The Archbishop of New York, who led the Apostolic Visitation team to review Irish seminaries, has issued a sharp rebuff to the Irish Catholic, accusing it of "unsubstantiated and inaccurate reporting.” The comments came after the paper published a story last week saying the National Seminary at Maynooth faced closure, and seminarians were to move to Rome.
“After hearing of the recent report by the Irish Catholic about our ‘recommendation’ to Rome, I can easily conclude that unsubstantiated and inaccurate reporting by the press is hardly a monopoly of the American media,” said the larger than life Archbishop Timothy Dolan in a statement issued through the Catholic Communications office.
He went on, “Had anyone from this paper asked, I would have pointed out that our report to the Holy See is still not even complete.”
However in this week’s editorial in the Irish Catholic, editor Garry O’Sullivan said that the paper could not “ask the archbishop because he was not available,” and that they had been trying to talk to him for months.
“It is a little rich of him now to suggest that it’s just a matter of picking up the phone,” he wrote.
The Irish Catholic also strenuously denied that it had failed to publish a response from St Patrick’s College.
“We received no response and our IT people have confirmed there is no response emails on our servers.”
In his statement, Archbishop Dolan sent his regards to the seminary community in Ireland, with whom, by all accounts, he and his team had established good personal links.
“We were buoyed up and enthused by the visit," College President, Mgr Hugh Connolly told ciNews.
While the Visitation Team’s report is not complete, Archbishop Dolan said, “The sole mandate of the Apostolic Visitation is to review the seminaries to ensure they are responding properly to the present-day needs of the Church.”
The Apostolic Visitation to seminaries in Ireland came at the request of Pope Benedict XVI following revelations of horrific child sex abuse by clerics in Ireland.
Meanwhile, at a recent meeting of the Administrative Committee of the American bishops Conference, Archbishop Dolan has reiterated the U.S. bishops’ resolve to deal firmly with clerics who abuse children.
“We remain especially firm in our commitment to remove permanently from public ministry, any priest who committed such an intolerable offence,” said the President of the U.S. Bishops’ Conference.
The Administrative Committee is the highest-ranking body of U.S. bishops’ conference when the full body is not in session.
It meets three times a year.
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