Donal Murray's resignation as Bishop of Limerick seemed imminent last night after Cardinal Sean Brady (pictured) implicitly advised him to go.
Brady said Murray had been in contact with him and he was confident the Limerick bishop would "do the right thing".
At mass last night Murray told his congregation that he was reflecting on the decision he now has to make and asked for their prayers.
Asked what he would have done if he had learnt his actions had in any way led to the abuse of a child, Brady said: "If I found myself in a situation where I was aware that my failure to act had allowed or meant that other children were abused ... then I think I would resign."
Brady said the church had failed people, especially the survivors of abuse and that now was the time for action and accountability. He will go to Rome this week with the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, to discuss the Murphy report with Pope Benedict.
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Martin said last week that he would be writing to Murray and others named in the Murphy report, pointing out that their response to its findings were a matter for the Catholics of the Dublin archdiocese. "I don't want to be sitting at meetings with people who have not responded to a very serious situation," he said. The Irish bishops will meet in Maynooth this week for their quarterly gathering.
Murray, under pressure since the Murphy report described his handling of a complaint as "inexcusable", came under fire from another source yesterday.
Relatives of Peter McCloskey, an abuse victim who committed suicide, sent a letter to Mary Harney, the minister for health, asking her to widen the Dublin commission's inquiry to include Limerick. The family made the case that Cloyne and Limerick shared a joint case management advisory committee severely criticised in the Cloyne report. It was on the basis of that report that Barry Andrews, the minister for children, referred Cloyne to the Dublin Commission of Investigation.
Two members of the committee, disbanded after the Cloyne report was published, attended a mediation meeting with Peter McCloskey on March 30, 2006, two days before his death. Asked if he believed there were grounds to include Limerick in the inquiry, Andrews said he was awaiting the HSE audit of dioceses, due on December 22.