the sixth priest in the Ferns diocese to be dismissed by papal decree.
News of the latest Irish priest to be laicised, following a recent canonical hearing in Rome, comes as the Dublin archdiocese braces itself for a damning report on clerical sex abuse in the country's largest diocese.
The report of the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation, chaired by Circuit Court Judge Yvonne Murphy, is set to dwarf the Ferns inquiry in the scale of abuse of children and the failure of senior Church officials to prevent it.
The Ferns investigation identified more than 100 allegations of sex abuse made between 1962 and 2002 against 21 priests.
The report will be published months after the former archbishop of Dublin, Cardinal Desmond Connell, dropped his controversial High Court action claiming privilege over 5,586 documents submitted to the Dublin inquiry by his successor, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin.
The Ferns diocese has confirmed to the Irish Independent that six of its priests have now been defrocked, and insisted that all allegations of abuse are handled in line with papal directions received in 2001.
The defrocking of . Kinsella brings to an end a fraught history for the diocese, as he never faced criminal charges arising from allegations of abuse.
Six years ago, . Kinsella stepped down from ministry in The Ballagh, Co Wexford.
He was cleared of any wrongdoing by an inquiry set up by former Bishop of Ferns Brendan Comiskey after the allegations emerged some years earlier.
When the claims resurfaced, caretaker Bishop Eamonn Walsh initiated another inquiry.
After a separate garda inquiry, a file went to the Director of Public Prosecutions, but there was no prosecution.
Last year, . Kinsella was at the centre of a civil case taken by three men who claimed they had been abused by him and that the Ferns diocese was liable. It was struck out mid-hearing at the High Court.
One of the men who took part in the civil action last night welcomed reports of . Kinsella's dismissal.
"The terms of the settlement of the litigation preclude me from discussing the case," said Anthony Doyle.
"But if that is the case [that he has been defrocked], then people can draw their own conclusions.
kennelijk niet alleen een kardinaal
Former priest slams diocese
Wednesday June 11 2008
A PRIEST defrocked by the Pope has accused the Diocese of Ferns of a serious
miscarriage of justice'.
Fr. John Kinsella, who served as a curate in Enniscorthy in the ealy 1970s and the Ballagh from 1991, says the first he knew of his defrocking was when he read about it in a newspaper.
Despite overhwhelming evidence against the accusers, the Diocesan Authority callously pursued the path of a kangaroo court to judge me in the harshest way possible,' he claims in a letter sent to this newspaper.
The priest, who was formerly accused of child sex abuse offences against boys from the Enniscorthy area, said allegations were invstigated by the Gardai in 1996, were subsequently investigated by the Garda authorities and dismissed by the DPP.
I devoted the best years of my life to ministry in the Diocese of Ferns. I looked to that institution for due process and the truth. Sadly I got neither,' he says in the letter.
A native of Monamolin, he was ordained in 1974 and remained a priest until earlier this month.
Diocesan spokesman Fr. John Carroll said it was not policy to comment on individual allegations of sex abuse involving priests. Six priests have been dismissed over the past few years.
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