On this blog I am constantly asked two questions:
1. Did I witness homosexuality in my time in seminary?
2. Did I engage in homosexuality in seminary?
I am, of course, aware that many of those anonymous questioners are nasty cynical and sexually active clergy.
CLONLIFFE – 1970 – 1973
There was a hidden, very hidden, homosexual underground in Clonliffe in my time.
But it involved a tiny minority of the 120 who were there in my time.
I was personally aware of only one situation that involved Peter Meldon, later ordained, and a young guy a year junior to me.
In that case, Meldon, not a nice man at all, did the grooming and seducing.
It caused the younger guy great distress, and he used to discuss it with me.
When it was found out, Meldon was ordained and the younger guy expelled.
I lost touch with the younger guy. If he’s reading this , get in touch.
INVESTIGATION
Clonliffe president, Bishop Joe Carroll got wind of the homosexuality and asked a senior seminarian, PEARSE WALSH ( 😀 ) to investigate.
I never heard what Pearse Walsh reported to Carroll.
Pearson Walsh was an “unlikely” investigator, as those who know him will attest.
Bill Mulvihill has an awful lot to say about Pearse Walsh.
Other names are associated with homosexuality in Clonliffe, including Fr Gay Slattery.
There were also allegations of visiting altar boys being sexually abused at Clonliffe.
WATERFORD
St John’s was a much poorer and much less sophisticated seminaries.
The living conditions were poorer, the food was poorer, and perhaps the academic life was poorer.
The seminarians, mainly from rural areas, were simpler.
But it was a very informal and warm place and so relaxed in comparison to Clonliffe.
I think homosexuality was almost non-existent there.
But there was one exception – an English seminarian who had been introduced to homosexuality at a very young age and who sought to continue to explore his activities there.
He had a number of conquests.
ME
I did not engage in any kind of sexual activity in either seminary.
Of course, I was gay and indeed had the normal attractions and desires.
At the time, I was very serious and pious.
I regarded those things as big sins – mortal sins – and things that would stop me from realising my reason for living – to be a priest.
I was very lonely, very sad, and very psychologically and emotionally immature and afraid.
I often think that one of the few things this time gave me was the ability to say NO to myself.
None of us like saying NO to ourselves.
But it’s an important ability.
We all need internal brakes.
I am not claiming any special virtue by my not engaging in sexual practices in seminary.
It was as it was.
Would such experimentation have made me a less repressed person, a more integrated person.
I simply don’t know?
But I would not have wanted to become another Purcell, JPL, etc
COMMENTS
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BISHOP PAT BUCKLEY 
133 replies on “HOMOSEXUALITY IN CLONLIFFE AND WATERFORD – 1970 TO 1976.”
In my time in Clonliffe after your time, Pat, the junior/senior divide was taken very seriously. It was a rule that you didn’t as a junior go to the senior side and vice versa. But it often happened with a little trepidation. I can say now that there were noticeable friendships which led to questions but I did not witness any homosexual activity in my 6 years. In my second year, the seminary was opened up so that we were allowed to go out as often as we wished, the salient words being “personal responsibility”. This had a positive effect in allowing us to go home, meet family and friends and do much more pastoral work and escape from the all male environment. Studies were expected and exams tough. There was one staff member who had a penchant for particular types!! There may have been some undercurrents of homosexuality but I didn’t witness any noticeable sexual impropriety. I had a wonderful 6 years and probably my upbringing helped me to act very warily, carefully and responsibility. I had a few close college friends but no one ever approached me or made any improper moves on me. I think when you had a group of 120 men of different age groups in one confined environment it was natural that some might have homosexual tendencies and try to act on them. And there’s nothing wrong with having normal human emotions and feelings. Having left teacher training for priesthood my previous experiences of life were of immense help to me in discerning unwanted experiences! I’m grateful for the education I received at Clonliffe, despite having some very challenging moments and questioning my faith and ministerial priesthood.
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11:16
Good post.
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Being leered at on a few seminary visits led me elsewhere in pursuing an authentic and Christian life. Very happy with my decision unlike the disgruntled clerics who appear to spend considerable amounts of time defending the indefensible.
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11.16 do you recall “222 fondue” or rather fond of you ‘ or was that after your time. Of course there was another ” entertainer” with similar tastes…. do you recall his midnight parties whom on the select few were invited to ? – not to mention holidays in Lourdes….
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A sort of e-celebret.
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“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power.
Above all. to watch. To try to understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget….another World is not only possible, she is on her way.
On a quiet day. I can hear her breathing”.
-Arundhati Roy
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Bishop Buckley, what you describe as seminary training from 1970-76 might be best described as life in a prison camp. No grindr no hook ups
no poppers no booze no overnights no social life no exploratory sex no summers of love! What did students do all day every day after classes?
