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Archive: Christine Buckley's letter to Pope Benedict condemning 'apathetic' reaction to abuse
By Jason O'brien
Outspoken abuse campaigner Christine Buckley has written to the Pope expressing her outrage at his "apparently apathetic approach to heinous acts of depravity" carried out by members of the clergy. In 2009, Mrs Buckley, who was named European Volunteer of the Year, called on Pope Benedict to visit Ireland and spend seven days in repentance here. In an open letter, the director of the Aislinn centre said that while in Ireland the Pope should help Archbishop Diarmuid Martin in a "major spring-cleaning" of the Catholic Church here. She told him he should invite abuse survivors to tell him "their harrowing tales in the presence of those responsible for their suffering or the leaders of those organisations that were responsible". Mrs Buckley spent part of her childhood in the notorious Goldenbridge orphanage in Inchicore, Dublin. "Following the Ryan report you met Cardinal Brady and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin for 30 minutes," she wrote. "In God's name, Pontiff, what aspects of that five-volume report did you have time to discuss given the brevity of that meeting?" Mrs Buckley said that the Bishop of Limerick, Donal Murray, wasn't so privileged as to get a meeting with the Pope, having to wait a week before meeting Cardinal Re.
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