DUBLIN (Reuters) - Pressure was mounting on the spiritual head of Ireland's largest Roman Catholic diocese on Tuesday to respond to claims the church turned a blind eye to decades of widespread sexual abuse of children by priests.
Revelations in a documentary aired on Irish state television last week that the Dublin archdiocese was facing more than 450 abuse-related legal actions have sparked calls both for a national inquiry and for Cardinal Desmond Connell to step down.
As speculation grew that a criminal investigation may be launched, Irish Education Minister Noel Dempsey said Connell had questions to answer.
"The specific cases and questions that were raised last week -- I think he needs to be much clearer in his response to that," Dempsey told state-backed Radio Telefis Eireann (RTE).
"I think it's up to the relevant authorities, the gardai (police) or whoever they are, to investigate complaints to see if any criminal activity took place in covering up any of this."
The RTE documentary, which outlined cases of abuse by eight priests of which it alleged at least six bishops were aware, said Connell wrote a letter of recommendation in the late 1980s for a priest who had been accused of abusing a child in 1974.
Connell, 76, who has been archbishop of Dublin since 1988 and was elevated to cardinal last year, denied through a spokesman that he knew of the 1974 allegations.
Ireland's justice minister, Michael McDowell, is expected to discuss with government colleagues later Tuesday what form an inquiry might take. Police have confirmed they are "researching the various issues involved" in the abuse allegations.
ENGULFED BY SCANDALS The Catholic church has found itself in deep water this year amid a rash of clerical abuse cases world-wide, and the Vatican itself has come under severe pressure to act. In the United States alone, compensation claims by victims are running into billions of dollars.
The church in overwhelmingly Catholic Ireland, already rocked by a string of scandals in the last decade, has sustained huge damage in recent months as revelations about the scale of child abuse by priests have shocked the country.
In April, the Bishop of Ferns, Brendan Comiskey, was forced to resign his office in his southern Irish diocese after a television documentary made clear he had long known of the activities of a pedophile priest, Father Sean Fortune.
Fortune worked in Comiskey's diocese for years but committed suicide in 1999 when faced with criminal sex charges.
An inquiry into the Ferns scandal was set up in July, headed by former judge Gillian Hussey, which is due to report in 2004. A spokesman for Connell told Reuters the cardinal was focusing his energies on that inquiry and had nothing to say in response to demands over the latest revelations.
However, abuse victims have criticized the Ferns inquiry as "toothless" and have expressed doubts about its independence, given its church-funding.
John Kelly, founder of Survivors of Child Abuse, and himself a victim of clerical abuse said high-ranking members of the clergy had shielded abusive priests and failed to report crimes.
He called on Connell to resign.
"His position is untenable. He has lost the moral authority to govern many of the fine priests that are about, moreover he has lost the trust of the Irish people," he told Reuters.
"We need an immediate, full police investigation to question all those who had involvement, whoever they are. Second, we need to set up a national statutory inquiry with powers to get to the truth and to imprison those who impede its workings."
Earlier this month, in what was viewed by some as a pre-emptive strike ahead of last week's documentary, Connell apologized personally for the church's failure to deal adequately with complaints about clerical abuse of children.