By Mairead Carey

The former Bishop of Galway Dr. Eamon Casey has told his colleagues that he is innocent of charges of child abuse which forced him out of the priesthood in England.

The disgraced bishop was forced to step down from ministry after allegations surfaced that he had abused a young girl more than 30 years ago in Ireland.

It has since emerged that the woman, who is now living in Britain, has made similar unproven allegations against others in the past.

This week Casey, who fled Ireland in the 1990s after it was revealed that he had fathered a child with American divorcee Annie Murphy, told friends he would prove his innocence.

In a conversation with the Bishop of Killaloe, Dr. Willie Walsh, last Thursday, Casey said “he was very confident that there was absolutely no foundation” to the claims.

Walsh said Casey spoke with compassion and sympathy for the person who had made the allegation.

“He told me something about it and I would be reluctant to go into detail, except that this person apparently has made an allegation against a number of people in recent years and there hasn’t been any foundation to them,” Walsh said.

“The person is personally known to him for a long number of years and he spoke with a lot of sympathy and compassion for that person. There was no anger, there was no hostility in him in relation to the person. He would be eager to have his name cleared.”

Walsh said Casey was now having to prove his innocence and to have to stand down from ministry which he was enjoying “is very hard on a man who has been through so much himself and who at this stage is close to 80 years of age.”

“One of the difficulties in this whole area is that it is very difficult to clear one’s name in a situation like this because the reality is that in the vast majority of these situations, you are talking about one person’s word against another.

“Once the allegation is made, it is very difficult to clear one’s name. In other words, it is very difficult to prove that one is innocent,” Walsh said.

But he believed that forcing Casey to stand down on the basis of such an allegation was “contrary to natural justice.”

“There is almost an upturning of the old adage that a person is innocent until one is proven guilty, and there is a cloud there and it is almost guilty until proven innocent and the difficulty is it is very hard to prove one’s innocence in a situation like that.

“Nonetheless, I am very confident, particularly from talking to Bishop Eamon himself, that his name will be cleared in this situation.”

Casey only became aware of the allegations against him after being contacted by the child protection office in the southern English Catholic diocese of Arundel and Brighton, where he had been serving as a curate.

In accordance with the diocese’s child protection guidelines, he was asked to step aside while an investigation ensued, and agreed to do so.

It is understood that the Gardai have not been asked to investigate any complaint against him.