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.
Cardinal Seán Brady said he acknowledged and respected Bishop Murray’s decision.
“The survivors of abuse must have first place in our thoughts and prayers,” he said and he apologised again “to all who were abused as children by priests”.
Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said Bishop Murray’s resignation “was not a surprise, he was in Rome a number of days ago and he presented his resignation off his own initiative and his own will.”
Meanwhile, the College of Consultors in Limerick diocese, comprising senior priests, must meet within eight days of the resignation announcement yesterday to appoint an administrator. He will run the diocese on an interim basis until a new bishop is appointed.
Marie Collins, abused as a child by “Fr Edmondus” when a patient in Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children, said yesterday she was “sorry Bishop Murray didn’t go a bit earlier and we would not have had the trauma of the last few weeks”.
The other serving bishops mentioned in the Murphy report “have to go too”, she said. “They were all part of a system which allowed children to be hurt,” she said.
Welcoming Bishop Murray’s resignation Andrew Madden, who was abused by Ivan Payne, called on Bishops Moriarty, Drennan, Field and Walsh to follow suit.
“Their continued presence in office is an insult to every child sexually abused by a priest in the Dublin archdiocese, they display a contemptible level of arrogance and an inappropriate lack of humility,” he said.
