Bishop Brendan Comiskey obituary: discredited Irish cleric
The removal by the Vatican of Brendan Comiskey from his position as Bishop of Ferns, amid a plethora of sexual abuse scandals, was a watershed in the history of the Catholic Church in Ireland. It was seen by some as a pivotal moment of reckoning for the Irish Church because it helped to banish the phantoms of the institution's former ascendancy. Others saw Comiskey's retirement as being an insufficient gesture towards making amends for the disturbing history of child sexual abuse by priests in parishes across Ireland, especially in his diocese of Ferns, Co Wexford.
The catalyst that led to Comiskey's resignation was a BBC documentary, Suing the Pope, which was broadcast in March 2002. The documentary presented a catalogue of child sexual abuse
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