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RTE and Fr Kevin Reynolds

Gallant_JJ

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/1006/apology.html

Apology - Fr Kevin Reynolds
Updated: 21:38, Thursday, 6 October 2011

On the evening of the 23rd May 2011, RTÉ broadcast a Prime Time Investigates programme entitled "A Mission to Prey".

Before this broadcast Prime Time conducted an interview with Fr. Kevin Reynolds, the then parish priest at Ahascragh in Galway.
This interview took place beside the parochial house
after the annual First Holy Communion Mass.
During this interview allegations were made against Fr. Reynolds. He immediately protested his innocence and denied all the allegations.
Between the interview and the broadcast, Fr. Kevin Reynolds, through his Solicitors, repeated his protestations of innocence, asked RTÉ not to broadcast the interview and volunteered to
undergo a paternity test.
Prime Time duly broadcast the programme accusing Fr. Reynolds of raping a minor named Veneranda while he was a missionary in Kenya and fathering a child named Sheila as a result of this rape.
He was also accused of secretly providing funds to Sheila.
Both Veneranda and Sheila were interviewed in the programme to corroborate the allegations.
As a result Fr. Kevin Reynolds was obliged to stand down from ministry and was removed as the parish priest of Ahascragh. He had to leave his home and his parish.
He was compelled by the actions of RTÉ to institute High Court defamation proceedings to vindicate his good name and reputation.
RTÉ acknowledges that the material in the programme concerning Fr. Reynolds ought never to have been broadcast.
RTÉ now fully and unreservedly accepts that the allegations made by Prime Time against Fr. Kevin Reynolds are baseless, without any foundation whatever and untrue and that Fr. Reynolds is a priest of the utmost integrity who has had an unblemished 40 year career in the priesthood and who has made a valuable contribution to society in Kenya and Ireland both in education and in ministry.
RTÉ acknowledges the defamation has had a devastating effect on Fr. Kevin Reynolds, his family, his peers, his parishioners in Ahascragh, those in the diocese of Kakamega in Kenya who were aware of the allegations and all those who know him or of him.
RTÉ fully and unreservedly apologises to Fr. Kevin Reynolds for this defamation and deeply regrets the serious consequences suffered by him. He was entirely innocent of the allegations broadcast about him.

This is absolutely disgusting, is this what our national broadcaster has resorted to. Heads should roll over that. I would like to see him take the fcukers for everything they had but we would only end up paying for it.

How can anyone be so insensitive as to ruin a mans life, after he had even offered to do a paternity test.

They really should have to have an apology of equal stature to the program aired, not some sneaky article that will disappear in a few hours.

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Freddie59

Show Time wrote: »

As i said how many innocent lives were forever destroyed by this lot.

Anyway as a man of God he should be able to forgive and forget no harm done as that is their stock in trade.

He probably will. But would you then argue that abusers should also be forgiven..........just saying..............

Freddie59

Bosco boy wrote: »

every profession has had abusers, I'm sure you're own profession is included. He's been wronged by RTE and his life and career ruined. Don't let your predjuices blind you to reality, it shows a serious lack of intelligence!!

+1 to that.

Show Time

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

Lets leave the self righteousness out of it. Of course innocent lives have been ruined and of course the perpatraitors should be punished.

But this man and others like him should not be made to suffer because of it.

I'll ask again, do people really believe that every priest should suffer for the crimes of a minority of monsters?

Because if that's your attitude I worry about you, I really do.

All religions are a cult of some sort or other which in trap the weak minded in society.

Logical Fallacy

Show Time wrote: »

All religions are a cult of some sort or other which in trap the weak minded in society.

Rinse and repeat.

Feel better about self.

paddyandy

Like everything in life the popular versions are........cola.I threw the TV out a long time ago and i wish i'd done it sooner and i threw JC out as well but i kept the older books.I never ever have a tabloid paper in my home..Popularity is the hallmark of *******.I don't know of any exceptions if they exist.

AudreyHepburn

Show Time wrote: »

All religions are a cult of some sort or other which in trap the weak minded in society.

The arrogance displayed in this post is exactly why RTE stoops to levels it does.

ColeTrain

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

The above attitude is exactly why RTE would broadcast something like. Attitudes in this country are frightenly bigotted and given to believing the worst in all situations that people will lap this kind of thing up and rejoice in this poor man's situation because of the white collar he wears.

He should take those women and RTE to the cleaners. His life and reputation are ruined.

If this were a lay man we'd be up arms but no he's a priest ergo he's guilty and/or simply deserves it for other reason than being a priest.

The Catholic church only has itself to blame for attitudes like that. Given the abuse and cover ups I think a lot of people find it hard to look at any priest without suspicion. Harsh maybe but if you're involved with an organisation like that then it comes with the territory.

ColeTrain

Bosco boy wrote: »

every profession has had abusers, I'm sure you're own profession is included. He's been wronged by RTE and his life and career ruined. Don't let your predjuices blind you to reality, it shows a serious lack of intelligence!!