Fiddle with rosary beads play galic football or read comics such as the beano dandy or the hospur? Contemporary seminary life in Gaynooth Oscott or NAC is very different, Bishop Buckley. Pink is the preferred colour not black and white prison clothes worn by those behind bars.
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Clonliffe was a comfortable prison.
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Another form of RC enslavement.
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Thurles was the equivalent of Mountjoy.
I am glad I escaped that hell hole and now enjoy married life. I think personally that anyone that endured that gulag must be screwed up psychologically. It doesn’t even cover the ones who ran it and overseen it.
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11:16 Concerning to find these types now running parishes and Dioceses.
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10.00: Clonliffe in the 70’s was not a prison, far from it, Pat. It was strict in ways but not a prison. Why did you move to Waterford which seemed like can poor house?
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As I said, a comfortable prison.
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Waterford sounds like a warm but poorly fed gulag.
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11:16
You were fortunate considering some had their lives ruined.
The Michael Deegan (Rip) case remains unresolved. Why?
https://bishoppatbuckley.blog/2020/07/05/former-seminarian-of-saint-patricks-seminary-speaks-out/
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Was the Father Pearse Walsh mentioned a chaplain at UCD in the late seventies, or was that another priest of the same name?
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Maynooth was a Gulag. Forced communal Toilets /showers.
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Fantasist liar at 3.16pm. There were never communal showers in Maynooth, just individual cubicles.
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In Clonliffe, there were toilet and shower cubicles.
In Waterford, there were also toilet and shower cubicles and one outside communal urinal.
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3.37
I remember the showers in the “Wing”. They were communal, which surprised me, since the building was modern (opened in 1978), and should, therefore, have offered individual shower cubicles.
I never used them. Always preferred the privacy of a bath. Was concerned that I might get a big boner in the communal showers, with all those gorgeous, naked, wet and hairless thinks around me. Ohhhhhh, the surge!!!
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Well with Pearse it would be a case of using a rat to catch a rat.
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@11.16am That brings back painful memories. I escaped too but the emotional scars remain
here in London. Fogarty and Dwyer have lots to answer for. There were a few kindly priests but they were in the small minority like the big man from Hospital.
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Excellent contribution 11.16am. I hope you share more now that you seem free from their shackles and control.
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Yes, Cinor Ryan was one of very few with some humanity. Dinnny Talbot was okay as was Seamus Ryan. Apart from them Thurles was toughhhhh. Christy Dwyer, Tony Lambe and Co. were brutal.
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Bill Lee seemed brutal as President of Thurles but deep down he was a fair man
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Priests and brothers visiting gay saunas is very common. In particular, Benedictine and Cistercian monks are well known as frequenters in Dublin, London and Edinburgh. Furthermore a serving bishop in Ireland travels to Germany to visit a gay sauna. The reason the bishops are so tolerant of the activities of gay clergy is because the same gay clergy know all the dirt.
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What have Priests been like in Ballygall since Fr Joe Collins. Has Ballygall had many Vocations to the Priesthood in past Years ?
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I enjoyed my time abroad in a seminary. Including exploring my sexuality, physicality, relationships and sex itself. I look back and think of that as part of the process of maturation, growing up, finding oneself and developing one’s sense of vocation etc. I was only just 18 when I entered seminary, from a rather sheltered background, and for the time I was in seminary I was growing up ! That’s what being young is all about ! Now, I guess it was within bounds and there came a time when decisions had to be made, with an increasing understanding of vocation, of chastity, of celibacy etc. I think the wise formation staff knew all this and recognised it as part and parcel of the development of the person and the vocation. Seemed sane, wise and balanced to me.
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The function of a seminary is to prepare men for the priesthood, not to be a finishing school where immature men can grow up and find themselves, at the expense of those who put into the collection plate. Shame on you for being a freeloader.
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9.13
Rather an intolerant, judgemental and blinkered comment. The culture facilitated and even encourage people in their teens to enter seminary. Immaturity is part of the journey to maturity.
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9:13 Excellent comment. If youngsters want the student life that takes place outside seminary they know what they have to do.
In fact the reason the seminary system was designed to catch them young (ie school age) was to try to catch them before they’d become infected by the world, not to allow them to experiment with sex.
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Further to 09:13am, unfortunately many recently ordained priests treat the priesthood itself as a finishing school. Think how often we see men in the closet (though their homosexuality is obvious to everyone else) get ordained, stick at priesthood for five years and then discover their true selves and run off with a man. It’s a boringly familiar theme in dioceses everywhere.
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The wise formation staff speaks volumes @8:48. It sounds like the near blind leading the totally blind.
