Irish Prelate Demands Resignation of Four More Bishops

Catholic archbishop of Dublin is claiming the support of the Vatican in his demands for the resignation of four Irish bishops named in a government report on clerical sex abuse.

DUBLIN (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Catholic archbishop of Dublin is claiming the support of the Vatican in his demands for the resignation of four Irish bishops named in a government report on clerical sex abuse. Archbishop Diarmuid Martin issued an ultimatum to Bishops Raymond Field, Eamon Walsh, Martin Drennan and Jim Moriarty, saying he will petition the Vatican's Congregation of Bishops to remove them if they do not resign.

The demands for resignation come in the wake of a report commissioned by the Irish Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, that investigated the reaction by Church officials to allegations of sexual abuse of minors in the Dublin Archdiocese from 1975 to 2004. The Murphy Report, published November 26, said that many Irish bishops had shown more concern for preserving the reputation and assets of the Church than defending young people.

The publication of the Murphy Report resulted in the resignation last week of Donal Murray, the bishop of Limerick and former auxiliary of Dublin.

In the wake of the growing scandal, the government announced last week that it would begin a massive investigation, in all 26 Irish dioceses, into the response of Church officials to abuse allegations.

In the process of the government's investigation, Catholic bishops and heads of religious orders will be required to provide information to health authorities on all abuse complaints in the last five years. The Irish Independent reports that Health Service Executive (HSE) officials have been in talks with the Church's independent child-protection officer to conduct an investigation, saying it would avoid costly and drawn-out judicial interventions.

HSE assistant director for children and family services, Phil Garland, said that Church leadership has until January 8 to comply.

Archbishop Martin said he would be meeting with those who were named in the government's report on sex abuse in the Dublin diocese, saying there would be "radical changes" made. The plans, he said, "will not be complete until early in the New Year and I will not discuss it publicly before."

On Thursday Martin signalled that his two auxiliary bishops, Walsh and Field, would quit in the new year. Bishop Drennan, however, has responded with defiance to the ultimatum, demanding that his name be removed from the list. The 73-year-old Bishop Moriarty is due to resign in two years' time according to the normal retirement age of 75, but said he would quit in the new year if it would "serve the Church, the victims and the people."

Archbishop Martin has also said that the decision by Donal Murray, a former auxiliary bishop of Dublin, to resign as bishop of Limerick was the right one. "I acknowledge and respect the decision of Bishop Murray to resign as Bishop of Limerick, as was announced earlier today."

Others, however, are less impressed with the proceedings. Gerald Warner, a Catholic columnist and author wrote on his blog at the Daily Telegraph that the scandals are part of a larger problem that has been plaguing the Catholic Church since the 1960s.

Warner wrote, "Let's get it straight: Irish child abuse was perpetrated by the trendy, modern post-Vatican II Catholic Church."

"The image that has sedulously been propagated is of Irish child abuse perpetrated by priests in soutanes and birettas, cowled monks muttering Latin incantations and nuns in starched wimples and mediaeval habits."

But the reality, Warner said, is the "nightmare orgy of relentless mortal sin" was committed by post-1960s "modern priests" who rejected traditional Catholic teaching on morality as they rejected traditional devotional practices.

As with the US Catholic sex scandals, Warner points out, the offenses predominantly involved homosexual priests preying on boys. The Murphy Report records a ratio of 2.3 boy victims to 1 girl.

"This filthy abomination was a scandal of the post-Vatican II, open-windows, relevant, touchy-feely (often, it seems, inappropriately so) Catholic Church."

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