Every profession has abusers but not on the scale we've seen with the catholic church.

For what it's worth he should receive compensation from RTE and whoever authorised the piece should be given their P45.

TheZohanS

OH FFS. Yes RTE got it wrong this time, that's once out of how many Prime Time investigations?

Would people rather we didn't have the likes of Prime Time?

Yeah lets all slate RTE now, yippee a bandwagon we can all jump on and ride alongside with our high-horses.

Feels good man.:rolleyes:

Peep O'Day

TheZohan wrote: »

OH FFS. Yes RTE got it wrong this time, that's once out of how many Prime Time investigations?

Would people rather we didn't have the likes of Prime Time?

Yeah lets all slate RTE now, yippee a bandwagon we can all jump on and ride alongside with our high-horses.

Feels good man.:rolleyes:

What the fuck are you on about? How flippant and dismissive can you be over such a horrible act? This man's life is ruined! No one said we shouldn't have the likes of prime time :rolleyes: Is it too much to ask for the national broadcaster to get it's facts right? Facts which don't destroy a person's reputation? And here was me thinking you were one of the more sensible posters on here...

UglyBolloxFace

TheZohan wrote: »

OH FFS. Yes RTE got it wrong this time, that's once out of how many Prime Time investigations?

Would people rather we didn't have the likes of Prime Time?

Yeah lets all slate RTE now, yippee a bandwagon we can all jump on and ride alongside with our high-horses.

Feels good man.:rolleyes:

This is the most insensitive comment I've ever had the misfortune to read.

Teclo

TheZohan wrote: »

OH FFS. Yes RTE got it wrong this time, that's once out of how many Prime Time investigations?

Would people rather we didn't have the likes of Prime Time?

Yeah lets all slate RTE now, yippee a bandwagon we can all jump on and ride alongside with our high-horses.

Feels good man.:rolleyes:

Hi Miriam.

AudreyHepburn

TheZohan wrote: »

OH FFS. Yes RTE got it wrong this time, that's once out of how many Prime Time investigations?

Would people rather we didn't have the likes of Prime Time?

Yeah lets all slate RTE now, yippee a bandwagon we can all jump on and ride alongside with our high-horses.

Feels good man.:rolleyes:

That poor man's life is now in a shambles because a vicious lie. You could be a little more sympathetic.

nlgbbbblth

jhegarty wrote: »

That's exactly the attitude that would have had you called an ira bomber if you visited the uk in the 70s/80s.

Very true - I was on the receiving end of that in London during the late 1980s. I blame the likes of The Sun and The Daily Mail for stirring up anti-Irish hatred.

Rawhead

TheZohan wrote: »

OH FFS. Yes RTE got it wrong this time, that's once out of how many Prime Time investigations?

Would people rather we didn't have the likes of Prime Time?

Yeah lets all slate RTE now, yippee a bandwagon we can all jump on and ride alongside with our high-horses.

Feels good man.:rolleyes:

What a wanker.

Zen65

TheZohan wrote: »

OH FFS. Yes RTE got it wrong this time, that's once out of how many Prime Time investigations?

Would people rather we didn't have the likes of Prime Time?

People make mistakes. There were many chances along the way for this mistake to have been prevented, but a number of people must have chosen not to take the sensible precaution of getting the facts right before broadcasting. "Sure it's a gamble, but he's probably guilty isn't he? I mean this woman said he was and he's a priest, so who'd believe him?"

To compound the error, RTE ran trailers for the show that night to make sure we'd stay in and watch it. And we did!

What motivates this behaviour?

Certainly it was not a concern by the programme makers to bring a rapist to justice. If that had been the concern they could have gone to the police with the evidence and let the matter be investigated properly, without the full gaze of the public.

I expect the motivation was mostly money.

TV stations need advertising revenue, and revenue comes from viewing figures. Programmes which command a larger TV audience can bring in higher advertising premiums.

So the truth is unimportant, because programmes which tell lies will bring in high viewing figures if the lies are "shocking" enough - if they feed our desire to hear spectacular gossip. Those viewers translate into money for the TV station.

I'm sure very few people who watched the programme thought "I'll suspend judgement on this guy until I see the results of the paternity test". Very few of us decided not to talk about it the next day at work because the allegations were unproven. Isn't that a very similar mistake to the one the TV executives made?

We buy tabloid foreign newspapers which sell lie after lie, and repeat baseless gossip about celebrities, politicians, businesses and business people.

It's an embarrassing occurrence when our National Broadcaster stoops to this level. We expect better from them, even if we also paradoxically demand tabloid-like exposé news stories.

If we want better from our media, we need to show that on a daily basis and not simply cry "foul" when something like this happens. Stop buying foreign tabloids and let our media know that we want facts rather than small-minded gossip to inform us.

