IRL : THE new Bishop of Cloyne is "apprehensive" about his appointment given the trauma in the diocese over clerical child abuse.Canon William Crean, 60, vowed that he will use his appointment by Pope Benedict to try to bring "healing" to the sprawling Cork diocese which has been wracked by controversy over clerical child abuse for over a decade.
The diocese is still reeling from Judge Yvonne Murphy's devastating Cloyne report, which last year revealed that children had been left at risk by the diocese's failure to implement the church's own child-protection guidelines.
Cloyne has been without a bishop for almost four years after Dr John Magee, a private secretary to three popes, first stepped aside and then resigned over the controversy.
"I am apprehensive because I am deeply conscious of the trauma of these years past," Canon Crean said last Saturday. "So much suffering endured by young people at the hands of a few. Sufferings compounded by the failure of those who didn't believe them and of those who didn't hear their cry for help."