Ireland: Two More Bishops Resign in Wake of Child Abuse Report

By Elizabeth A. Conger
Impunity Watch, Europe

DUBLIN, Ireland - Two more Roman Catholic bishops resigned on Christmas Day in the wake of an investigation into decades of Church cover-up of child abuse in the Dublin archdiocese. Dublin Bishops Éamonn Walsh and Ray Field apologized to abuse victims as they announced their resignations during Christmas Mass. Priests read the bishops' statements to worshipers throughout the archdiocese, home to a quarter of Ireland's four million Catholics.

The statement issued by the two bishops stated that they hoped their resignations "may bring the peace and reconciliation of Jesus Christ to the victims (and) survivors of child sexual abuse. We again apologize to them."

The government ordered investigation found that Dublin church leaders shielded more than 170 pedophile priests from the law for decades. Police were informed of the abuse starting in 1995, but the government was not made aware of the breadth of the problem until 2004. 

Earlier this month two other bishops, Donal Murray of Limerick and Jim Moriarty of Kildare, resigned. Their resignations followed the November 26 publication of the three-year investigation by Judge Yvonne Murphy into the concealment of abuse of children by priests for over three decades in the Dublin archdiocese.

The 720-page report exposed abuse cover ups in Dublin from 1940 to 2004, and criticized five retired bishops for transferring pedophile priests to new parishes rather than report them to police. The report also found that even when senior police officers received complaints from parents of abuse victims, they treated the Church as if it was above the law. The report revealed that the police sometimes handed reports of pedophile priests back to the bishops to handle.

The Dublin archdiocese has faced a flood of civil lawsuits from abuse victims since the mid-1990s after former altar boy, Andrew Madden, went public with his abuse story. Madden exposed the Church's efforts to pay him to keep silent and protect a priest who continued to serve. The Church faces an estimated thirty million dollars in legal expenses and settlement costs.

A fifth serving bishop named in the government investigation, Martin Drennan of Galway, asserts that he has done nothing to place children in danger and refuses to resign. He said that he was not called to give evidence before the Murphy Commission and has not yet been given access to the part of the report mentioning him by name.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin welcomed the resignations. Martin said in an interview that the Church "must ensure that the management of the past is entrusted to a new generation of people who think differently."

Ireland's top Catholic churchman, Cardinal Sean Brady, Primate of All Ireland, apologized to abuse survivors and their families at a Christmas Eve vigil mass held at Saint Patrick's Cathedral in Armagh, Northern Ireland. Brady said that clerics had "put the reputation of the church before the safety of little children."

After meeting with Brady and Martin last week, Pope Benedict issued a statement apologizing for the abuse, saying that he "shares the outrage and shame felt by so many of the faithful in Ireland (over) these heinous crimes."

For more information, please see:

Irish Times - Pressure mounts on Galway bishop - 26 December 2009

AFP - Two more Irish bishops quit over child abuse scandal - 25 December 2009

The Canadian Press - 2 more Irish Catholic bishops quit over church's coverup of child abuse by Dublin priests - 25 December 2009

RTE News - Two auxiliary bishops offer to resign - 25 December 2009

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http://catholicheritage.blogspot.com/2009/06/some-were-different.html

We participate in the sin of another: by counsel; by command; by consent; by provocation; by praise or flattery; by concealment; by partaking; by silence; by defense of the ill done.