By Connla Young
Belfast Telegraph
July 15, 2011
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/sack-the-bishops-who-fail-in-their-duty-fr-brian-darcy-16023553.html
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| A fourth damning inquiry into the Church in Ireland lays the blame for the mishandling of abuse allegations with former bishop John Magee |
One of Ireland's best-known priests has called for bishops who don't make the protection of children a priority to be sacked.
Fr Brian D'Arcy says top clergymen who fail in their duty to protect the vulnerable should be stripped of their robes.
The Fermanagh-based Passionist priest was speaking after the Cloyne Report found that Bishop John Magee had failed to report allegations of abuse of children in his diocese to authorities.
It also emerged that the bishop had backing from church officials in the Vatican.
Last night Fr D'Arcy, who writes a column for the Sunday World, said: "You want a bishop to be someone who will listen to people and make sure children are protected. Those who don't should be sacked immediately."
And he hailed the child protection system that exposed Bishop Magee's inadequate response as a success.
He said: "What is critical is that the perfect system was in place. It was so good it outed him.
"The system was set up by people in the church, mostly by lay people. They discovered Bishop Magee was not keeping to the policy and they went public and got an investigation.
"According to the report it says he had backing from Rome not to make the system work. How did that happen? Some fellow can just get someone up the line to say you don't have to follow that if you don't want to?"
Meanwhile, survivors of abuse have renewed their call for an independent inquiry to be set up by the Executive to probe institutional abuse north of the border.
Tom Hayes from Richhill, Co Armagh, says the old Stormont regime must be held to account as well as the Catholic Church.
He said: "They let institutional abuse fester and those who ran them do what they liked."
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