ROME (ITALY)
Associated Press
December 29, 2020
Pope Francis on Tuesday accepted the resignation of Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who worked to rebuild the Roman Catholic Church’s credibility in Ireland after it was shattered by decades of clergy sexual abuse and cover-up.
Martin turned 75 earlier this year, the mandatory retirement age for bishops. Francis named Bishop Dermot Farrell, 66, the head of the Ossory diocese in eastern Ireland, as Martin’s replacement.
Deeply Catholic Ireland has had one of the world’s worst records of clergy sex abuse, crimes that were revealed to its 4.8 million people over the past decade by a series of government-mandated inquiries. The reviews concluded that thousands of children were raped and molested by priests or physically abused in church-run schools while bishops worked to protect the predators and the Irish church’s reputation.
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