Audits by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church have been released.

A long-serving bishop has sparked a storm of controversy over his fitness for the job after revealing he used to think paedophilia was friendship gone too far.

Ian Elliot, head of the Catholic Church’s child abuse watchdog, called into question the competency of Bishop John Kirby over the remarks following his audit of the Diocese of Clonfert.

“Care needs to be taken when appointing a bishop that you do not appoint a bishop with these attitudes,” Mr Elliot said.

“These are basic competencies that everyone should have in authority. I’m not calling for anyone to resign but, for me, that’s an absolute basic requirement.”

Bishop Kirby, in charge of the diocese since 1989, made the ill-judged revelation on the back of apologies to survivors of two abusive priests he moved from one parish to another in 1990 and 1994.

Although he signed off the transfers, he also notified gardai of the allegations.

Bishop Kirby claimed he did not understand paedophilia in an attempt to explain why he adopted the standard church response of the time to transfer clerical child abusers.

“I saw it as a friendship that crossed a boundary line. I have learnt sadly since that it was a very different experience,” he told Galway Bay FM.

Clonfert was one of seven audits carried out by Mr Elliot’s National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church (NBSCCC).

“It’s disappointing to have something of that nature being stated,” he added.

“I started social work in child protection in 1974, I knew and understood at that time that child abuse was abhorrent. I did not need to be told.”

Seven audits uncovered allegations against 146 clerics relating to 378 complaints of abuse. Twelve convictions were secured, it stated.

The review, phase two of a nationwide inspection, found a markedly higher level of abuse allegations in religious orders than in the church dioceses.

The congregations were responsible for 89 clerics who faced a total of 267 accusations, with six convictions secured, the audit found.

Rights campaigner Andrew Madden, a survivor of abuse, said he would be wasting his breath calling for Bishop Kirby’s resignation.

“I have no confidence in Bishop Kirby’s management of child protection in the dioceses on Clonfert,” he said.

The audit uncovered grave issues in two Religious Orders, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart and the Congregation of the Holy Spirit.

Six brothers at the Sacred Heart College in Carrignavar, Co Cork, were abusing youngsters. Three priests were working in the school from the 1970s to 1990s but evidence of a paedophile ring has not been confirmed.

The Congregation of the Holy Spirit, formerly the Holy Ghost Fathers who ran prestigious schools such as Blackrock College, Muckross, and St Mary’s in Dublin, had serial abusers in its ranks yet failed to report any abuse until 1994.

“The case files make very sad reading,” said Mr Elliot, who headed the NBSCCC audits.

The Sacred Heart audit had to be suspended the day after it began when Mr Elliot found complaints had not been passed to gardai.

Mr Elliot raised concerns over the higher level of recorded abuse in religious orders and the inability or lack of willingness among leadership to deal with it.

In Limerick, Bishop Donal Murray, who resigned in 2009 for an “inexcusable” approach to child abuse allegations while serving in Dublin, was praised for putting in place robust protection measures.

A separate review of the suicide of clerical abuse victim Peter McCloskey in the diocese in 2006 two days after meeting former Bishop Murray is to be complete within the next few weeks.

It is intended to be given to the man’s family and the diocese. The NBSCCC said it will not publish it.

In Cork and Ross, concerns were expressed about priests retiring to Co Cork from Britain, including three with convictions for child abuse.

It warned that information from their dioceses in the UK was “not as forthcoming as it should have been”, leading to a lack of awareness of potential risk.

Elsewhere, Mr Elliot has raised the issue of sharing of information on abusive priests between dioceses.

He has spoken to colleagues in the Conference of American Bishops on how dioceses can share detail on priests more effectively.

Under 2001 rules, the complaints on suspect priests should be sent to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) but this does not always happen.

“It does not always happen that the information is given to the CDF, but it should be. The Vatican issues guidance with what it expects to happen but it does not always work,” he said.

