Bishop resigns from children's trust
One of the bishops severely criticised in the Dublin child abuse report. Bishop Dermot O'Mahony (pictured), a former auxiliary bishop of Dublin, explained yesterday why he can no longer serve as president of the Irish Pilgrimage Trust:
"In view of the unfavourable criticisms of me by the Report of the Commission on the Sexual Abuse of Children by Priests in the Archdiocese of Dublin, which has now been published, and the continuing public controversy in its regard, I have decided to step down from this position and I hereby submit my resignation, to take immediate effect."
Bishop O'Mahony , at the age of 61, due to ill health. His mishandling of abuse allegations is catalogued in the Murphy Report, and also in Andrew Madden's memoir, Altar Boy, which tells the story of the church's failure to deal with the self-confessed child abuser Fr Ivan Payne. When Payne admitted that he had abused Andrew from the age of 12, Dermot O'Mahony assured Andrew that the church would deal with the matter. But the abuse allegations were shelved. A similar pattern of covering-up is repeated across many other stories recounted in the Murphy Report.
Victims and survivors will doubtlessly regard Bishop O'Mahony's decision to resign from a children's charity as entirely appropriate and long overdue. But the bishop's decision represents a willingness to accept some responsibility, even at this late stage, in the face of a damning report. We wait to see if the five serving bishops similarly implicated in this report will follow his example. Bishop Donal Murray of Limerick is expected to offer his resignation to Pope Benedict tomorrow (today is a public holiday in Italy). If and when he does resign, .
What of the other four serving bishops? Will they wait to see if the media cycle turns away from this crisis to report other matters? Or will they be booking flights to Rome too in the next few days? And what of the Pope's silence in response to this report? Presumably there are reasons for that silence, but they are not reasons that have been explained -- even through diplomatic channels -- to the Irish Foreign Minister. that "the pope has not responded yet to the appalling revelations of the Murphy inquiry." When the Pope does respond, will he express confidence in serving bishops who have been implicated in a conspiracy to cover-up the abuse of children?
Comment number 1.
At 8th Dec 2009, MarcusAureliusII wrote:The resignations are in effect confession of guilt. Guilt of commission, guilt of complicity or what criminal law here calls aiding and abetting. The question is whether or not the Irish government has the ability but more importantly the political will to prosecute those who committed crimes against so many of its children. The UK proved in the Megrahi case that it did not, in fact that it was so unwilling to live by its international promises, its vocalized principles, its own ethics that it allowed the only convicted mass murderer of so many people free on the pretense of humanitarian grounds, possibly to close a deal on oil instead. (It's been over 3 months sicne he was released and there are no reports of Megrahi's death yet.)
I don't expect much these days from Europe...and I am rarely surprised or disappointed anymore.
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