop Clifford said he was appalled by the depth of damage and suffering caused by a minority of clergy in the diocese and said he was sorry that those who were abused were failed.
"We have put structures in place that will go as near as humanly possible to ensure this kind of thing never happens again."
The archbishop said a successor to Dr Magee will be announced in the coming months and conceded he would have a "hard job" ahead of him.
"The priests are demoralised and will need strong leadership... The resources of our diocese are also low and we will likely have more compensation claims ahead," he said.
The diocese’s caretaker bishop, who is also the Archbishop of Cashel and Emly, described himself as "having distanced himself from John Magee" in recent years and hadn’t any contact with him recently.
He said he believed that the former Bishop of Cloyne was out of the country.
Responding to the revelation that he knew in 2009 of an allegation of abuse against Dr Magee and yet still refused to call for him to step aside, he said: "I wasn’t going to make a judgement on Bishop’s Magee’s future as I saw it, over this particular incident which hadn’t been investigated at all.
"I was asked by the commission on a sinister interpretation, if I believed it was grooming. I said that on a sinister interpretation, it was grooming but on a benign interpretation it was a young man who was distraught and Bishop Magee attempted to console him and acted inappropriately."
The Cloyne apostolic administrator said the blame for what happened in the Co Cork diocese lay squarely with Dr Magee.
He said it was "indefensible" that the diocese had made two copies of a meeting with a suspect priest — one for Rome and for gardaí, both with contradictory narratives. He said it was "concealment" and "an embarrassment".
"Bishop Magee handed everything over to Monsignor Denis O’Callagahan. He took advice from him on what to do. And for that reason, even though he was the main person, I don’t think he was informed as well as he should have been by Mgr Denis O’Callaghan. Nor did he take enough interest to make sure he would be informed," he said.
Archbishop Clifford said he was appalled by the depth of damage and suffering caused by a minority of clergy in the diocese and said he was sorry that those who were abused were failed.
"We have put structures in place that will go as near as humanly possible to ensure this kind of thing never happens again."
The archbishop said a successor to Dr Magee will be announced in the coming months and conceded he would have a "hard job" ahead of him.
"The priests are demoralised and will need strong leadership... The resources of our diocese are also low and we will likely have more compensation claims ahead," he said.