IRELAND
Irish Independent

Sarah MacDonald
March 14 2017

A 2006 article in the ‘Chicago Tribune’, titled ‘How Catholicism Fell From Grace in Ireland’, points to the Bishop Eamonn Casey scandal as the beginning of the end for the Catholic Church in Ireland.

The revelation in May 1992 that one of the hierarchy’s most high-profile prelates had fathered a son following an affair with an American woman when he was Bishop of Kerry in the 1970s was, up to that point, the worst scandal to hit the Irish Church. It shocked the Irish faithful and resulted in a storm of international media headlines.

When Annie Murphy went public, telling her story to newspapers and famously appearing on the ‘Late Late Show’ with Gay Byrne, there was deep resentment towards her among Catholics. The frosty reception she received from Mr Byrne mirrored the initial attitude of many, who refused to…