Counselling service, Connect, will open this evening and over the weekend to provide telephone-based counselling and support, following today’s launch of Chapter 19 of the Murphy Report.

One of Ireland’s highest ranking Catholics today denounced the Church for having grown self-centred and arrogant in the wake of the clerical child abuse scandals.

Vatican officials were offended by requests for information from the Murphy inquiry into paedophile priests, according to US embassy cables released by Wikileaks.

Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin today called for Irish society to show solidarity to get through the economic crisis.

THE brother of a man abused at an industrial school is planning an altar protest during communion at one of the biggest Catholic churches in the country on the most important day in the church’s calendar.

The Bishop of Killaloe Dr Willie Walsh has today admitted he was one of the three judges involved in the case of paedophile priest William Carney.

Pope Benedict today confronted the child abuse scandals which have rocked the Catholic Church in Ireland and told victims he was truly sorry for their suffering.

Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin – the second most senior Catholic in Ireland – said today's pastoral message from Pope Benedict was a further step in the Church’s renewal and healing process.

MORE than 800 victims of abuse are on a waiting list for the National Counselling Service (NCS), with a further 208 returning clients also waiting for vital support services.

A BATTLE-WEARY Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan has said he will not be resigning his post unless he can no longer “be a source of unity” in the diocese.

Pope Benedict today accepted the resignation of a under-fire Bishop of Limerick Dr Donal Murray over his “inexcusable” mishandling of a child sex abuse case.

ONE of the bishops strongly criticised for failing to deal with clerical child sex abuse in Dublin resigned from his position as president of the Irish Pilgrimage Trust yesterday.

A RETIRED Garda boss has called for prosecutions to be taken against gardaí who covered up clerical child sex abuse documented in the Murphy Report.

PAEDOPHILE priests were allowed escape justice through the inaction and connivance of gardaí, the Murphy Report has found.

THE Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, has strongly hinted that senior bishops criticised in the Murphy Report should consider their positions.