By Jim Scott
DNAinfo Senior Editor
MIDTOWN — New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan has been selected by Pope Benedict XVI to serve on a nine-member panel that will investigate alleged sex abuse and cover ups by the Catholic church in Ireland, according to several published reports.
The probe comes two months after the Pope wrote a letter in March promising an investigation by the Vatican into chronic child abuse in Ireland and years of cover-ups by church authorities.
"Together with the immense harm done to victims, great damage has been done to the Church and to the public perception of the priesthood and religious life," Pope Benedict said in the letter to the Irish diocese.
Dolan will head up the investigation of the Irish seminaries and two nuns were appointed to investigate religious institutes for women.
The probe comes after several of Ireland's bishops either admitted they molested children or covered up for priests who did.
Irish-born Archbishop Richard Burke, 61, was suspended and resigned Monday after facing accusations that he carried on a 20-year relationship with a woman that began when she was 14, the Associated Press reported.
An Irish government-organized compensation board has paid out more than $983 million to 13,000 people abused in Ireland’s church-run residential institutions for children, according to the AP.
"Only decisive action carried out with complete honesty and transparency will restore the respect and good will of the Irish people towards the Church to which we have consecrated our lives," Pope Benedict said in a letter addressing the scandal in March.
Boston's Cardinal Sean O’Malley will be part of the pobe. He's charged with investigating the Dublin archdiocese. O'Malley, 65, took over took over the Boston archdiocese in the wake of sex abuse scandal under former Cardinal Bernard Law’s tenure.
Archbishops from England, Boston, Toronto and Ottawa were also named as investigators by the Pope.
