Pope Francis Upholds Defrocking of Irish Priest
A former priest in the Diocese of Cloyne in Co Cork, Ireland, has lost his third and final appeal against his removal from the priesthood for abusing teenage girls. The Vatican found a canonical court was correct in its decision to uphold complaints against 78-year-old Dan Duane.
Since being ordained a priest in 1963, Duane served in different parishes in the diocese as well as at St. Colman's College in Fermoy. He was tried twice at Cork Circuit Criminal Court on several counts of molesting female minors in north Cork during the '70s and early '80s. A trial judge first acquitted him on May 2011, followed by a jury six months after.
But a canonical court dismissed him from the priesthood on March 2013 based on the testimonies it heard from five women in 2010 and 2012. Duane appealed the canonical court ruling to the Apostolic Signatura, the highest judicial authority in the Catholic Church, but was rejected on January 2015.
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Duane tried to make a second appeal in August that year to the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome but the body rejected it, saying no further appeal can be made in relation to the matter. Despite the dismissal, The Journal reported that the priest continued to celebrate Mass privately in his home.
Last year, Duane made a third and personal appeal to Pope Francis after the latter declared 2016 to be a Holy Year of Mercy. But the pontiff upheld the canonical court's decision, meaning he is forbidden from exercising his priestly ministry and from wearing clerical attire.
"[T]here is no change in the judgment that has already been made, that is to say that Dan Duane has been dismissed from the clerical state," a spokesman of the Diocese of Cloyne told the Irish Times. The former priest has been living at the presbytery Cecilstown between Mallow and Kanturk since the canonical court handed down its decision.
