Abuse Scandal Will Rock Ireland, Says Archbishop, by Henry McDonald, The Age (Australia), April 11, 2009

Abuse Scandal Will Rock Ireland, Says Archbishop

By Henry McDonald
The Age (Australia)
April 11, 2009

http://www.theage.com.au/world/abuse-scandal-will-rock-ireland-says-archbishop-20090410-a2vo.html

ONE of Ireland's most senior clergymen has admitted that an imminent report on the sexual abuse of children by clergy will shock the country and reveal that thousands of children were abused by priests.

In an unprecedented homily for Holy Thursday, Diarmuid Martin, the Archbishop of Dublin, warned that the depth of the abuse "will shock us all".

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin.

The report from a commission on child sexual abuse will be published in May and, according to Archbishop Martin, will throw up challenges to the Catholic Church in Ireland it has never experienced before.

At a Mass in Dublin's Pro-Cathedral, Archbishop Martin said: "It is likely that thousands of children or young people across Ireland were abused by priests in the period under investigation and the horror of that abuse was not recognised for what it is. The report will make each of us and the entire church in Dublin a humbler church."

Organisations representing the victims of clerical sex abuse in Ireland last night welcomed the archbishop's words.

Archbishop Martin is seen as a reformer sent in by the Vatican to clean up a church rocked by a decade and a half of scandals. One of the most notorious, in the mid-1990s, involved priest Brendan Smyth and indirectly led to the collapse of Albert Reynolds' government.

Accusations that the Irish Attorney-General's office blocked moves to extradite Smyth to Northern Ireland led to the Irish Labour Party pulling out of coalition with Mr Reynolds' Fianna Fail and the government falling.

"We have no time to waste," Archbishop Martin said. "There is a dramatic and growing rift between the church and our younger generations, and the blame does not lie principally with young people. Our young people are generous and idealistic but such generosity and idealism does not seem to find a home in the church."

He also illuminated the recruitment crisis in Irish Catholicism in a country that once used to export its priests and nuns all over the world. "In the (Dublin) diocese, there are 10 times more priests over 70 than under 40. In just a few years, we will only have a little over 200 diocesan priests to minister to our almost 200 parishes."

Maeve Lewis, executive director of the One in Four organisation, which campaigns for the victims of clerical sex abuse, welcomed Archbishop's Martin's remarks, saying "he has been at the forefront of addressing the issue of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church".

"He has drawn up models for child care and protection in Dublin that can be followed anywhere in the world," she said.

"From the viewpoint of those who have experienced clerical sexual violence, I think his statement and his recognition of their abuse will probably be of some comfort."