English Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor describes Ireland as “A
country I love very much,” but also as a nation that needs the prayers
of Catholics around the globe as it struggles to recover from the abuse
scandals in the local Church.
The former Archbishop of Westminster is part of the six-man team that
has just completed an audit of the Catholic Church in Ireland.
“I think it also needs our prayers as well for a country which I love
very much and for the Church in Ireland which in the past has done so
much for the Catholic Church all over the world with regards to
missionaries and everything else,” he told Vatican Radio June 7.
The Apostolic Visitation of the Irish Catholic Church was announced
by Pope Benedict back in March 2010, following a series of scandals
publicized by government reports on physical and sexual abuse in the
Irish Church.
On June 7, the Vatican announced that the investigating
team’s reports were now with Rome and that an official response is
expected by early 2012.
“The Church in Ireland has been through a horrendous time and it’s
very hard to say there’ll be an immediate recovery, it’ll take time and
it’ll take good leadership, it’ll take the gift of the Spirit and
sincere repentance,” said Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor who was born in
England but
whose parents were Irish.
“And you know the Church, they say, is always being reformed, always
being renewed and that’ll happen in Ireland as well. It’s happened in
other parts of the Church in other times in history and I think it will
happen in Ireland as well, but it will take time.”
Cardinal Murphy O’Connor was part of a four-man team investigating
diocesan life in Ireland.
He was joined by Cardinal Sean O’Malley of
Boston and two senior Canadian clerics, Archbishop Thomas Collins of
Toronto and Archbishop Terence Prendergast, S.J., of Ottowa.
Meanwhile, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York and Archbishop Edwin O’Brien of Baltimore led a review of Irish seminaries.
A parallel investigation into the functioning of religious houses is
also taking place and the Vatican said June 6 that more reports are
expected from that group.
While hopeful of recovery, Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor is also aware of the damage that has been done.
“One of the greatest sadness of it all is that the Catholic Church
through the ages and especially over the last centuries has cared so
well for children. It has educated children, cared for children.”
“So, I think the Church in Ireland needs our prayers and those
prayers will be for the gift of the spirit for a real renewal of life
and grace and those things which the Church gives -- holiness and truth
and love.”