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Excellent comment 8:48am. Going into seminary at a young age will inevitably lead to men exploring their body, their sexuality, etc. It’s in the natural order of things for every human being. Unfortunately, most seminary staff (clerical) hadn’t explored their own sexual identity and they dealt with it by trying to deny young men their own identity.
The results? Many messed up priests in later life, operating out of a place of dysfunction and denial. Until seminary formation faces the reality of seminarians being sexual beings, like everyone else, then problems will continue.
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2:42
In my experience older men in seminary can be predatory homosexuals. Maybe a particular individual in question didn’t explore his body, sexuality or have a sufficient number of partners before become a seminarian.
And maybe many going into seminary at a young are too immature to be in such an environment. It might be more appropriate for them to explore their bodies sexuality etc, before considering committing training for priesthood otherwise summers of love are bound to re-occur including subsequent wagon circling.
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2:42
You seem to be connecting dysfunctional priests and seminary formation.
Of course we know there is a firm connection between the two. However,
is it ok for student psychotherapists to act out their sexual fantasy’s or explore their bodies and sexuality with their lecturers during the formation process of becoming a therapist?
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@2.05pm Thanks for confirming Conor Ryan from Hospital he was few of the very good guys. Lambe was alwsus in Hayes getting drunk at night and mad for the horses. Brutal regime.
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Regarding this American slavery stuff, in what ways were Clonliffe and St John’s Waterford involved? Did they own slaves, or is posting about it just a way of making a random anti-Catholic comment?
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In my time in Clonliffe there were 120 slaves 😀
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Maynooth in the 1980’s did not have an overt sexual atmosphere. On the contrary, people were given their marching orders and others may have speculated about them and about why. Years later, some stories of sexual activity involving named individuals emerged to the surprise of many.
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In those days while seminaries did not have an overt sexual atmosphere
it didn’t necessarily mean sexual acting out was not taking place.
Remember Fr. Gerard McGinnity case concerning complaints from
seminarians involving Fr. Michael Ledwith with it’s subsequent fall
out. The matter was even discussed in the Senate in 2005.
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The best sex I ever had was in seminary and monasteries. So don’t knock it. The thrill of knowing we shouldn’t be doing it. And especially in a place we were, I think it made it feel that extra special.
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Were these seminaries and monasteries located on Fantasy Island?
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Pat do you honestly believe our monasteries in Ireland are gay knocking shops?
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Yes
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For God sake Pat they are all men older than you, I hardly think they are popping viagra and putting it to use
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I can second that – best sex is to be had with monks
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Thank you for your restrictions on comments. Long overdue. Yesterday’s were particularly bad with comments about Korea, helicopter crash and so on. I got lost in th thread. Thank you again.
👍
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Seconded. Some clown continues to copy and paste comments from other posts, presumably to harass the bishop with the huge number of comments and make the blog unreadable.
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Bishop Pat, thanks for tightening up posting of comments. I got the distinct impression a number of disgruntled posters were trying to up-scuttle the blog.
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The fact cannot be escaped that Clerical celibacy is the discipline within the Catholic Church by which only unmarried men are ordained to the episcopate, to the priesthood in the Latin Church (with some particular exception and in some autonomous particular Churches, and similarly to the diaconate. In other autonomous particular churches, the discipline applies only to the episcopate.
The Catholic particular church which principally follows this discipline is the Latin Church, this does not apply to the Eastern Catholic Churches which permit married men to be ordained to priesthood with the exception of the Ethiopian Catholic Church. All particular Churches of the Catholic Church require Bishops to be celibate as was the practice of the ancient Church as Bishops were chosen from monastics who always practice celibacy.
In this context, “celibacy” retains its original meaning of “unmarried”. Though even the married may observe abstinence from sexual intercourse, the obligation to be celibate is seen as a consequence of the obligation to observe perfect and perpetual continence for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven. Advocates see clerical celibacy as “a special gift of God by which sacred ministers can more easily remain close to Christ with an undivided heart, and can dedicate themselves more freely to the service of God and their neighbour.”
In February 2019, the Vatican acknowledged that the policy has not always been enforced and that rules had been secretly established by the Vatican to protect non-celibate clergy who violated their vows of celibacy. Some clergy have also been allowed to retain their clerical state after fathering children.Some Catholic clergy who violated their vows of celibacy also have maintained their clerical status after secretly marrying women.
Prefect for the Congregation for Clergy Cardinal Beniamino Stella also acknowledged that child support and transfer have been two common ways for such clergy to maintain their clerical status.
