MANCHESTER, N.H. (CNS) -- Bishop John B. McCormack, who led the Diocese of Manchester for 13 years, died Sept. 21 at age 86.

The diocese said in a posting on its website that Bishop McCormack died at Mount Carmel Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Manchester.

Bishop Peter A. Libasci celebrated a funeral Mass for Bishop McCormack Sept. 28 at St. Joseph Cathedral in Manchester. He was buried in the cathedral cemetery adjacent to the church.

"Bishop McCormack was a good and holy bishop who worked hard in times of great difficulty, demonstrating the virtues of kindness, compassion and humility right up until his passing," Bishop Libasci said in a statement posted with the announcement by the diocese.

Bishop McCormack was installed to lead the Manchester Diocese in 1998. He served until in 2011, when he turned 75, the age at which canon law requires a bishop to resign. He was succeeded by Bishop Libasci.

The diocese said Bishop McCormack continued in parish ministry at the cathedral, celebrated the sacraments throughout the statewide diocese and was involved in charitable causes, including serving on the board of directors of Catholic Relief Services.

Bishop McCormack had been an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Boston for more than two years at the time of his appointment to Manchester by St. John Paul II.

In Boston in 1984, Bishop McCormack was named secretary for ministerial personnel, a role in which he oversaw priests and men and women religious.

The Boston Globe reported in 2002 that he had been given the authority by Cardinal Bernard F. Law, then archbishop of Boston, to weed out priests accused of sexual abuse, but that instead he worked to protect clergymen from the allegations by sending them to lawyers and therapists, allowing them to return to ministry.

In 2002, McCormack averted criminal charges against the Manchester Diocese by agreeing that church officials had harmed children by allowing abusive priests to move from parish to parish, the newspaper reported. The diocese agreed to adopt strict child protection policies and to undergo regular audits by the New Hampshire attorney general's office in order to avoid criminal indictments.

Months later, Bishop McCormack acknowledged that he had made mistakes and did not adequately assist abuse victims.

A July 2003 report from the Massachusetts attorney general's office on clergy sexual abuse was released, detailing the Boston Archdiocese's response to allegations. The report led New Hampshire Catholics to mount a petition drive calling for Bishop McCormack to resign, a step he declined to take.

Born Aug. 12, 1935 in Winthrop, Massachusetts, to Cornelius and Eleanor McCormack, he was ordained a priest in 1960 for the Boston Archdiocese. He served in parish ministry until 1967 when he became executive director of North Shore Catholic Charities Center in Peabody, Massachusetts.

He returned to parish ministry in 1981, serving until he was named to oversee ministerial personnel in the Boston Archdiocese three years later.