Frances Fitzgerald, Children’s Minister, said she has planned a series of meetings with Mr Elliot and also leaders of the congregations to discuss the audits.

“To think that such a culture and mindset continued to exist among sectors of our society until as recently as 12 months ago, is bitterly disappointing, it is deeply worrying and it is quite simply unacceptable,” she said.

The NBSCCC has another 16 dioceses to audit and 162 congregations and missionary unions.

Cardinal Seán Brady is under renewed pressure.

Specialist detectives are reviewing claims the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland knew in 1975 that five children were being abused by one of the country’s most dangerous paedophiles.

As Cardinal Seán Brady was increasingly isolated over his role in a secret Church inquiry into evil Brendan Smyth, a series of political leaders piled further pressure on him to quit.

Abuse victims including Brendan Boland and Sam Adair and others speaking anonymously led a chorus of calls for his resignation before Ireland’s deputy prime minister Eamon Gilmore warned that anyone in authority who did not act should go.

The cardinal’s spokesman hit back at the damning collective criticism and repeated the cleric’s claim that the failure 37 years ago lay with Church superiors and not the then priest.

Mr Gilmore said: “It is my personal view that anybody who did not deal with the scale of the abuse that we have seen in this case should not hold a position of authority.”

The beleaguered cardinal has vowed to remain as Primate of All-Ireland despite new revelations in a BBC documentary over the role he played investigating allegations against Smyth and secretly interviewing two young victims.

The abuse complaints were not passed to police at the time and parents were not informed.

Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has backed calls from Taoiseach Enda Kenny for the cardinal to reflect on his position

“I think that many Catholics, of which I am one, Catholic priests amongst whom I have many good friends and the public in general will be dismayed at these new allegations,” Mr McGuinness said.

Micheal Martin, leader of opposition party Fianna Fáil in Dublin, said the cardinal should consider his position, given the enormity and scale of the abuse perpetrated by Smyth.

“I think his authority has been very seriously undermined with what has happened,” Mr Martin said.

Labour’s Education Minister Ruairi Quinn called for the resignation of the cardinal because of his position as the most senior cleric of a Church which is patron of 92% of the 3,200 primary schools in Ireland.

The cardinal was also facing wider calls to address explanations over his role in the 1975 inquiry.

Martin Long, the cardinal’s spokesman, rejected claims that there was any discrepancy or contradiction over this week’s description of the cleric as notary and the 2010 explanation which said he had been asked to conduct the investigation.

“The facts remain the same. He was not the person in charge of the inquiry,” he said.

A statement from the Church in March 2010 said Cardinal Brady, who was a teaching priest at a boarding school, had been drafted in to conduct the investigation because he held a doctorate in canon law.

In the 1975 internal Church inquiry Brendan Boland, a then 14-year-old, told investigators that at least five children had been attacked by Smyth.

The cardinal claimed his role was as notary and to submit a report and he blamed superiors in the Church for failing to stop the evil priest abusing over the next 20 years.

But the cardinal also accepted he privately interviewed one of the victims identified by Mr Boland about the abuse and did not notify the child’s parents.

Cardinal Brady, who is due to retire in 2014, also swore two victims to secrecy and the Church has since claimed this was for their protection and to prevent Smyth, who died in prison in 1997, from manipulating evidence.

A senior Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) commander, Assistant Chief Constable George Hamilton, said a decision on whether to launch an investigation into the claims levelled against Cardinal Brady would not be taken until the evidence was fully assessed.

A team already investigating alleged institutional abuse in the region is reviewing the documentary to see if there was prima facie evidence that an offence had taken place.

Mr Hamilton vowed his officers would “do the right thing” based on where the evidence led them.

He said he would not comment on whether the police had plans to interview Cardinal Brady although question marks remain over whether the PSNI holds jurisdictional responsibility, given that the programme focused on historic incidents on both sides of the Irish border.

Later, the Garda press office in Dublin declined to comment on whether it was investigating the circumstances around the inquiry.