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Pat, there is a lot of focus on homosexuality in the church but we need to widen the debate. Imperial researchers are using a new approach to understand why same-sex behaviour is so common across the animal kingdom. Some historical background- In 1910, a team of scientists set off on the Terra Nova Expedition to explore Antarctica. Among them was George Murray Levick, a zoologist and photographer who would be the first researcher to study the world’s largest Adélie penguin colony. He chronicled the animals’ daily activities in great detail. In his notebooks, he described their sexual behaviour, including sex between male birds. However, none of these notes would appear in Levick’s published papers. Concerned by the graphic content, he only printed 100 copies of Sexual Habits of the Adélie Penguin to circulate privately. The last remaining copy was recently unearthed providing valuable insights into animal homosexuality research.
But forays into animal homosexuality research long predate Levick, with observations published as far back as the 1700s and 1800s. More than 200 years later, research has moved past some of the taboos those early researchers faced and shown that homosexuality is much more common than previously thought. Same-sex behaviour ranging from co-parenting to sex has been observed in over 1,000 species with likely many more as researchers begin to look for the behaviour explicitly. Homosexuality is widespread, with bisexuality even more prevalent across species. Researchers are now going beyond just observing it though, with researchers at Imperial leading the way in unravelling how, and why, homosexuality is found across nature.
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Imperial research? Do you mean empirical?
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These are complex human questions Bishop Pat and it must also take into account up to date research in psychology. This must factor in Human variation in psychological, physical, and behavioural characteristics as both an obvious and inescapable reality. Recognition of this universal phenomenon likely arose in step with the rise of human civilization. Formal philosophical treatment of individual differences in intellect, integrity, and motivation, for example, can easily be traced back at least to Plato, and evidence indicates that testing for such differences was practiced by the Ming dynasty in ancient China. The scientific study of how and why people differ in systematic ways is known as the psychology of individual differences. The psychology of individual differences seeks to understand how inter and intra-individual differences in psychological characteristics interact with environmental affordances and demands to produce differences in a variety of personal, work, educational, and social outcomes. The theories and psychometric methods developed by individual difference researchers are used by social scientists to understand, critique, and address practical problems in a variety of contexts such as education, selection, evaluation, and guidance.
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There is a deep rooted problem with modern seminaries. The Seminary Formation Council (SFC) is a new initiative described in their mission statement as “The Seminary Formation Council serves diocesan seminary formation by providing education, practical tools,spiritual enrichment and fraternal support to seminary formators. Under the patronage of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Star of the New Evangelization, we serve the bishops who have the “responsibility for the formation of those who have been given the task of educating future priests” in order to equip
missionary disciples to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all nations.” But surely it needs to be more holistic than that. Anyone else agree?
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A further important- indeed crucial- consideration must be the importance of personal conversion. A formation advisor needs to
continue to experience internal personal conversion ourselves if we hope to accompany others as they grow toward the Lord Jesus Himself. We experienced a silent directed retreat for us to have some precious time with God as the school year is very active and engaging, prayer allows us all to process what God has been doing within our own hearts and lives to invite the ongoing conversion of our hearts. Our conversion helps keep current to reality of continual growth in our faith life, it provides new and fresh methods of our being able to name for others what their conversion of heart is going to look like and perhaps effectively accompany students as they continue to grow in the image and likeness of our Lord Jesus.
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Do you think the final Synodal Document due from the Synodal Pathway/ Process will address homosexuality in a positive way?
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Seminaries are unhealthily places rather like priosons – same sex relations are inevitable and par for the course – the culture is fundamentally immature – emotionally and sexually and produce emotionally and sexually immature priests.
Cotton – now gone but a nightmare regarding formation
Oscott – a laughing stock – virtually a gay knocking shop.
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12.34
Do you ever have anything positive to say about anyone or anything?
You ought to be paying Pat for the service his blog provides for you to get your negativity off your chest several times each day. If you wete to pay for counsellors you’d be out of pocket.
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While in Clonliffe for 7 years, the divide between junior snd seniir house was very clear. You did not cross over to senior house without permission. We were told about the rules. I never witnessed any propositioning but there were overtures from some guys. When the rules of “freedom” were given most guys went home to their parents daily but had to be back for study time…Looking back I never experienced anything untoward apart from some overtures. Many of us played sport or went to films or theatre in freer leisure time. if there were any activities of a sexual kind, I did not see anything. That isn’t to say there was no sexual activity. The lecturers kept their distance very clearly. Of course the altar servers who visited were always looked after by Tony Walsh – the notorious abuser. It is sad to think that he was the weekly minder of all visiting groups, an activity which seemed to be well monitored. We know now the harm he caused. Pat, I entered seminary after you and at end of our 1st year, freedom with personal responsibility became the norm, which meant that many of us visited our families more frequently alongside pastoral assignments. But, I witnessed overtures of a sexual nature but nothing very overt.
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Seamus Conway used to hide near the arch dividing junior and senior house to catch people who crossed over.
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I remember that.
