THE Bishop of Limerick has said "his conscience is clear" about his time in Dublin but admitted some things should have been done differently.Despite repeated calls from him to resign in the wake of the Murphy report into the handling of child sex abuse, Dr Donal Murray said he wouldn’t be forced out of the Church.
The embattled bishop said he is now engaged in a "listening process" in which he will gauge opinion in the Diocese of Limerick but also public opinion nationwide. He said he wants to hear in particular from the victims in Dublin.
"I will listen to what people say. In the unlikely event it was entirely positive, I still have my own decision to make. It will be a decision about whether I feel I can be Bishop in Limerick in the light of all this.
"There was certainly no deliberate omission on my part. It is a tough thing to say to yourself, if I had done something differently, that wouldn’t have happened."
He said the listening process will take a couple of weeks and could not say if he will say Mass on Christmas Day.
"I have no urge to hold on to my job; I’m not here defending my good job. What I do want is whatever decision I make that the truth is heard."
The comments have been criticised by the sex abuse survivor group One in Four, with its executive director Maeve Lewis calling for Pope Benedict XVI to intervene in Ireland’s latest clerical scandal.
Speaking after Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said bishops who failed to protect children had not yet responded adequately to the crisis, Ms Lewis said it was time the Vatican supported "courageous" clergymen.
"I have a lot of respect for Diarmuid Martin, but he doesn’t have any power over them.
"The only person who does is the Pope and he should be intervening by sacking some of the priests involved," she said.
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