The Bishop of Limerick, Dr Donal Murray, is to take time off for health reasons, it emerged yesterday. A statement issued by the Limerick Diocesan Office office yesterday said Dr Murray had been advised by his doctors to take a short break.
Confirmation that Dr Murray was taking a break followed a recent controversy surrounding claims by Peter McCloskey, a Limerick man, that he was sexually abused by a priest based in the diocese more than 20 years ago.
Sources close to Bishop Murray said the events surrounding Mr McCloskey's death had taken a heavy personal toll on the leader of the Catholic Church in Limerick.
Other arrangements have been made for some of his public engagements with the Bishop of Killala, Dr John Fleming, and the Bishop of Kerry, Dr Bill Murphy, filling in.
Dr Murray's next public engagements were due to take place today at St Munchin's, the Holy Family and Our Lady Queen of Peace parishes in Limerick but his colleagues will attend in his place.
Mr McCloskey died tragically on April 1st last, just days after he had walked out on mediation talks with diocesan representatives in Limerick.
The 37-year-old father of three made allegations in 2002 that he was sexually abused when he was an altar boy in 1980-81 by Fr Denis Daly.
Fr Daly, who was ordained in Sydney, returned to Ireland in 1978 and failed to get work in a number of dioceses before coming to Limerick where he worked until his death in 1987.
It later emerged that a number of incidents in Australia led Fr Daly to come back to Ireland, when the abuse is alleged to have taken place.
The diocese accepted in a public statement last Sunday that there was a failure on its part to inform itself as to Fr Daly's suitability to take up ministry in Limerick.
Before this statement the family of the late Mr McCloskey had called for the bishop's resignation over the manner in which he dealt with the complaint.
In a press conference held in Dublin recently Joseph McCloskey, a brother of the deceased, said the fact that Fr Daly was the subject of another complaint in the 1980s in Limerick was evidence of yet another "cover-up by the church and particularly the diocese of Limerick".
"Peter came forward with his complaint four years ago and from what I've seen priests in the diocese were aware of potentially paedophilic behaviour as far back as the 1980s," he said.