Third Irish bishop resigns over child abuse

VATICAN CITY - A third Irish bishop has stepped down in the wake of the child abuse scandal which has rocked the Catholic church in Ireland, the Vatican announced Thursday.

Pope Benedict XVI has accepted the resignation of Bishop James (Jim) Moriarty who heads the Diocese of Kildare-Leighlin, near the Irish capital, Dublin, a Vatican statement said.

The announcement came a day after Benedict recalled his emotional meeting last weekend with several men who claim that as minors they were molested by priests at an orphanage in Malta.

Benedict speaking to pilgrims gathered in St Peter’s Square, said he had promised the victims that the church would take “action” against the abuse.

Moriarty tendered his resignation to the pope in December. He subsequently said he had failed to challenge a “prevailing culture” among Irish church officials that aimed to conceal widespread sex abuse from civil authorities.

Moriarty is one of four bishops who offered to step down in the wake of the scandal in Ireland where last year, a government commissioned report, revealed hundreds of cases of abuse dating from the mid 1970s.

Besides Moriarty, the pontiff has to date accepted the resignation of Bishop Donald Brendan Murray of Limerick and Bishop John Magee of Cloyne.

In recent months revelations of sexual abuse by priests have also surfaced in the US, the Netherlands, Austria, Mexico and the pontiff’s native Germany.

Benedict’s handling of paedophilia in the church has also been called into question.

Critics in particular cite the case of a predator priest in Germany who was reassigned to service in the diocese of Munich-Freising at the time - 1977-82 - when it was headed by the pontiff, then Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger.

Diocese officials say that the decision to re-assign the priest was taken by Ratzinger’s then deputy, who acted without informing the future pope.