Dublin, Ireland - The Irish government ordered a new investigation Wednesday into how a Roman Catholic bishop mishandled complaints against sexually abusive priests in his diocese.
The decision by Children's Minister Barry Andrews raised pressure on Bishop John Magee to resign _ but he vowed instead to cooperate with the new probe, the third involving his southwest Irish diocese of Cloyne.
Magee apologized last month after a church-appointed investigator found that he failed to tell police promptly or fully about allegations against two priests since 1995.
Andrews said the bishop appeared to have obstructed that investigation and had offered misleading accounts to investigators from a second, government-ordered audit into how each Catholic diocese across Ireland polices its priests.
As a result, Andrews said, he was ordering a third body _ a government-appointed commission currently probing the Catholic Church's handling of more than 400 abuse cases in Dublin since 1975 _ to extend its work to Magee's diocese.
Andrews, who himself has suffered public criticism for his alleged failure to act more quickly, also published the government-ordered audit Wednesday _ a year after his office received the document.
He noted that the auditors had not found any serious shortcomings in any of Ireland's dioceses, including Magee's. Andrews said he couldn't reconcile that finding with last month's damning report from a church-appointed investigator, Ian Elliott.
Andrews stopped short of calling for the bishop to resign, saying this was a matter for Pope Benedict XVI. But he noted that the Cloyne diocese "needs a fresh start."
In a statement, Magee said he wanted to stay in his post so that he could enact a range of child-protection policies that have long been spelled out in church and government policy documents.
Elliott's report into specific allegations in Magee's diocese found that the bishop and his senior advisers fielded complaints from parishioners about two priests from 1995 onward _ but told the police nothing until 2003 and little thereafter.
One priest, who was accused of molesting a younger priest when he was just a boy, was encouraged by Magee to resign. But the investigation found that the bishop shielded the abuser's identity from police _ and considered such concealment "the normal practice" for the church.
The other priest, a career guidance counselor in a convent school, was accused by several teenage girls and grown women of molesting or raping them since 1995. One complaint came from a woman who had a consensual sexual relationship with the priest for a year _ then saw him develop an intimate relationship with her teenage son.