It's time for the Purple Princes to finally fall on their croziers in bid for credibility.

(From Irish Independent)

ONLY two drastic initiatives by the Catholic bishops can help restore their lost credibility and regain their moral authority from decades of cover-ups of paedophile and sexually deviant priests.

Action in light of the Ferns Report and the ongoing revelations in the media of similar widespread abuses in Dublin, Derry and the west would have to be bold.

The first move would entail a collective offer of resignations by all the present members of the Irish Hierarchy, inclusive even of those more recently appointed such as Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin who are advising the adoption of a more enlightened policy approach.

This unprecedented step would be based on the principle of collective responsibility for their governance of the institutional Irish Church, even though in canon law each bishop in the 26 dioceses is sovereign in his own ecclesiastical bailiwick, subject only to Rome.

Such a measure would allow Pope Benedict XVI to renominate those like Dr Martin, Bishop Eamonn Walsh, the Apostolic Administrator to Ferns, and his name-sake Bishop Willie Walsh of Killaloe, with a mandate to clean-up the soiled temple of the Irish Church in accordance with the secular law of the land.

Of course, this, too, would not be accepted by the Pope even if, in the unlikely event, the bishops were to shock us by doing so.