Murphy report; Two more bishops may resign

December 18, 2009 by Infowars Ireland

Bishop Donal Murray in St John's Cathedral in Limerick after announcing his resignation yesterday

www.irishtimes.com

TWO OTHER bishops named in the Murphy report have acknowledged they may have to step down, following the announcement yesterday by Bishop Donal Murray that he had resigned.

Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin Jim Moriarty and auxiliary bishop of Dublin Éamonn Walsh both said they had done nothing wrong.

Bishop Moriarty said he would step down ahead of his planned retirement, due in two years, if this would serve the church and victims of clerical sex abuse.

Bishop Walsh said it would be an injustice if he had to resign, but he would do so if he became a “block on the gospel”.

In announcing his resignation at St John’s Cathedral in Limerick yesterday Bishop Donal Murray “humbly apologised” to those who were abused as children. “I believe that my presence will create difficulties for some of the survivors who must have first place in our thoughts and prayers,” he said.

Bishop Murray had been under pressure to resign since the publication last month of the Murphy report on how the Dublin archdiocese handled cases of the sexual abuse of children by priests. The report described as “inexcusable” Bishop Murray’s handling of an allegation of clerical child sex abuse when he was an auxiliary bishop in Dublin.

Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said yesterday in a statement that Bishop Murray had done the right thing “for his diocese and for the wider Irish church”.

“This is without doubt, a period of deep crisis in this archdiocese,” Archbishop Martin said. He added that he would be meeting all those in his diocese who were named in the Murphy report “about the way this archdiocese is managed and about changes I want and that I consider vital for the future of the archdiocese of Dublin”.

He said he would not discuss this process publicly until it was completed in the new year.

The archbishop released his statement following the first meeting of the Dublin Council of Priests, at Clonliffe College, since the publication of the Murphy report.The council’s chairman, Fr Joe Mullan, said there had been “an honest, open, and robust exchange of views which concluded when Archbishop Martin read his statement”.

It emerged yesterday that Bishop Murray announced his decision to resign to priests in Limerick on December 1st and that it was accepted by the pope last Monday. Read more…