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	Drennan Defiant As Pressure Grows for Him to Resign By Ronald Quinlan Irish Independent December 27, 2009 http://www.independent.ie/national-news/drennan-defiant-as-pressure-grows-for-him-to-resign-1990192.html Ireland -- BISHOP Martin Drennan was holding firm last night as calls for his resignation refused to die down. In a statement issued through his spokesman, Fr Sean McHugh, Dr Drennan said he felt he had done nothing wrong and that his situation was different to that of other bishops named in the Murphy report into clerical child abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese. As the sole remaining prelate named in the Murphy report, Dr Drennan had come under increasing pressure to resign after two other bishops named in the report, Raymond Field and Eamon Walsh, stood down on Christmas Eve. Their announcement came a week after Bishop Donal Murray of Limerick had his resignation formally accepted by Pope Benedict XVI in Rome. Dr Drennan's defiant stand appeared last night to already have the support of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin. In a statement given to the Sunday Independent, a spokesman for the Archbishop said: "The Commission of Inquiry had all documents in relation to the Dublin Diocese, but did not seek evidence from Martin Drennan. "Therefore, it did not identify the bishop as having any accountability in relation to the representative sample it considered." The spokesman added that there had been no contact between the Archbishop and Bishop Drennan in the wake of the resignations of the other bishops. A well-placed source within the Dublin Archdiocese, meanwhile, said they are hopeful that Dr Drennan will not fall foul of the "necessary blood letting" within the Church's hierarchy that has gone on in the wake of the Murphy report. "Dr Drennan was only named in the report by virtue of the fact that he was in the Dublin diocese at the time. It should be noted that he wasn't even sent a copy of the draft findings before it was published as there was nothing in there for him to concern himself with," the source said. The same source said it should be noted that Archbishop Diarmuid Martin had made it clear in an interview on RTE's Prime Time in the wake of the Murphy report's publication that it had said "different things about different people", in a clear reference to the fact that those bishops named in the report had to have their cases judged individually. According to the Murphy report, Bishop Drennan heard reports in 2002 that a priest, Fr Guido, had been photographing teenage rugby players, and drinking and exchanging phone numbers with them. He recommended treatment for Fr Guido, who admitted he was gay. The report found that Bishop Drennan and the archdiocese had acted correctly in the case.
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