THE CATHOLIC primate Cardinal Seán Brady said yesterday, in reference
to the clerical child sex abuse scandals, “we ask for the graces to
accept humiliation as an exhortation to truth and a call to renewal”.
He
said “we ask, with Pope Benedict, what was wrong in our proclamation,
in our way of living the Christian life, to allow such a thing to
happen? So, we too ask for a new resoluteness in faith and in doing good
and in doing penance”.
It was “also the moment to offer, with the
Pope, heartfelt thanks to all those who work to help survivors, in
helping to restore their trust in the church, and their capacity to
believe her message. This is also the moment to give thanks for the many
good priests who act as channels of the Lord’s goodness in humility and
fidelity.”
Cardinal Brady was speaking in Armagh at the first
anniversary Mass in remembrance of the late Cardinal Cahal Daly and what
had been designated a special day of prayer for renewal of the faith in
the church in Ireland.
He recalled that, in his pastoral letter to the
Catholics of Ireland last March, the Pope proposed some concrete
initiatives.
“He asked that time be set aside to pray for an
outpouring of God’s mercy. He urged us to implore the gifts of the Holy
Spirit of holiness and strength upon the church in Ireland at this time.
He suggested that the grace of healing and renewal for the church in
Ireland be requested in prayer and fasting,” he said.
At their
winter meeting last month, Ireland’s Catholic bishops decided to
dedicate yesterday “the first Sunday of 2011, as a day of special prayer
not only for the renewal of the faith in the church in Ireland, but
also for a renewal of hope in the face of widespread doom and gloom
which prevails,North and South, in Ireland at the present time,” he
explained.
He observed “if you are like me, you are surprised and
sad when people no longer walk with us in faith. We find it hard to
understand how so many say no to the Lord and choose to go by another
route,” he said.
“But, remember, he was rejected before we ever
experienced rejection and he was rejected right up to the end.”
Meanwhile,
former archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor will
begin his apostolic visitation to Armagh archdiocese next Sunday,
January 9th.
He will be accompanied by Mgr Mark O’Toole, rector of
Allen Hall seminary in Chelsea, and Dr Sheila Hollins, Professor of the
UK Board of Psychiatry at St George’s University of London.
The
visitation, as promised in Pope Benedict’s letter to Irish Catholics
last March, is the latest to begin of those to the four Catholic
archdioceses in Ireland, to the church’s Irish seminaries and to its
religious congregations.
In a letter to the people of Armagh
archdiocese Cardinal Murphy O’Connor said: “I echo the Holy Father’s
expression of deep sorrow and regret regarding abuse perpetrated by
priests and religious and the way in which such cases had been responded
to in the past. I will endeavour to fulfil the Holy Father’s wishes as
best I can, not least because of my deep affection and esteem for the
Irish people.”
He said “in the first phase, my main responsibility
is to listen. I am making myself available to meet and listen to people
who may wish to see me and, most especially, anyone who has been a
victim of clerical abuse, and their families.
He was “also anxious to
listen to priests, religious and lay people of the archdiocese”.
An
announcement on the Cashel and Emly website states that the Archbishop
of Toronto Thomas Collins, appointed apostolic visitor there, will
arrive “for a number of weeks’’ later this month.
He will meet with
“anyone who wishes to contact him regarding anything related to sexual
abuse by clergy in the achdiocese”.
SIC: IT/IE