ARCHBISHOP Diarmuid Martin has stated that he "respects" the decision of a victim of clerical child sex abuse to formally leave the Catholic Church.Dr Martin was reacting to the decision by Andrew Madden, who was abused by paedophile priest Ivan Payne in Dublin, to announce that he has decided to have his name withdrawn from the Catholic Church’s baptismal register.
"He made this application. I understand and respect his decision. He is a person who came to a priest in trust and that trust was betrayed, and anyone can see where that would lead a person. I wish him every success and blessing in his life but I respect his decision," Dr Martin said yesterday following an ecumenical event in Trinity College Dublin.
The archbishop had received a letter from Mr Madden outlining his course of action prior to him going public on the issue.
However, he had not attempted to dissuade him from leaving the Catholic Church – "entirely, it’s his decision and I respect that fully".
On RTÉ radio, Mr Madden said he had not believed in God for several years, but had only decided formally to leave the Church after learning on the, website www.countmeout.ie, about assistance in formally leaving the Catholic Church.
Mr Madden said even after the abuse by Fr Payne he had intended to join the priesthood, believing his abuser to be a "one-off". However, the Catholic Church refused him entry to Maynooth.
On his decision to leave the Church he said: "We were brought up that this was God’s Church and I just thought, if this is God’s Church, stuff it, the load of it."
In his January 10 letter informing Dr Martin he had left the Church, Mr Madden states: "In 1983, the Catholic Church in Dublin decided that I was not suitable for entry into the priesthood.
Two years earlier the same Catholic Church had allowed Ivan Payne to continue as a priest despite knowing that he had sexually abused me for two and a half years when I was aged 12-14 years.
"The idea that anyone sexually abusing children was more suitable for the priesthood than I was totally devastated me at that time, and a belief in God and his Church, which had survived Ivan Payne’s actions, came to an abrupt and painful end.
"In November 2009, the Murphy Report was published. I was deeply saddened at the sexual abuse of children, and I was furiously angry at how the Catholic Church had caused the further sexual abuse of children by covering up abuse in different ways.
"My anger soon turned to rage when I saw Catholic bishops, including yourself, fail to articulately take responsibility for what your Church had done. You spoke so well about the awfulness of what some priests had done and the suffering of those abused, but there was no real mention of the sexual abuse caused by bishops who had covered up for priests."
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