Terry Prone: Eamonn Casey — Man of the people with life of lies and sex crimes
Bishop Eamonn Casey in 1979. The Vatican banned Casey from public ministry for life after receiving multiple child sexual abuse allegations against him.
He was the first — and mercifully the only — populist Irish Bishop. A legend in his own lavish lunchtime, protected against naysayers by his blustering man-of-the people persona. Uniquely loved, he was, for his come-all-ye-singing accessibility. Fans told eye-rolling stories of his dangerous, liquor-infused driving: sure wasn’t he a terrible man, all the same? One of our own. Authentic.
As a teenager in Catholic Ireland, I was aware that my parents viewed Eamonn Casey as an intellectual waste of space, but aware, too, that – in common with the small number of critics at the time — they viewed him as no worse than that.
