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	New Petition Seeks Church Resignations By John Manning Fingal Independent January 5, 2010 http://www.fingal-independent.ie/news/new-petition-seeks-church-resignations-1999697.html THE former deputy principal of a Swords school with a long record in fighting for human rights around the world and at home has said the Catholic Church has to transform itself if it is to recover from the impact of the Murphy Report into clerical child abuse in the Dublin diocese. Brendan Butler is the former deputy principal of Swords Loreto. He is a committed Catholic who has fought for reforms in the church 'from within' and has a record of human rights campaigning stretching back to El Salvador solidarity movement of the 1970s. Mr Butler has become deeply involved in the campaign to see the resignations members of the hierarchy who failed to stop the catalogue of abuses in the Dublin diocese and has set up an internet petition to further that campaign. 'I can't be concerned with human rights abroad if I don't have the same concern for people at home,' Mr Butler told the Fingal Independent. Now living in Malahide, Mr Butler was ready to confront auxillary bishop, Ray Field at Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve if the bishop, who was criticised in the Murphy Report, failed to announce his resignation. 'Had he not announced his resignation, I would have stood up and confronted him and called for his resignation,' Mr Butler said. As transpired, Bishop Field did announce his resignation at that Mass in Malahide, along with his colleague, Bishop Eamon Walsh, with a brief statement that said: 'As we celebrate the feast of Christmas, the birth of our saviour, the Prince of Peace, it is our hope that our action may help to bring the peace and reconciliation of Jesus Christ to the victims/survivors of child sexual abuse. 'We again apologise to them. Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have so bravely spoken out and those who continue to suffer in it silence.' Mr Butler has called for a similar examination of clerical child abuse in every diocese in the country and for every member of the hierarchy 'who knew what was going on and did not shout stop' to resign. He said: ' We need a new kind of church - one which has much more involvement by the laity. As Bishop Moriarty said when he resigned, these bishops failed to challenge the culture of the cover-up.' You can sign Brendan Butler's petition on www.ipetitions.com/petition/brendan13.
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