By Hilary White
ROME, December 17, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Pope has accepted the resignation of the Catholic bishop of Limerick in the wake of damning revelations of misconduct in cases of clerical sexual abuse of minors in the Dublin diocese between 1974 and 2004.
Bishop Donal Brendan Murray, a former auxiliary of Dublin, said in a statement, “I know full well my resignation cannot undo the pain that survivors of abuse have suffered in the past and continue to suffer each day.
“I humbly apologise once again to all who were abused as little children.”
The resignation of Bishop Murray is not expected to be the last in the wake of the publication of a report, commissioned by the Irish Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, into the reaction by Church officials to allegations of sexual abuse of minors in the Dublin Archdiocese from 1975 to 2004. The report said that many bishops had shown more concern with preserving the reputation and assets of the Church than defending young people.
The report, made public last month, said that during Bishop Murray's tenure as an auxiliary bishop in Dublin from 1982 to 1996 he had failed to investigate credible allegations of abuse by one priest, Fr. Tom Naughton, in 1983. In May 1998, Naughton pleaded guilty to six counts of indecently assaulting three boys in 1985 and 1986.
Bishop Murray “did not deal properly with the suspicions and concerns that were expressed to him in relation to Fr. Naughton. When, a short time later, factual evidence of Fr. Naughton's abusing emerged in another parish Bishop Murray's failure to reinvestigate the earlier suspicions was inexcusable.” Witnesses to the abuse told the Irish Times that at least two men who had been victims of the abuse by Fr. Naughton later committed suicide.
Following meetings in Rome with the bishops highlighted in the report, a Vatican statement said that Pope Benedict is “deeply disturbed and distressed” by the revelations and that he will be writing a special pastoral letter to Catholics in Ireland. The statement said the Pope shares their sense of “outrage, betrayal and shame.”
The Murphy report said, “The Dublin Archdiocese's pre-occupations in dealing with cases of child sexual abuse, at least until the mid 1990s, were the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the Church, and the preservation of its assets.
“All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities. The archdiocese did not implement its own canon law rules and did its best to avoid any application of the law of the state.”
Four other serving bishops who were based in Dublin during the period investigated, Jim Moriarty, Martin Drennan, Eamonn Walsh and Ray Field, were found not to have mishandled abuse allegations and have already stated that they have no intention of resigning.
The Irish Church has been rocked in recent years by a series of reports published by the government that have revealed a “pervasive, chronic, and excessive,” culture of physical, mental and sexual abuse and neglect of children and young people who were inmates of Church-run institutions.
The Irish government has conducted a number of investigations in recent years focusing particularly on the reaction of diocesan officials to allegations. In 2002, the publication of the report on allegations in the Ferns diocese in County Wexford resulted in the resignation of Bishop Brendan Comiskey. The Ferns Report, published by the government in 2005, revealed 100 individual cases involving 21 priests during the tenure of both Comiskey and his predecessor Bishop Donal Herlihy, who oversaw the diocese between 1964 and 1983.
More recently, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (CICA) chaired by Justice Seán Ryan, covered the period from 1936 to the present. The Ryan report was published in May 2009 and largely pointed at Irish religious orders that had the care of children and youth in government-funded institutions, such as residential reformatory and industrial schools and orphanages.
The Ryan report found that Church and government officials had failed to prevent the abuse and neglect of children and youth that prevailed in these institutions through much of the 20th century. The abuse was described in the report as “systemic, pervasive, chronic, excessive, arbitrary, endemic.” The national police have said they will be using the report to decide whether charges will be laid.
Witnesses in the investigation reported beatings and rapes as a regular part of life in these institutions. These events were described as “endemic,” particularly in the institutions that housed boys.
In June, the Irish bishops issued a statement saying, “The Ryan report represents the most recent disturbing indictment of a culture that was prevalent in the Catholic Church in Ireland for far too long.
“Heinous crimes were perpetrated against the most innocent and vulnerable, and vile acts with life-lasting effects were carried out under the guise of the mission of Jesus Christ. This abuse represents a serious betrayal of the trust which was placed in the church.”
Sean Cardinal Brady of Armagh, Northern Ireland, and president of the Irish bishops' conference, said, “We are ashamed, humbled and repentant that our people strayed so far from their Christian ideals, for this we ask forgiveness.”
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