Eideard

Two Irish bishops have offered their resignation to the Pope, after a government investigation highlighted a cover-up of child sex abuse by priests in Ireland over decades. The announcement on Friday, Christmas Day, increased the number of resignations of church leaders over the probe to four.

Bishops Eamonn Walsh and Raymond Field said that they hoped that their resignation might “bring the peace and reconciliation of Jesus Christ to the victims/survivors of child sexual abuse”.

There was no response from those who have been said to suffer sexual abuse at the hands of those implicated…

More than 170 cases of abuse have been found to have been covered-up by Dublin church leaders. Incidents began to be revealed in 1995 but many records were hidden until 2004.

The cases came to light after Andrew Madden, a former alter boy, made public the abuse he suffered at the hands of priests and the church’s attempts to buy his silence in the mid-1990s.

Isn’t there some kind of deal where Christians say they have to be forgiven?

I mean – outside of whatever lawsuits are filed.