The Archbishop of Dublin has condemned the culture of drugs, knives and violence as a "cancerous" growth infesting Ireland.Archbishop Diarmuid Martin says that the news now provides a "daily litany" of murders and assaults, some presented in "horror detail".
And just as cancer spreads in the human body, every violent incident engenders further violence through retaliation, as seen in the number of gangland feuds around the nation.
The downward spiral damages not only the victims but also their families, their friends, their community and society, Archbishop Martin warns.
Archbishop Martin reveals that each morning his alarm-clock goes off just in time to hear the first morning news headlines. He says that murders, stabbings or assaults are almost expected.
Stunned
"We know the daily litany," the archbishop says. "And yet there are days when we are stunned out of our numbness by a particular horror detail and we ask 'what next?'
His observations are his first public comment since his renewed call on the Government to convene an emergency summit with community leaders and gardai to tackle gangland crime and violence.
An article was written by the Archbishop during a week which witnessed St Patrick's Day riots in Finglas, a young taxi driver being fatally stabbed 20 times after being chased by a man and a woman, and an English youth losing a finger in a Dublin city centre brawl.
Two Polish men, both fatally stabbed in an altercation in Drimnagh, were laid to rest in their homeland while bus services were curtailed in north Dublin because of fears of violent incidents.
The Dublin Fire Brigade ambulance service was called out around 400 times on St Patrick's Day, and nearly all the calls were alcohol-related.
Gardaí also said that they had made a large number of arrests and dealt with a significant number of drink-fuelled incidents compared to an average day.
Archbishop Martin saw how communities tamed the Mafia while he was working in Rome as a Vatican diplomat.
He is now convinced that local people need the support of the Government and the Gardaí in their efforts to rid themselves of crime and violence in their own neighbourhoods. His call for a community summit was first made a year ago, but was rebuffed by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Justice Minister Brian Lenihan.
Archbishop Martin restated his appeal after the horrendous murders of Polish men Pawel Kalite and Marius Szwajkos. His article celebrates Christ's Easter message of love, but Archbishop Martin points out that every single violent incident affects many.
"There is a cancerous mechanism which makes violence engender further violence," he writes.
"We see this in retaliation. We see it in a culture where carrying knives seems to be normal and where knives are used at the slightest provocation."
The Archbishop insists that "criminality must be investigated and repressed".
"The gardai need our recognition, support and co-operation in their efforts," he writes.
"But violence grows up in society and society itself must take responsibility for the roots of violence."
Archbishop Martin also renews his criticism of well-off people in "respectable" society who are happy "to sanitise the violence and exploitation out of the drug equation when it comes down to [their] so-called 'recreational' use of cocaine."
He says that the politically correct expressions of shock when someone becomes a victim of drugs can seem just empty words.
But the Archbishop adds: "Perhaps they are more. Perhaps they are a cry for help, a cry for a real answer. Perhaps they are an expression of a fear and uneasiness which sectors of society have lost the ability to put into clear words. Society must be helped to take responsibility for the roots of violence. Society must be helped shape its own future and not be dictated to by criminal groups, vested economic interests or superficial ideologies."
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