Accountability

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI has asked the president of the Irish bishops' conference and the archbishop of Dublin to come to the Vatican to discuss "the painful situation of the church in Ireland" following a report detailing the church's failures in addressing clerical sexual abuse.

Irish press reports said Bishop Donal Murray of Limerick was expected to resign in the wake of the Dublin report's criticism of his "inexcusable" handling of an investigation of a pedophile priest.

Bishop Murray the only still-active bishop listed in the Murphy Report, was said by several sources to be already in Rome to meet with Vatican officials.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, said the pope's meeting with Cardinal Sean Brady of Armagh, Northern Ireland, president of the Irish bishops' conference, and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin would take place Dec. 11.

The spokesman said the meeting would include the nuncio to Ireland, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, and the heads of several Vatican offices dealing with sex abuse and related issues.

DUBLIN, Ireland -- A report detailing failures of church leaders' handling of sex abuse cases in the Archdiocese of Dublin has resulted in calls for bishops' resignations and further investigations and prosecution.

"The Dublin Archdiocese's preoccupations in dealing with cases of child sexual abuse, at least until the mid-1990s, were the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the church, and the preservation of its assets," said the report by the independent Commission of Investigation, headed by Judge Yvonne Murphy.

DUBLIN, Ireland -- The Sunday Independent newspaper has leaked details of the report resulting from a government investigation into clerical child abuse in the Archdiocese of Dublin.

In its Nov. 22 edition, the Sunday Independent said the report finds that four previous Dublin archbishops knew about child abuse by priests but did not report it to civil authorities; when cases of child abuse were reported, frequently the abusers were moved to other parishes where they were free to abuse again. The paper reported that the commission found that civil authorities also failed children, for example, by releasing convicted clerical abusers from prison without any further supervision.