William Lee was born in Newport, County Tipperary on 2 December 1941, the eldest of five children to John and Delia Lee. He attended primary school at the Convent of Mercy Boys' National School and secondary school at Rockwell College.[1][2]
Lee returned to Ireland in 1972, where he was appointed professor of philosophy and bursar at St Patrick's College, Thurles, and subsequently as its president between 1987 and 1993. He also served as director of the Catholic Marriage Advisory Council (later Accord) for the Archdiocese of Cashel-Emly, and subsequently on the Cork Regional Marriage Tribunal.[1]
Lee was appointed episcopal secretary of the Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference in 1998. He also served on the Commission for Clergy, Seminaries and Vocations, the Commission for the Laity and the Bishops' Department of Planning and Communications of the Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference, as well as President of Accord.[3][2][4]
Following the establishment of a website providing information and assistance to people who wished to formally defect from the Catholic Church in the aftermath of the publication of the final report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse on 20 May 2009, Lee told the Irish Examiner on 16 July that there were no records of defections from his diocese, and that he wasn’t aware of any defections personally.[5]
Following his participation in a meeting between Irish bishops, Pope Benedict XVI and senior members of the Roman Curia from 15 to 16 February 2010 to discuss the publication of the Ryan and Murphy reports in 2009, Lee told The Munster Express that Pope Benedict XVI had described child sexual abuse as "a heinous crime and a grave sin that offended God".[6]
It was reported on 25 March 2010 that he had waited two years in the 1990s before informing Gardaí about complaints made by two people in connection to allegations of child abuse by a priest in the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore. In a statement, Lee apologised for mishandling the allegations, but did not give any further explanation as to why he had taken so long to report the matter.[7][8]
Retirement and death
It was announced on 1 October 2013 that Lee had tendered his episcopal resignation on medical grounds to Pope Francis some weeks previously, and that it had been accepted with immediate effect.[9][10][11][12]