Z

Zen65

Rawhead wrote: »

What a wanker.

That's uncalled for. The Zohan has thousands of posts here and as far as I can see they are broadly well-balanced and helpful.

I think the point he was making is that it's too easy to jump on the bandwagon and blame RTE when each of us, in our own way, makes this sort of sensationalist media inevitable, because we spend our money on sensationalist journalism. Truth and good journalism cannot live on admiration alone, so as long as we put the bulk of our media-money in the hands of the tabloid press we will find even the most diligent of journalists behaving tabloid just to earn a good living.

Z

(And no, Zen and Zohan are not related)

MonsterCookie

I'd have expected better from RTE.

While I'm not a huge fan of the rc church, or any for that matter, it is sickening to think of an innocent man being treated like this.

No amount of bs from those that think that because the church has caused people to distrust priests makes it ok for the national broadcaster to adopt such low standards.

Furthermore, it's too cheap and convenient in my view to blame the church and then go on to display zero sympathy for an innocent person. Is it the churches fault if we have no personal standards ourselves?

MonsterCookie

Show Time wrote: »

Agreed how many innocent folks have had their life ruined by this lot.

Yes indeed...I hear that the Irish generalise all the time about everything.

fat__tony

Min wrote: »

RTE want our TV license money to waste it on destroying a person's good reputation, the priest involved took two seperate paternity tests and each showed RTE lied to the public.

It sickens me that I have to pay my TV license, it is due for payment, when they waste it on lies, flights to Kenya, accommodation in Kenya, then more money wasted on broadcasting those lies, then more wasted on paying for paternity tests to prove they lied, then more money to pay the high court for the court case whcih showed they lied.
Then after all that, all they do is say sorry, when they ruined a person's reputation and wasted license fee money, it is not good enough from the national broadcaster.

Don't pay it.

Whats the worst they can do?

What would happen if there was several thousand homes who refused to pay the TV licence?

Put them all in jail?

RTE should be put out of existence as soon as possible.

Freddie59

ColeTrain wrote: »

The Catholic church only has itself to blame for attitudes like that. Given the abuse and cover ups I think a lot of people find it hard to look at any priest without suspicion. Harsh maybe but if you're involved with an organisation like that then it comes with the territory.

Absolute twaddle. NOTHING excuses what RTE did.

Freddie59

TheZohan wrote: »

OH FFS. Yes RTE got it wrong this time, that's once out of how many Prime Time investigations?

Would people rather we didn't have the likes of Prime Time?

Yeah lets all slate RTE now, yippee a bandwagon we can all jump on and ride alongside with our high-horses.

Feels good man.:rolleyes:

Kinda surprised at that coming from you Z.

Chuck Stone

Zen65 wrote: »

That's uncalled for. The Zohan has thousands of posts here and as far as I can see they are broadly well-balanced and helpful.

+1.

Also, might I add that human beings make mistakes and sometimes systems fail.

I get the impression that a lot of the people here are Catholics letting off steam because they've been under seige for so many years.

Freddie59

Chuck Stone wrote: »

+1.

Also, might I add that human beings make mistakes and sometimes systems fail.

I get the impression that a lot of the people here are Catholics letting off steam because they've been under seige for so many years.

Not so. Leaving the man's Christian ethos apart, it is a truly scornful, deceitful, and disgraceful way to treat anyone. And NOBODY pays??

Rawhead

Chuck Stone wrote: »

+1.

Also, might I add that human beings make mistakes and sometimes systems fail.

I get the impression that a lot of the people here are Catholics letting off steam because they've been under seige for so many years.

My religion never came into it. If they treated a rabbi, binman or banker, well you get my meaning, like that I would be equally upset. They destroyed a man's life and no apology will fix that. The Zohan may well make 1000's of balanced posts but on this occasion he was well out of order. I have never in my life felt aggrieved enough to write a letter of complaint about something I have read or watched until this incident. They way they treated this man is criminal and someone deserves to lose their job at a minimum, I would personally like to see them left in penury after being hauled through the courts.

Mike 1972

fat__tony wrote: »

What would happen if there was several thousand homes who refused to pay the TV licence?

I dunno

What IS happening right now ?

Show Time

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

The arrogance displayed in this post is exactly why RTE stoops to levels it does.

The days of the frock wearing freaks putting the fear of an invisible deity into the hearts of people are well and truly behind us now.

mobby

Show Time wrote: »

The days of the frock wearing freaks putting the fear of an invisible deity into the hearts of people are well and truly behind us now.

And what has that got to do with the topic

alex73

Show Time wrote: »

Agreed how many innocent folks have had their life ruined by this lot.

....? And what has the above post got to do with an INNOCENT priest?

ColeTrain

Freddie59 wrote: »

Absolute twaddle. NOTHING excuses what RTE did.

Twaddle WTF are you on about. Where did I look to excuse it?

My point was a lot people will always be cynical towards priests and the church after what's happened.