IRELAND
Irish Times
May 20, 2018
Patsy McGarry
Ireland’s Catholic bishops considered resigning en masse following the publication of the Ryan and Murphy reports into child abuse in 2009, former president Mary McAleese has said.
“I do remember, at the time of our own problems with the Ryan and Murphy reports in particular, that there was a suggestion from a very senior cleric in Ireland that the Irish bishops might consider something like that,” she said in Dublin on Saturday. “It didn’t happen. I don’t really know if it was discussed.”
Ms McAleese was speaking in the context of the mass resignation by Chile’s 34 Catholic bishops last Friday after they were summoned to Rome to meet Pope Francis in connection with cover-up of clerical child sexual abuse in that country.
In a similar context, Ireland’s Catholic bishops were summoned to Rome in February 2010 to meet Pope Benedict XVI.
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