Theologian Wants Five Bishops To Quit

A leading theologian has called for the resignation of all five still-practising bishops accused of failures to protect victims of sexual abuse.

Dr Vincent Twomey, Professor of Moral Theology at NUI Maynooth, said resigning was the only option available to the bishops after their failure to take adequate action in abuse cases against paedophile priests were revealed in the recent Murphy Report.

The report, which investigated how the Church's leadership structures dealt with the sexual abuse of children in the Dublin Archdiocese, has led to a number of calls against the bishop's involved to resign for the sake of the Church.

Dr Twomey made his petition as it emerged the Bishop of Limerick Dr Donal Murray has been fighting to keep his job during crisis talks at the Vatican.

Speaking on RTÉ's Marian Finucane Show, the professor said: "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."

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.

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, are all currently under the spotlight over the allegations of failure within Church structures to adequately deal with the problem.

(DW/KMcA)