A Drogheda priest has suggested that next month’s proposed commemorative ceremony to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the visit of Pope John Paul II to Ireland should be declared a 'day of atonement' for the sins of Catholic clergy who perpetrated sexual abuse.Augustinian cleric Fr Iggy O'Donovan said the commemorative day - September 27th - should be inspired by a request for forgiveness, rather than a straight celebration of the late Pontiff’s visit.
“Would it not be appropriate that the church designate that Sunday as the day of atonement in reparation for the sins of abuse committed against the innocent over the years?,” Fr O’Donovan asked.
“'Surely it would make more sense than engaging in a triumphalist nostalgic demonstration,” he continued.
Writing in the weekly bulletin of his Augustinian parish in Drogheda, Fr O’Donovan said that the arrival of the Pope to Killineer, outside Drogheda, appeared to be the start of a new beginning for the church in this country, but “as events unfolded however we now know that this was an illusion. A major triumph it was but it simply managed to slow down temporarily a trend which was already well underway,” he said.
Fr O’Donovan said the Church should “realistically face the situation we are now in” and the country was now “facing up to the Ryan Report and the upcoming Dublin Diocesan report.”
“Marching out to Killineer in 2009 to celebrate a triumph or a great victory of some 30 years earlier is equivalent of a seriously ill cancer patient boasting that he/she is in the best of health” he remarked.
The late Pope John Paul addressed several thousand people at Killineer, which was the nearest point to Northern Ireland visited during his Irish tour.
It was there that he made his historic appeal directly to Northern Ireland paramilitaries to lay down their weapons and desist from violence.
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