John B. McCormack, the retired Roman Catholic Bishop for New Hampshire who admitted to protecting the identities of priests accused of sexually abusing children, has died, the Diocese of Manchester, N.H., confirmed in a Facebook post Wednesday.

McCormack died Tuesday at Mount Carmel Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Manchester, the diocese said. He was 86.

The leader of New Hampshire’s Catholics from 1998 to 2011, when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 75, McCormack became the state’s ninth bishop after serving as a top aide to Cardinal Bernard Law for the Boston Archdiocese in the 1990s.

In 2002, after a Globe Spotlight report revealed how the church had for decades gone to great lengths to protect clergy members who sexually assaulted children, McCormack faced growing calls for his resignation as the top Catholic in New Hampshire.

While serving the church in Boston, Law…