Irish prosecutor will not proceed with abuse charges against bishop

Published: 2006-08-30

DUBLIN, Ireland (CNS) -- An Irish prosecutor will not proceed with charges of child abuse against retired Bishop Eamonn Casey of Galway, Ireland, said a brief statement from the Irish Catholic Communications office. In November, 79-year-old Bishop Casey was accused by a woman of abusing her as a child. At the time of the accusation he was serving as a curate in Hayward's Heath, England, and according to church guidelines he was immediately suspended from clerical duties. The complainant, a woman from Limerick, Ireland, who now lives in England, had made similar allegations against other clerics; those claims subsequently were found to be unsubstantiated. Bishop Casey was one of the most popular members of the Irish church because of his work for justice in Ireland, Britain and the Third World. But in 1992 he fled Ireland after it was revealed he had fathered a child, Peter, with an American woman, Annie Murphy, with whom he had an affair dating back to his time as bishop of Kerry, 1969-1976. He spent six years of his self-exile serving as a missionary in Central America before taking up his post as a curate in Hayward's Heath in 1998.

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