Mr Gilmore, who also holds the post of minister for foreign affairs, oversaw the decision to close down the Irish embassy in the Vatican last year. That move was made as part of huge cost-cutting measures, the Government said.

Mr Gilmore also stated that he believed in the separation of church and state.

Some children were abused by Smyth for years after the internal Church inquiry.

It was not until 1994 that Smyth was convicted in a Belfast court of 17 counts of sexual abuse. Three years later in Dublin, he pleaded guilty to another 74 counts of child sexual abuse. He died in prison in 1997.

Father PJ Madden from the Association of Catholic Priests. (Pic: Niall Carson/PA)

The vast majority of Irish Catholics want female and married priests, liberal clergymen have found.

The Association of Catholic Priests (ACP), which has had one of its founding members silenced by the Vatican for his views, insists it has public support for Pope Benedict to open dialogue on the controversial bans.

The group of more than 800 priests in Ireland claimed they have a mandate from mass-goers to raise concerns after a survey revealed a disconnect between official church teachings and what ordinary Catholics believe.

Almost nine out of 10 Catholics questioned said priests should be allowed to marry, with 77% believing women should be ordained.

Fr Brendan Hoban, of the ACP, said the group believe in the fundamental teachings of the Church and is not leading any breakaway from Rome.

“We are not dissident priests. There are not 815 dissident priests,” he said.

“We are reflecting what we are hearing in parishes and have heard in parishes for years.”

The ACP said its all-Ireland survey put statistics behind anecdotal evidence that parishioners want change from the heart of Rome.

It criticised the silencing of founding member Fr Tony Flannery, who was told to stop writing his monthly column with the religious publication Reality.

The Redemptorist was also ordered to spend six weeks in a monastery for spiritual and theological reflection.

“We think it’s not the way the church should go about doing its business,” said Fr Hoban, a parish priest in Mayo in the west of Ireland.

“There are differences and there are problems and I think the way to face them is not by silencing the messengers, but teasing out what the message is.

“We are disturbed by that sort of blunt kind of reason to questions we are asking.”

Fr Hoban said Ireland’s Catholic church will be in crisis in 20 years when the country’s ageing clergy retire.

He said there is no reason why a married man should not be ordained, adding that concerned priests with up to 40 years service believe they have a right to raise questions that need to be addressed.

“We are operating this for the good of the Church, we love the Church, we want to be in the Church,” said Fr Hoban.

“We have questions about the Church. But like any family, you don’t turf out the guy who says there’s an elephant in the living room.

“You don’t put him out the door. You bring him in and talk to him.”

A total of 1,000 Catholics in the north and south of Ireland were surveyed by Amarach Research over a two-week period in February.

It found 35% attend Mass once a week – one of the highest rates in Europe – with 51% attending once or more each month, 20% a few times a year, and only 5% never at Mass.

Elsewhere, three-quarters of respondents did not see Catholic Church teachings on sexuality as relevant to them or to their family, and more than six out of 10 disagreed with the Church’s stance “that any sexual expression of love between gay couples is immoral”.

Fr Hoban said Irish bishops and Rome recognise there were issues in the Catholic Church in Ireland, which has been rocked by a series of sickening clerical child sex abuse reports in recent years.

The CPA wants to see the Second Vatican Council, which was also known as Vatican II and aimed to address relations between Rome and the modern world, enacted.

“We want to talk about them (the issues), discuss them and bring people’s needs and rights to the heart of this dialogue,” he said.

Meanwhile, the church is preparing for about 25,000 pilgrims from almost 100 countries to attend the International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin in June.

Pope Benedict is expected to make a live televised address to the major international Catholic festival.

In a statement, Irish Bishops said: “The recent Apostolic Visitation highlighted the need for a new focus on the dignity and role of all the faithful and for deeper formation in the faith.

“The results of this survey confirm the importance of all in the Church taking up this task in a spirit of communion and sharing the good news of the Gospel in a rapidly changing social and cultural environment in Ireland today.”