|PIC1|A Derry priest says the Catholic Church in Ireland has lost all moral authority after last week’s report revealed that senior leaders had covered up decades of child abuse.

Fr Michael Canny, spokesman for Derry Diocese said the reputation of the Church was “in tatters” and that all trust had gone.

The government-commissioned report found that the Church deliberately covered up abuse by 46 priests in order to save its own reputation. Instead of reporting the abuse, clergy suspected of abusing children were simply moved to different areas where they were then free to abuse more children.

“There is no good in saying other than the truth,” said Fr Michael Canny, according to the Irish Times. “The Church at this state has no credibility, no standing and no moral authority.”

He said he would now have to spend the rest of his life rebuilding trust in the Church following the scandal.

“The issue is now one of trust, and that is why it will take the rest of my lifetime as a priest to build up that trust again, because the trust and confidence in the Church has been broken on a fundamental level.”

He told the newspaper he was “angry” at the way the abuse had been handled, adding that he felt “betrayed and let down to a terrible extreme”.

At masses across Ireland today, congregations heard the reflections of senior clergy on the findings of the report.

Dr Donal Murray, Bishop of Limerick, is facing calls for his resignation after the report strongly criticised his handling of child abuse allegations while he was auxiliary bishop in Dublin. He told the congregation at St Joseph’s Church in Limerick today that whether he resigned or not would be “guided by the priests and people of the diocese”, reports the Irish Times.

A prepared statement by the Bishop of Down and Connor, Noel Traenor, was read out at all masses in the diocese, in which he expressed his “horror and distress” at the “heinous and appalling crimes against children”.