He was suspended from the exercise of his priestly and sacramental functions, resigned as bishop in 2009, and was laicized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.
[1] Evidence later emerged that the principal offender, Bishop Lahey, may have assumed the role of a fixer during the 1989 sexual abuse scandal in St. John's archdiocese in Newfoundland when he served under then-archbishop Alphonsus Liguori Penney.
Kevin Molloy went to former St. John's archbishop Alphonsus Liguori Penney to report that a child had seen pornography at the home of Lahey.
[10] On 15 September 2009, then Bishop Lahey returned to Canada from London with a passport bearing visas from Thailand and other Asian countries.[11]).
At Ottawa Macdonald–Cartier International Airport, Canada Border Services Agency officers performed a random search of Lahey's laptop computer and allegedly uncovered "images .
[13] That same day, the Holy See acknowledged the plea and announced that it would continue its own process "which will result in the imposition of the appropriate disciplinary or penal measures".