Galway Advertiser 2009/GA_2009_12_30/GA_3012_E1_001.pdf 

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Wednesday December 30 2009

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It's Rome's call as pressure grows on defiant Bishop to stand down
Auxiliary bishops had about the same power as altar boys, says Galway priest
BY DECLAN VARLEY Pressure was mounting last night on Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan to step down from office, as campaign groups set up online petitions to force him to resign. As the sole remaining prelate named in the Murphy Report, Dr Drennan has come under increasing pressure to resign after two other bishops named in the report, Raymond Field and Eamon Walsh, stood down on Christmas Eve. Their announcement came a week after Bishop Donal Murray of Limerick had his resignation formally accepted by Pope Benedict XVI in Rome Despite this, Dr Drennan has stated that he will not resign from office as the report does not state that he has any questions to answer about his period as auxiliary bishop in Dublin. In a statement issued through his spokesman, Fr Sean McHugh, Dr Drennan said he felt he had done nothing wrong and that his situation was different to that of other bishops named in the Murphy Report into clerical child abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese. According to the Murphy Report, Bishop Drennan heard reports in 2002 that a priest, Fr Guido, had been photographing teenage rugby players, and drinking and exchanging phone numbers with them. He recommended treatment for Fr Guido, who admitted he was gay. The report found that Bishop Drennan and the archdiocese had acted correctly in the case. However, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has suggested that all bishops named in the report should consider their positions in an act of collective responsibility for the administration of should step down in the same way that the other four Bishops have as there must be a 'collective response' in order to move forward. Andrew Madden, author of 'Altar Boy: A Story of Life After Abuse' also said he believed Bishop Drennan should resign and he called on Bishop Drennan to meet with abuse victims to hear their opinions on whether he should continue. He said there will be a point of contention if Bishop Drennan insists on staying. However, the notion of collective responsibility has been rubbished by Redemptorist priest and author Fr Tony Flannery who said that auxiliary bishops had little power, and especially in the Dublin archdiocese. "I know that bishops are independent in their own diocese, and answerable directly to Rome. What precisely the position of auxiliary bishops is I am not sure. Collective responsibility is an idea taken from the secular, not the religious, world. "My understanding was that auxiliary bishops, particularly in Dublin, had little or no say over policy and decision making. In fact, I have often heard it said that during the reign of the archbishops covered in the Murphy Report, the auxiliaries had about as much power as the altar servers," he said. Newspaper articles yesterday called on Bishop Drennan to answer questions regarding serial child abuser Fr Noel Reynolds. Complaints about Fr Reynolds were made to the diocese during the time in which Bishop Drennan served as auxiliary bishop in the Dublin archdiocese.

Bishop Martin Drennan pictured delivering his sermon at Christmas Day Mass at Galway Cathedral. Pic: Philip Cloherty.

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the diocese in that period. But Archbishop Martin made a u-turn on this at the weekend when he conceded that Bishop Drennan did not have any accountability in relation to the matters investigated.

In a statement from the Dublin archdiocese, it said that the "The Commission of Inquiry had all documents in relation to the Dublin Diocese, but did not seek evidence from Martin Drennan.

"Therefore, it did not identify the bishop as having any accountability in relation to the representative sample it considered." Despite this, abuse survivor Marie Collins said Bishop Drennan

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