ARCHBISHOP'S HOMILY: GREAT DAMAGE has been done to
the credibility of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Archbishop Diarmuid
Martin of Dublin has said. “Irish religious culture has radically
changed and has changed irreversibly. There will be no true renewal in
the church until that fact is recognised,” he said.
Speaking at
Mass in Dublin’s Pro Cathedral Sunday he said his first thoughts on
reading the Cloyne report, published last Wednesday, were about those
abuse victims who organised and took part in the liturgy of lament and
repentance in the Pro Cathedral last February.
“I asked myself:
what are they thinking today? Are they asking themselves if that entire
liturgy was just an empty show? Were they being used just to boost the
image of the church? Were their renewed hopes just another illusion
about a church which seems unable to reform itself? Was their hurt just
being further compounded?” he asked.
As he reflected, “the first
emotion that came to me was one of anger”. He was angry at how “children
whose lives had been ruptured by abuse” were treated in Cloyne, and
after guidelines had been agreed and put in place.
He felt angry for the thousands of people in the Dublin archdiocese who helped ensure the church there was safe for children.
He
was angry too that there were in Cloyne “and perhaps elsewhere” those
“who placed their own views above the safeguarding of children, and
seemingly without any second thought placed themselves outside and above
the regime of safeguarding to which their diocese and the Irish bishops
had committed themselves”.
They had “put themselves even above and
beyond the norms which the current pope himself has promulgated for the
entire church”.
He recalled how “some years ago I was criticised
in some church circles for speaking of strong forces still present in
the church which ‘would prefer that the truth did not emerge’.” He had
spoken then of signs “of subconscious denial on the part of many” about
the extent of abuse which occurred in the church in Ireland “and how it
was covered up”.
There were “other signs of rejection of a sense
of responsibility for what had happened” and “that despite solid
regulations and norms these are not being followed with the rigour
required”, he had said then.
Today, the Catholic Church in Ireland
was both a much safer place than it was even in the recent past and, on
the other hand, it was the case “that despite words the church has not
learned the lessons”.
Both statements were true, he said.
He
repeated what he said at the liturgy of lament and repentance last
February: “The church can never rest until the day in which the last
victim has found his or her peace and he or she can rejoice in being
fully the person that God in his plan wants them to be.” It was “a
challenge for all”, he said.
“All of us need to have in place
systems of verification and review which help us to identify mistakes
made or areas where more can be done or things can be done better. We
need to continue to build a co-operative climate where all the
institutions of the church work in a constructive way together and with
the institutions of the State, which bears the primary responsibility
for child safeguarding in the country,” he said.
He thanked
priests and people of the diocese who committed themselves to
implementing child safeguarding policies and appealed to them “not to be
become frustrated or indifferent”.
Good priests “who have ministered untarnished and generously”over the years “should not be made scapegoats and objects of hate”.
They
deserved recognition for the good they do and needed “the support of
their people”. To priests who had become demoralised and half-hearted,
he appealed to them “not to give in to cynicism . . .”
But, “those in church and State who have acted wrongly or inadequately should assume accountability”.