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Fr Slattery was involved with a Clonliffe seminarian who later received money from Dublin clergy for sexual favours 😪
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He was also sued or the diocese was by one of the twins
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I was a sem in Clonliffe and experienced gay sex there with two other sems. I believe the authorities knew and turned a blind eye. I left and was able to live openly as a gay man.
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Homo sex in the seminary is a boring story Bishop Pat, always has been and always will be widespread. It’s the same in prisons. Not a natural environment and people will hump what’s close by
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A fellow sem once told me that any sem who denied that he wanked was a liar. I distinctly remember looking out the window at the time to feign distraction.
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The spiritual director of Clonliffe used to hear confessions in a little room every morning before Mass. The room was called “Wankers Corner”.
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Is that you Pat? Because you’ve said this before, under your own name.
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Not me. But it is true.
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As a non celibate Priest I could name and shame the others who I have spelt with
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The very idea of seminary was very odd to start off with. To seclude a large number of young men at their sexual peak from any contact with women is a recipe for rampant gay sex, even in those who may only be prison gay. To expect anything else is just so far divorced from reality as to be laughable.
And then to add a requirement of no sex and not even masturbation is a recipe to ensure they will go off the rails. To be frank it is surprising that there aren’t more reports of actual atrocities in seminary, so divorced from reality is the concept.
And seminaries were dreamt up by a bunch of clerics with the idea that the seminaries would give the educated Protestants a run for their money! These clerics would all of them have heard confession so have literally no excuse for claiming not to know that their idea could only end in tears.
Now you may say some pious remarks about grace, but since the behaviour of the RC church shows that it is clearly not the recipient or agent of divine grace, there is no hope of this unworkable nightmare not causing scandal and trauma.
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Obviously anyone entering seminary now would be an adult so parents wouldn’t be able to stop them, and it’s difficult to tell an adult they’re screwing their life up.
Where parents do go wrong is to bring up children in the religion of a church which has been so criticised. That in itself is outrageous irresponsibility.
We tend to treat the laity on this blog as if they are sheep and just follow. But actually they are facilitators and supports of this disgrace.
But then religion, like politics, is very dependent on the half of humanity with an IQ below 100 – the further below the better.
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Fr Ger Fitzgerald also claimed “he saw nothing” in Gaynooth. What a fountain of truth and moral example he turned out to be.😇
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1:20 He might have sleep walked his way through Gaynooth or was in a catatonic state for 6 or 7 years or continuously wore shades as Gaynooth was such an enlightening seminary. Not.
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The psych evaluation allowed the homosexually active clergy ensure a supply of homesexual youth into their life. It works for the covert reasons, not for the advertised reasons.
Re Ryan. When he was in seminary it was well known that he was part of a homosexual circle. I cannot say he acted on his homesexual interests but his circle were giggling, girlies. It focused on the room of a Kildare student who didn’t make it through seminary and is now openly in a homesexual lifestyle. Rumours of luxury in that room abounded amidst clerical circles nationally – but it was allowed happen for about 4 years. It didn’t help that the Dean himself was questioning his own vocation and ultimately left priesthood.
In general that era has produced some questionable characters, and a high rate of transitional deacons who never became priests – as well as people leaving, taking drugs, sleeping with laity, sleeping either peers… goes back to bishops making poor choices regarding deans and discipline.
Night prayer and lights out…v… light prayer and nights out
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Armagh has an odd vetting process sure just look at Ryan McAleer, Stephen Wilson, Rory Coyle and yes Emlyn. One shudders to think 😱
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RYAN MC ALEER ACCUSER TYRONE
There is a young guy in Tyrone that has been badmouthing Ryan to Amy and to you Bishop Pat. The guy is not genuine and had led you astray. We are preparing a dossier about him and his own activities to distribute in Tyrone and we hope you will name him and publish it on your blog – for justice sake.
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4.01
So, you are hoping to gas light him?
You are no doubt a good son or daughter of the Church.
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What vetting process?
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Wexford was a comfortable clink too at the time, especially when Mammy Moore looked after us.
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I think that many years ago, most catholic mothers would have been delighted if their son was to become a priest. Now I would imagine that most catholic mothers would lock their son up until he came to his senses if he expressed a desire to become a priest. After all, what parent would want their child to become part of any dangerous,morally corrupt business
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Most Catholic mothers probably don’t read this blog, or have any other source of information about homosexuality in seminary. So, they are unlikely to react as you suggest, had they a son aspiring to priesthood.
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3:40 It’s lucky that the revelations of the church’s total absence of probity, or even legality, have only been published on this blog and nowhere else. /sarc
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Yes, it is lucky…for the institutional Church.
