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	Leading Theologian Urges Five Bishops to Step down A SENIOR theologian has urged all five still-practising bishops who failed to prevent the sexual abuse of children in the Dublin Archdiocese to resign for the sake of the Church. By Fiachra O Cionnaith Irish Examiner December 14, 2009 http://www.irishexaminer.com/world/leading-theologian-urges-five-bishops-to-step-down-107767.html IRELAND -- Dr Vincent Twomey, professor of moral theology at NUI Maynooth, said resigning was the only option available. He was speaking after it emerged the Bishop of Limerick Dr Donal Murray has been fighting to keep his job during crisis talks at the Vatican. "The whole world is saying you were in a position where you should have known what was going on. That's called negligence. "The bishops are arguing they did nothing wrong, and that, up to a point, is true. But my point is they did nothing, and that is wrong," he told RTÉ's Marian Finucane Show. The senior theologian, who is a former student of Pope Benedict, insisted that delaying or avoiding the need for resignations would only cause more damage to the victims of the scandal, and the Church. "It comes down not to conscience but to moral courage. We've smothered our conscience, maybe we don't have the moral courage to stand up and be shot down," he said. Dr Twomey's comments were in reference to Eamonn Walsh, Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin; Raymond Field, Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin; Martin Drennan, Bishop of Galway; James Moriarty, bishop of Kildare and Leighlin and Donal Murray, Bishop of Limerick. They were made after a spokesperson for Donal Murray said he was remaining in Rome to await developments concerning his future. It was the first statement on behalf of Dr Murray since he travelled to the Italian city on Sunday week last to discuss his part in the Murphy report revelations. Dr Murray is understood to have had an hour-long meeting with top officials in the Vatican last Monday. It is not known when there will be a response to his claims he did not fail to protect children in the Dublin Archdiocese, where he was an auxiliary bishop between 1982 and 1996. The Murphy report said Dr Murray had badly handled a number of complaints about and suspicions of clerical child sexual abuse and that, in one case where a priest was found to be abusing, his failure to re-investigate earlier suspicions had been "inexcusable". Dr Murray's spokesperson said the bishop was criticised in three of the nine cases associated with him in the report, and that he was never told of an allegation that a child was being sexually abused. He added that in five other cases where Dr Murray was the first to receive a complaint, the Murphy report did not criticise his responses
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