A 2006 article in the 'Chicago Tribune', titled 'How Catholicism Fell
From Grace in Ireland', points to the Bishop Eamonn Casey scandal as the
beginning of the end for the Catholic Church in Ireland.
The revelation in May 1992 that one of the hierarchy's most
high-profile prelates had fathered a son following an affair with an
American woman when he was Bishop of Kerry in the 1970s was, up to that
point, the worst scandal to hit the Irish Church. It shocked the Irish
faithful and resulted in a storm of international media headlines.
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/deep-resentment-towards-murphy-reflected-in-frosty-reception-on-the-late-late-35528696.html