Irish bishop resigns, apologizes to sex-abuse victims

DUBLIN (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation today of Bishop John Magee, a former papal aide who stands accused of endangering children by failing to follow the Irish church's own rules on reporting suspected pedophile priests to police.

Bishop Magee apologized to victims of any pedophile priests who were kept in parish posts since he took charge of the southwest Irish diocese of Cloyne in 1987.

"To those whom I have failed in any way, or through any omission of mine have made suffer, I beg forgiveness and pardon," the 73-year-old bishop said in a statement.

The Vatican is on the defensive over ever-unfolding accusations that its leaders protected child abusers for decades in many countries, nowhere more so than Ireland, a predominantly Catholic country that once exported priests worldwide.