By Kevin Doyle
Tuesday August 25 2009
Tragic Sebastian Creane was "hunted, stalked and killed" according to a leading priest and personal friend of his heartbroken family.
http://www.herald.ie/national-news/city-news/seb-hunted-stalked-and-killed--priest-1868626.html
Jesuit cleric Fr Fergus O'Donoghue, who officiated at the moving funeral Mass for the 22-year-old, insisted that Seb suffered "the injustice of homicide".
"Let's be clear: Sebastian was hunted, stalked and killed," insisted the respected priest.
Fr O'Donoghue went on to defend his right to describe Shane Clancy's murderous actions as "pure evil".
The well-respected editor of a Jesuit quarterly review has received a mainly negative response to previous comments he made on his blog and in the Herald, but says people are confused.
"People thought when you condemn an action, you're condemning a person. Only God can condemn a person," he told the Herald today.
Several people have written to Fr O'Donoghue since he first spoke on Seb's murder and even veteran journalist Vincent Browne rang "the priest who made those crass remarks", according to Fr O'Donoghue.
But hitting back at criticisms, the priest said: "Two points have been missed: we do have the right to condemn actions as evil, but not persons. Mental illness explains those actions, but it does not excuse them."
He also noted that some comments made to him have shown "far more concern for the family of Sebastian's killer than for the Creane family".
Killer Shane Clancy offered Seb a lift home to Bray after a night socialising, but later returned to the Creane family home having driven to Foxrock to buy a block of knives.
He stabbed Seb to death in a brutal attack driven by jealously over the victim's relationship with Jennifer Hannigan. She was also seriously injured, along with Seb's brother Dylan, before Clancy put a knife through his own heart.
Fr O'Donoghue explained his opinions, saying: "The priest at the young man's [Shane Clancy's] funeral said he had been overcome by 'a cruel darkness', which is poetic, but, when applied to anybody, relieves us of responsibility and removes sin from a situation." He added that this showed a "weakness" in contemporary Western Christianity.
The Dublin priest has also now compared the reaction to the Bray murder-suicide with that of Baby P in Britain. The toddler suffered horrendous abuse at the hands of his mother, her boyfriend and their lodger. When checked out by medics, the child had a snapped spine and eight fractured ribs.
He said: "We rush to make excuses for every bad action, most recently when commenting on the murder of Baby Peter in England: his mother and her lover had difficult childhoods, so some have said that explains why, over several months, they beat him to death. This is psycho-babble."
Fr O'Donoghue was one of a number of priests to attend an emotional funeral service for Seb yesterday.
The dead student's mother Nuala paid a lengthy tribute from the alter asking mourners to pray for the family of his killer and not to live in darkness, "seeing only fear, anger, bitterness, resentment, blaming, bemoaning our loss, always looking backwards, blaming".
Speaking about the eulogy, Fr O'Donoghue said: "It was very, very moving, looking at her [Nuala Creane] standing with Dylan and his arm around her."
He said that the "wonderful experience" would help friends of the Bray student come to terms with what has happened.
kdoyle@herald.ie
- Kevin Doyle
Tuesday August 25 2009
Tragic Sebastian Creane was "hunted, stalked and killed" according to a leading priest and personal friend of his heartbroken family.
http://www.herald.ie/national-news/city-news/seb-hunted-stalked-and-killed--priest-1868626.html
Jesuit cleric Fr Fergus O'Donoghue, who officiated at the moving funeral Mass for the 22-year-old, insisted that Seb suffered "the injustice of homicide".
Fr O'Donoghue went on to defend his right to describe Shane Clancy's murderous actions as "pure evil".
The well-respected editor of a Jesuit quarterly review has received a mainly negative response to previous comments he made on his blog and in the Herald, but says people are confused.
"People thought when you condemn an action, you're condemning a person. Only God can condemn a person," he told the Herald today.
Several people have written to Fr O'Donoghue since he first spoke on Seb's murder and even veteran journalist Vincent Browne rang "the priest who made those crass remarks", according to Fr O'Donoghue.
But hitting back at criticisms, the priest said: "Two points have been missed: we do have the right to condemn actions as evil, but not persons. Mental illness explains those actions, but it does not excuse them."
He also noted that some comments made to him have shown "far more concern for the family of Sebastian's killer than for the Creane family".
Killer Shane Clancy offered Seb a lift home to Bray after a night socialising, but later returned to the Creane family home having driven to Foxrock to buy a block of knives.
He stabbed Seb to death in a brutal attack driven by jealously over the victim's relationship with Jennifer Hannigan. She was also seriously injured, along with Seb's brother Dylan, before Clancy put a knife through his own heart.
Fr O'Donoghue explained his opinions, saying: "The priest at the young man's [Shane Clancy's] funeral said he had been overcome by 'a cruel darkness', which is poetic, but, when applied to anybody, relieves us of responsibility and removes sin from a situation." He added that this showed a "weakness" in contemporary Western Christianity.
The Dublin priest has also now compared the reaction to the Bray murder-suicide with that of Baby P in Britain. The toddler suffered horrendous abuse at the hands of his mother, her boyfriend and their lodger. When checked out by medics, the child had a snapped spine and eight fractured ribs.
He said: "We rush to make excuses for every bad action, most recently when commenting on the murder of Baby Peter in England: his mother and her lover had difficult childhoods, so some have said that explains why, over several months, they beat him to death. This is psycho-babble."
Fr O'Donoghue was one of a number of priests to attend an emotional funeral service for Seb yesterday.
The dead student's mother Nuala paid a lengthy tribute from the alter asking mourners to pray for the family of his killer and not to live in darkness, "seeing only fear, anger, bitterness, resentment, blaming, bemoaning our loss, always looking backwards, blaming".
Speaking about the eulogy, Fr O'Donoghue said: "It was very, very moving, looking at her [Nuala Creane] standing with Dylan and his arm around her."
He said that the "wonderful experience" would help friends of the Bray student come to terms with what has happened.
kdoyle@herald.ie
- Kevin Doyle
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