Trustees at the seminary in Maynooth are to conduct a review into the use by trainee priests of the internet and social media as part of efforts to limit “any sort of behaviour or attitude which contradicts the teaching and example of Jesus Christ” writes Noel Baker.

A prominent US canon lawyer has said he suspects “there is a great deal more” to the story of what is happening in the Maynooth seminary.

A former senior dean at St Patrick’s College Maynooth said he has a sense of “déjà vu” when reading of the current culture at the college and that he was “shafted” by his superiors when he raised concerns about complaints made against a vice-president there in the 1980s.