Sadly, most Catholic mothers are probably still living with a highly mythologised and positive image of Church and priesthood. Happily, the lure of Secularism is redressing the balance here by keeping away from seminary the vast majority of Catholic young men; this is the main reason for the dearth of so-called “vocations” in the Western Hemisphere.
Priesthood is no longer “cool” among Catholic young males; on the contrary, it is passé. Not a choice for rugged heroes, but a pathetic form of escapism, for wimps, into a world of prissy make-believe.
Catholic young males today aren’t so much hostile to Church and priesthood: it’s much worse than this, I’m afraid: they are completely indifferent to both. Plus, they see no evidence for claims about a loving God when they look around at a world filled with the horrors of gross human callousness and of human suffering. Where’s God in all this?, they may rightly ask. The best the Church can come up with, by way of answer, after more than 2,000 years of existence, are hackneyed pious platitudes, quirky soundbites … and priests and bishops who show their love of God, and their unshakeable faith in Church dogma and doctrine, either by raping children or by rendering them silent, and by intimidating with legal action children who do speak out. What earnest Catholic young man of tender conscience could refuse to heed “the call” to serve such an impious freak show?
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I am a seminarian at the minute. This blog has not deterred me from my ultimate goal. I will be in belfast over the weekend if you would like to meet up and talk over any concerns you may have Pat. I do not agree with you but I still have respect for you.
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1:32 Make sure to lock your bedroom door day and night.
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If they can’t get in your kegs, they’ll might make off with your wallet.
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The late 90s in Maynooth were lively. Alot of activity in St.Pats and some corridors in St. Marys. Parties down the town were popular. One house in Rail park was a favourite spot with 2/3 seminarians staying over.. all very hetro.. the gay students went into Dublin to the gay bars. Summer holidays in London were a big source of gay sex activity. The 2001 class piece is an interesting case study for the characters who made and those that didnt. Some never ordained. Mist of them are gone their separate ways. Maynooth was an eyeopener in many ways!! The highlight each september was the intake of new students and finding out who might be open to some ‘extra curricular’ activities. Many of whom feature very regularly on this blig.. Emlyn..Rory.. ordination season were interesting .. Armagh ordinations always the ‘liveliest’. If the proud parishes and families only knew..
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Hugh Connolly is a decent man, highly cultured and generous with his hospitality. He’s had a raw deal here on the blog in the past and he got a raw deal in Maynooth.
You can let Hugh out in public knowing he won’t make a fool if himself or let the side down. I doubt Mullaney is even worthy to wash Hugh’s underpants.
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I was in Maynooth in the 1980s and 90s. The only sexual activity that I was aware of was between female lay students and sems. Many female lay students set out to get a sem boyfriend. However, to be fair to all concerned, the sems left. They didn’t try to have it all.
There were a few camp seminarians and no doubt plenty of gay men in the closet, but it was a robustly heterosexual place then, in atmosphere and behaviour and in modern terms might even be described as homophobic. The deans had no tolerance of homosexuality and were ruthless with those they thought might be gay. It very much reflected the Ireland of its time. The great majority of sems followed the rules (more or less), said their prayers, studied hard, locked horns occasionally with the deans, were kind and were trying to do their best.
So whereas I have plenty of memories of Maynooth, some good and some bad, it isn’t as a gay seminary that I remember it. It started to turn that way just as I was leaving, though. For example, there was Bill Mulvihill’s friend, the deacon (RIP) from Armagh who unusually was transferred from the Irish College to Maynooth and who stalked the corridors of St Mary’s House in the early hours, drunk and knocking on doors and demanding sex. Even Tom Fee, the most tolerant of men, thought that that was too much. It was a sign of things to come, but the modern Maynooth, as described her and witnessed during the summer of love, was unthinkable then.
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1:48 you were in Maynooth around the same time as Tom Deenihan. Do you have a story to tell? Pray tell.
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Tom was in 2nd year when I was in first year. Our paths didn’t really cross much. Although we were both in junior division, I was studying for a BA on the civil side, while Tom was doing the internal seminary two-year Diploma in Philosophy and Arts (the so-called “sem course”), so we weren’t even in the same buildings during the day most of the time and we lived in separate buildings in the college. Of course I’d see him in the refectory and in the oratories/college chapel.
Tom was reasonably well-known because of his outgoing personality, which some found brash and overbearing but he was also liked by many others. He was an ordinary, usually cheerful and uncomplicated student, the type who plodded through, and no great shakes academically or with any sharply defined characteristics or talents. He wasn’t rebellious and didn’t seem to annoy the deans too much and that eased the path to ordination. One of the company men. The only college job he got was to be an assistant sacristan in the college chapel.
I always thought he’d be ordained a priest but never imagined he’d be a bishop, but who can tell, really. To be fair to Tom he probably didnt expect it either and it is just the way things turned out. I don’t remember him as being at all unkind or unpleasant.
