NEXT BISHOP NAMED FOR DUBLIN
NEWS: WORLD NEWS
Bp. Dermot Farrell, former president of troubled seminary
DUBLIN (ChurchMilitant.com) - The Pope has announced the next archbishop of Dublin.
Pope Francis announced Tuesday he is appointing Bp. Dermot Farrell to head the Dublin archdiocese.
While still a priest, Farrell spent many years as an administrator at St. Patrick's College in Maynooth — Ireland's scandal-ridden national seminary.
Farrell began working at Maynooth in 1989 as a lecturer in moral theology. The next year, he became executive assistant to the college president, Msgr. Micheál Ledwith — his cousin.
Farrell went on to be vice president of St. Patrick's College from 1993–1996 and served as president from 1996–2007. He was made bishop of Ossory in eastern Ireland in 2018.
Bishop Farrell has been tapped to be the next head of the Dublin archdiocese just as Pope Francis accepts the retirement of the current archbishop, Diarmuid Martin.
In April, Abp. Martin turned 75 years old — the mandatory retirement age for prelates.
Maynooth has been plagued by gay sex-abuse scandals for years, with many of these scandals occurring during Bp. Farrell's tenure there.
Monsignor Ledwith — Farrell's cousin — was at the center of numerous homosexual misconduct allegations over the years.
As far back as 1983, there were allegations from seminarians about Ledwith living an extravagant lifestyle and being a homosexual.
There is one allegation that Msgr. Ledwith sexually abused a 13-year-old boy in the early 1980s. After that allegation was made in 1985, Maynooth staff were accused of engaging in a cover-up.
Eventually, the Vatican dismissed Ledwith from the priesthood in 2005.
When Farrell was made a bishop in 2018, an Irish Catholic remarked to Church Militant, "It is reasonable ... to ask what did he know about the depraved behavior of his cousin, and what action did he take to end it?"
An inside source told Church Militant in 2017 the seminary still had a major gay problem — claiming about half of the roughly 30 seminarians are homosexual.
"It doesn't take a scientist to figure out the femininity displayed by these 'men,'" the anonymous source stated.
The source also spoke about two deacons getting away with using the gay dating app Grindr, while other men were kicked out of seminary for their devotion to the Real Presence.
Church Militant's source blamed Abp. Martin — the outgoing Dublin archbishop — for shielding the gay deacons from facing consequences for their actions.
The seminary has a reputation for punishing faithful men. One man in formation was "told to go because he challenged a lecturer when he said there was no Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament. This was reported to the bishop and he was subsequently let go."
Two other seminarians got the boot as well for defending Christ's presence in the Eucharist.
This story was also relayed by Anthony Murphy of the Irish Catholic newspaper Catholic Voice. Writing in June 2016, Murphy stated, "Last year, seminarians who had issues with members of the theology faculty who reportedly denied the Real Presence or who had issues with seminarians kneeling at the consecration of the Mass, were the ones who were sanctioned."
Murphy highlighted how the seminarians who defended the Real Presence got punished — not the faculty who seemed to oppose Catholic dogma.
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