By Amanda Tullos
Irish Emigrant
January 11, 2011
http://www.irishemigrant.com/ie/go.asp?p=story&storyID=8166
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| Archbishop of Boston Sean O'Malley |
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| Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan |
Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O'Malley, will visit the Dublin archdiocese to meet with clerical sexual abuse victims over the coming months, as a part of a delegation initiated by Pope Benedict as promised in his Pastoral Letter to the Catholics of Ireland last March.
Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan, also part of the nine member panel, will visit Irish seminaries such as St. Patrick's College, Maynooth; Saint Malachy's College, Belfast; All Hallows College, Dublin and Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy, Dublin.
The delegation will explore how abuse cases were handled by the Catholic Church in Ireland, and will gauge the effectiveness of current measures in order to prevent further abuses. The Vatican has specified that the delegation will complete its work by May.
The visitation is already underway within the four Catholic archdioceses of Armagh, Dublin, Cashel and Emly, and Tuam, and will branch into other dioceses in the coming months. Former Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, is visitor to Armagh; Cardinal O'Malley is visitor to Dublin; Archbishop of Toronto Christopher Collins is visitor to Cashel; and Archbishop of Ottawa Terrence Prendergast is visitor to Tuam. Archbishop Dolan is covering the seminaries, which also includes the Irish College in Rome.
The update on the visitations came as the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, and Archbishop of Armagh, Cardinal Sean Brady spoke at the launch of the church's 10-year pastoral plan, Share the Good News.
Share the Good News is the first national directory for religious instruction in Ireland covering evangelization, religious education and the introduction to faith. Archbishop Martin said that the directory was being published at a critical moment in the Catholic Church, in a society where people are slowly losing a sense of religion.
Recently encouraging priests to co-operate with the apostolic visit, Fr Brendan Hoban of the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) said: "We believe that the visit affords a considerable opportunity and a challenge for the association and for individual priests who wish to make a contribution."
He stressed however that he knew of "a lot of cynicism among priests about the wisdom and effectiveness" of the trip. "Whatever our reservations," he said, "the visit is happening and our association needs to take it seriously and to co-operate fully with it."
The Vatican indicated that they are still undecided on whether or not to make the results of the apostolic visit to Ireland open to the public after the process has been completed.
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