As for Dom Benedict Anderson, the Church can be shockingly brutal, unpredictable and inept when it comes to personnel matters, and Tom’s curious mix of being a company man and a bull in a china shop won’t have helped.
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5:40, thanks for your detailed response. Deenihan has probably put himself in the frame for Cashel and Emly. Dom Peeters took care of the Melleray visitation and is Abbott General. Connell has been rewarded his mitre. Deenihan getting Cashel and Emly will complete the trinity of rewards.
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6:51
‘Corrupt and riddled with corruption’.
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5:40
‘the Church can be shockingly brutal, unpredictable and inept when it comes to personnel matters’.. Is the Church not the People of God? So Dom Benedict Andersen’s situation is a personnel matter- not a matter of injustice, hypocrisy or collusion? The Church can be Shockling Brutal.
Ask a survivor-victim of shockling abusive corruption and crime of the Church.
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Clones PP Quinn and ex Thurles – now that’s a story. Ex Fintona, does it remind you of anyone else moved across the border from another diocese!!
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I’m still bemused by the Prior business. If what seems to be being said about his inappropriate behaviour in Maynooth is true, and if it true that he was let go by the SJs from their novitiate because of his harassing of other novices / young men, then why the hell is he still in active ministry ? I’d really like an answer to that. Is it that all the stuff that is being said here is simply not true ? Or is it because bishops have just carried on ignoring such things and are just happy to have him filling a slot in a parish ?
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Because people keep ignoring …..
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I only knew Paul as a classmate and didn’t keep in touch with him after ordination but I can assure you, Pat, that the underwear stuff is true. I witnessed it myself. When we were first year’s in Long Corridor in Maynooth, students would visit one another’s rooms for a laugh and a chat, usually spontaneously during the day or whrn invited in the evening. Paul had a bizarre and unsettling habit of wanting to show his underwear collection. When he proposed it to visitors they were confused (thinking he was joking) or went along with it, all the while being perplexed and feeling a bit uncomfortable and creeped out. When it happened to me I didn’t know what to say. I’d never heard of this before. He’d get them out of a drawer (there were about 50 pairs) and spread them out. I had no expertise in men’s underwear then and am not an expert now either, but they weren’t designer brands, just the kind you get in packs of three in Primark or M&S.
Other people in the class mocked him for this behind his back. He was a great favourite of Niall Ahern. Like Niall, you could never be sure what he was thinking. Paul got himself a soft number in Rome and I was flabbergasted that he then got the dean job in Maynooth as it is generally believed that he had been given the bum’s rush out of Rome as part of the great clearout of the Irish College following the explosive visitation report by Cardinal Dolan. It is assumed that Cardinal Brady engineered Paul’s postings to Rome and Maynooth. The underwear stuff seemed to me to be odd and to have made him an unlikely person to be a seminarian, never mind a director of formation at two important seminaries.
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Paul Prior thankfully was removed by the Jesuits for inappropriate behavior with the Novices
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And young men attending Jesuit churches.
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The Jesuits are a lot smarter than Paul’s patron, Sean Brady, who just had low cunning.
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These Irish seminaries were school for scandals. Maynooth clings on.
A medical school or army training barracks would be shut down if it consistently turned out wave after wave of abusers, with no apparent quality control to deny them entry or weed them out during training. The Irish Government should close Maynooth because the bishops refuse it.
Maynooth was opened by the British State; the Irish State should close it.
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For all its faults, I don’t think many of the Irish clerical abusers went to Maynooth. They were either in orders (priests and brothers or monks) or went to the regional seminaries, notably St Peter’s, Wexford, which was a veritable production line for abusers. The only Maynooth convictions that I know of are Fr Jack McCabe, Canon John McCabe and Canon Peter Duffy, all of Clogher diocese.
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Priests who know too much are always treated with velvet gloves, plumb parishes, swanky funerals, hey the motto of the clerical club, ‘here no evil, see no evil, do no evil (yeah right).
Don’t piss off people to much though as they will start burning down churches and presbyteries like Canada and Chilie.
Whenever a priest has been at the same plumb parish for over twenty years I always think – what do they know, what have they done!!
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Thurles was the equivalent of Mountjoy.
I am glad I escaped that hell hole and now enjoy married life. I think personally that anyone that endured that gulag must be screwed up psychologically. It doesn’t even cover the ones who ran it and overseen it.
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You seem to be inferring many strange activities of a sexual nature. Can these be validated. As a Dublin priest, I am shocked by the nature of the inferences you make. Can you prove any allegation(s)? I have never heard of any canonical trial re: Fr. Slattery. While my knowledge of him is very scant, I was never aware of any of this. Very strange. I wonder where the truth is?
