Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has reaffirmed his warning that there are still strong forces in the Catholic Church which would prefer that the truth about clerical child abuse did not emerge. He has also stood by his statement that 'there are still worrying signs that despite solid regulations and child-protection norms . these were not being followed with the rigour required.'
And he rejected Irish Independent's report that his comments of last week were a 'criticism of Pope Benedict'.
Dr Martin's statement rejects as untrue a newspaper's claim that he had backed off his claims of eight days ago that reforms to improve the Church's child protection practices here were being resisted by powerful forces inside the organisation.
He highlighted yesterday's comment by Ian Elliot, the head of the church-funded independent child protection watchdog, that 'clearly a cultural correction is required in the Irish Church to deal with the problem of abuse.'
Dr Martin stressed that norms - or rules - required wholehearted and robust endorsement and claimed these words were echoed by Mr Elliot in yesterday's Annual Report of the National Board for the Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church.
He said while the board's CEO had recognised the significant progress made, he had also noted that 'this has proved to be demanding for some within the Church who have had difficulty in changing their attitudes to fully embrace a single safeguarding approach'.
Dr Martin dismissed as 'a gratuitous misinterpretation made without any grounds' the Irish Independent's report that his comments were a 'criticism of Pope Benedict'.
He said they were in fact a reaffirmation of the urgent appeal of Pope Benedict, in his letter to Irish Catholics, on the need 'to address the problem of abuse that has occurred within the Irish Catholic community and to do so with courage and determination'.
The Archbishop reasserted that anything less than a totally robust response would not be enough and that there was no room for slippage.SIC: RTÉ