Sunday, July 10, 2011

Failure to meet challenges “too drastic to imagine” Bishop warns

A time of decision and renewed commitment is the challenge facing Irish Catholics in the months and years ahead according to the Bishop Gerard Clifford, auxiliary of the Archdiocese of Armagh.

Speaking at the annual celebrations for the Feast of St Oliver Plunkett in St Peter’s Church, Drogheda, Co Louth, Bishop Clifford told pilgrims that there could be “no shirking” of responsibilities as the failure to meet the challenges ahead is “too drastic to imagine.”

His call for “renewal of faith” came as the Church prepares itself for the publication of the Coyne Report’s investigation into the handling of allegations of clerical sexual abuse in the diocese by 19 priests between 1996 and 2009.  

The Minister for Justice, Mr Alan Shatter, is due to present the report to the Cabinet on July 12  and it is expected to be published shortly thereafter.

The report was prompted in January 2009 when the National Board for Safeguarding Children drew attention to “inadequate and in some respects dangerous” child safeguarding practices in the diocese, headed by Bishop John Magee, Pope John Paul’s former personal secretary. 

The Vatican accepted his resignation in March 2010.

In Drogheda last weekend, Bishop Clifford told pilgrims that “failure is not an option” and that providing hope was the very least the Church and its members could offer young people and the generations to come.

St Oliver Plunkett was Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland when he was martyred in Tyburn in 1681.  

This year’s procession of his relics and Mass commemorated the 91st anniversary of the beatification of St Oliver by Pope Benedict XV on May 23 1920 and the 36th anniversary of his canonisation on October 12 1975.

An inter-Church group from Hildescheim in Germany was amongst the hundreds of pilgrims who turned out for the procession.  

The first organised pilgrimage from Ireland to Lamspringe was in 1920, the year of St Oliver’s beatification.

Welcoming the pilgrims from Lamspringe, who were led by Fr Dirk Jenssen, Dean of Alfred, in the Diocese of Hildescheim, Bishop Clifford recalled that the body of St Oliver Plunkett was exhumed in the 17th century and removed to the Benedictine Abbey in Lamspringe where they remained for 200 years.

“The visit of our pilgrims from Germany today recalls the support of the people of Germany, at a time of persecution in the past, for a very special Irishman,” Dr Clifford said.  

He added, “Today you come to support us at another point in our history when the challenges to the faith are being felt all around.”