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Having left teacher training for priesthood my previous experiences of life were of immense help to me in discerning unwanted experiences! I’m grateful for the education I received at Clonliffe, despite having some very challenging moments and questioning my faith and ministerial priesthood.
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Clonliffe College has been open to the public as part of Culture Night. It is not the same as it was when it functioned as a seminary, of course! It now is mostly occupied by lay staff and converted into offices.
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@6.18pm The Maze, H Blocks, is now held as the Balmoral Show. It still holds its past like Clonliffe. Change the name but you can’t change the history. Sorry.
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St John’s College Waterford now.
https://youtu.be/WxI-MLVLzNo
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6.20: Thank you for the link. What an incredible transformation for St. John’s College. The charity RESPOND was founded by a Franciscan (Ofm) from the Waterford community. The charity has built numerous houses in our country for very needy families and individuals. Their vision for housing, management and quality of homes are a lesson in getting things done. Our faltering government ministers could learn much from this charity and others in the way you act with justuce and urgently. RESPOND is a charity worth supporting.
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Pat, you mention Fr Slattery knowing all the secrets, including about bishops. You now know about him, but more to the point, do you know the secrets he knew?
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Deaf Guy: Pat is patiently waiting for a commenter to give information re: Fr. Slattery, even though Pat seems to know more than any of us. He will let someone do his dirty work.. He’s a cute hoor.
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Drugs should be out of bounds in any seminaries especially Maynooth. I wonder what about Rome seminaries?
I’m anti drugs cos one of my late relatives died from drug addiction. Watched him destroyed within from heroin, coke as he was addicted from the start . He couldn’t get out of that drug trap. Once you take in first time then you are hooked.
Its a matter of choice but it led me to become anti drugs cos you would be supporting the gangs or murderers by giving or buying them via money to continue their drugs lifestyle.
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Sure what else is there to do Pat, in times of crisis or worry I often ask myself, what would Marilyn Monroe do?
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David Brought was known as Marilyn in seminary
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All seminarians and religious candidates and psychologically assed by outside Psychologists
However like all walks of life people change.
Then it comes down to honesty.
Most Bishops do not want the psychological deranged to leave as they do not want the embarrassment and furthermore it does not look good when they go to Rome every four years with the facts of their dioceses.
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Surgeons don’t even have that test to do
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‘The priesthood, ideally, shoukd be as diverse as the People of God.’
I don’t think the church wants the people of God to be diverse, apart from the things like race that you can’t change. Rather conformity and compliance has always been what is required.
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Did I read in a book that you wrote that there was someone in Waterford who wore no trousers under his cassock. Surly that is a sign of Homosexually or maybe he was a pervert but straight but I doubt it.
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Lisbreen covering up the homosexual and promiscuous lifestyle of a priest who has many complaints against his name and who actually does not care if he is caught or not as he openly admits ‘’my time is up’’
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It’s not easy rejecting the sexual advances of a superior of a Cistercian monastery after he has had a bottle of Jameson. Religious know how to play the power games.
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are there any pictures of Clonliffe on the inside? Pat, you don’t have any pictures?
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I bet that the new owners will allow all sorts of “irregular union” and same sex weddings in Clonliffe college chapel, a stone’s throw from Archbishop’s House. Dermo could have inserted a covenant into the sale agreement preventing such use, but he probably didn’t think of that, or, more likely, is pleased that that will happen.
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Paul Prior was not brought up in Ireland. His family moved back from England not long before he started in Maynooth sem.
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I was in Holy Cross, Clonliffe, Dublin and there were 120 of us for the one diocese of Dublin.
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There were 86 of us in my first year class in Maynooth, and all the other Irish seminaries (Clonliffe, Carlow, Thurles, Waterford, Wexford, Kilkenny, Belfast and the Irish College, Rome) were all still open and admitting their own first years. The ordination class in Maynooth was bigger than the entire seminary community today.
Amy and co should resign for allowing it to come to this.
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I was raped by Fr ….
Would you help me make this case public Bishop Patrick?
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Yes
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Fr. Slattery had a penchant for handsome fait haired young men . It appears that indiscretions came back to bite him when two former students who were brothers found the courage to blow the whistle on him some years later after their ordination, They have both left the diocese now. Others were groomed with sailing trips.
There were late night visitors to Slatts room, and rumour had it they weren’t plying scrabble.
He was removed from his parish under a cloud and died some time ago.
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As a former student in Clonliffe 1990 I have to ask 11.16 do you recall “222 fondue” or rather fond of you’ or was that after your time? Of course there was another ” entertainer” with similar tastes…. do you recall his midnight parties whom the select few were invited to ? – and were later upgraded to holidays in Lourdes….
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