STRONG forces within the Church do not want the truth about child abuse to emerge, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said last night. On a "purely personal level," he said never since becoming Archbishop of Dublin had he "felt so disheartened and discouraged about the level of willingness to really begin what is going to be a painful path of renewal and of what is involved in that renewal".
Referring to the "drip-by-drip never-ending revelation about child sexual abuse and the disastrous way it was handled," he said there are "still strong forces which would prefer that the truth did not emerge.
"There are signs of subconscious denial on the part of many about the extent of the abuse which occurred within the Church of Jesus Christ in Ireland and how it was covered up. There are other signs of rejection of a sense of responsibility for what had happened.
"There are worrying signs that despite solid regulations and norms these are not being followed with the rigour required."
He appealed "publicly to all parishes in the Archdiocese to ensure that all child protection measures are in place and in operation."
To claims that the media strategy of Archdiocese following the publication of the Murphy report was "catastrophic", he said: "My answer is that what the Murphy report narrated was catastrophic and that the only honest reaction of the Church was to publicly admit that the manner in which that catastrophe was addressed was spectacularly wrong; spectacularly wrong full stop, not spectacularly wrong, but…
"You cannot sound-byte your way out of a catastrophe," he stressed.