PRIESTS IN Ireland have been subject to unjustifiable wrongs as people have been misled about the level of sexual and physical abuse committed by them, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has said.
In his homily at a Mass in the Pro-Cathedral last weekend, he said people had been “misled about the extent of abuse by priests”.
Dr Martin, speaking at Mass to celebrate the lives of the nine priests who had died in the diocese this year, said he had been thinking about the changes in the country over their careers.
“I was reflecting that the two eldest of these priests, Dan Breen and Noel Madden, were both ordained in 1955,” he said. “I was reflecting on the change that they would have experienced over those years. Priests in Dublin face new challenges as numbers decrease and the workload grows and the general cultural climate changes."
“Priests in Dublin have faced really difficult times in the past years. With all of you, I am saddened and horrified to see the results of a recent survey which showed how misled people have been about the extent of abuse by priests. Some of those questioned for the survey imagined that over 20 per cent of priests had abused,” he said.
Dr Martin was referring to a survey commissioned by the conservative think tank, the Iona Institute, which found that 42 per cent of Irish people believed the number of priests guilty of child abuse was over 20 per cent.
“The horror we all experience at the dreadful reality of abuse in no ways justifies such injustice to the entire body of priests in this diocese and in this country,” the archbishop said.
The nine priests had represented what was best in Dublin priests, he said.
“The love and the affection and the care they had for us in this life endure.”
He said being a believer in Jesus Christ was not easy today for anyone.
“We should remember, however, that difficult times are never alien to the ministry and the life of the church. Faith is not easy. All of us will have experienced and will experience moments in which our faith in God will be stretched almost to breaking point."
“Faith is not certainty. Finding Jesus in our lives is not given to us on a plate. Our faith has to engage with the hostilities of every generation. Our faith has to engage with the weakness and sinfulness of our own identity,” he said.
“I thank you for the support you gave these nine priests in their lives and ministry. Priests need their families and their fiends. Priests enrich their lives of their families and friends.”