Thursday, December 17, 2009

Bishop Donal Murray resigns from post in Irish Church Scandal, he should have been sacked, it is an insult to the victims of abuse













Dear All

The Irish Church paedophile scandal has claimed a high profile casualty in the form of Bishop Donal Murray.

I was considering writing ‘high profile victim’ but the facts speak from themselves of his disgraceful behaviour.

Pope Benedict XVI has rightly accepted Bishop Murray’s resignation.

Bishop Murray is the first senior church figure to go over the devastating Murphy report into the sexual abuse of children by priests in the Dublin archdiocese but he should not be the last.

What is disgusting is that the Murphy report uncovered evidence of more than 170 clerics involved in child sex abuse as far back as to 1940.

The culture of secrecy stinks.

Donal Murray is accused of mishandling complaints and failing to reinvestigate suspicions against a paedophile priest.

The Murphy report is damning for the Catholic Church in a country steeped in religious tradition.

Murray has since apologised to his congregation at St John’s Cathedral in Limerick.

He said;

“I humbly apologise once again to all who were abused as little children."

I would suggest that statement would fall on deaf ears given his intransigence of their plight and his refusal to do his job properly.

He shouldn’t have been allowed the dignity of resignation but have been sacked.

Andrew Madden is one of the victims of abuse urged that four other bishops implicated in the Murphy report have to also go.

Jim Moriarty, Martin Drennan, Eamonn Walsh and Ray Field were based in Dublin at the time of the cover-up but haven’t tenured their resignations and remain in post.

Madden stated;

"Their continued presence in office is an insult to every child sexually abused by a priest in the Dublin Archdiocese.”

It would be very difficult to argue with such a statement.

Madden added;

“They display a contemptible level of arrogance and a shocking lack of humility."

And these are supposed to be ‘Men of God’!

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

He's sorry it has all come out.

He's sorry that he has been disgraced.

He's sorry that his career has not ended the way he would have had it end.

I doubt if he is sorry about what happened to these kids. If he were, he would have done something about it all a long time ago.

Careerist churchmen....