If the Irish episcopate was not already racked with controversy, now comes word that Pope Benedict has not accepted the resignations of two Irish auxiliary bishops that were given to the Holy See last December at the height of the sex abuse crisis in Ireland. The surprising news was announced in a letter to the clergy of Dublin sent by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin Aug. 10.
 

Bishop Eamonn Walsh and Raymond Field were two of the four Irish bishops to resign over the scandal, and the pope’s decision not to accept their letters touched off a predictable firestorm of controversy in the Irish media and among the various abuse survivor groups. The Irish Times ran a column by Mary Raftery in which blames the decision on the Vatican’s trauma over the recent revelations of the global scandal, and adds: “This is probably the most charitable construction one can put on what has amounted to an international criminal conspiracy on the part of the Catholic Church to pervert the course of justice in order to protect paedophile priests from the law.”

The two bishops had submitted their letters of resignation as a gesture of reconciliation during a very difficult time even though both had been cleared of actual wrongdoing and bad judgment by last year’s Murphy Report.

Andrea Tornielli, the Vatican correspondent of the Milan daily Il Giornale, suggested in his Aug. 13 blog Sacri Palazzi that it may not have been so much that the Pope declined to accept the resignations as that Bishops Walsh and Field perhaps had rescinded their offers to resign. Both bishops, Tornielli said, had argued that they had no responsibilities for the handling of abuse cases. 

 

Journalist John Allen, in his own blog for the National Catholic Reporter, offered analysis as to why the Vatican is reluctant in principle to accept the resignations of bishops under such circumstances. His reasoning, while the fruit of his many years of experience as a Vatican reporter, is unlikely to convince harsh critics of the Vatican.

 

One such critic is James Mackey, an Irish theologian who most recently called for all the bishops of Ireland to resign. A mass resignation, he said, “would be the only fair outcome.” Needless to say, this is unlikely to happen.

What will happen, however, is that Archbishop Martin will have the roles and duties of Bishops Walsh and Field re-examined. This won’t end the debate, however, and once again both the Vatican and the Irish Church find themselves on the defensive.