‘no More Exiting Time to Be a Priest or Bishop’ Says New Catholic Primate

By Patsy McGarry
Irish Times
September 9, 2014

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/no-more-exiting-time-to-be-a-priest-or-bishop-says-new-catholic-primate-1.1922170

Catholic primate and Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin: Irish Catholic Church “of the 1940s and 1950s is gone and we would not want that back. It was very much tarnished gold.” Photograph: Eric Luke

The new Catholic primate and Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin (52) spoke yesterday of being “overwhelmed, fearful at what lies ahead but trusting in God I’ll be helped along and with people’s prayers.” At the same time he was “looking forward to it. It’ll be quite an adventure”.

Speaking to The Irish Times yesterday he said his biggest challenge would be “to get the message of the gospel to people whose lives are so busy and flustered with financial challenges, family difficulties, personal problems, to help them find that sacred space where they can feel the presence of God; find that still voice within.”

Agreeing the situation was difficult for the Church in Ireland, he commented that “the gospel has had to be presented in so many difficult environments down the centuries.” The Irish Church “of the 1940s and 1950s is gone and we would not want that back. It was very much tarnished gold.”

In this “increasingly secular world many have drifted away from regular practice but still sought support at particular moments in life.” For him “personally, there could be no more exiting time to be a priest or bishop.”

Commentary

A matter he found difficult in commentary following his appointment as Coadjutor Archbishop of Armagh was that, where the Church in Ireland was concerned, some described it was ‘ drawing of a line’ where the clerical abuse issue was concerned.

There was no such “drawing of a line” on abuse survivors, he said, for many of whom it was a lifelong matter, as was also the case with those who suffered trauma during the Northern Ireland Troubles. The protection of children could only be assured through “vigilance” and people “remaining on high alert” whether in the church or society at large.

Part of Cardinal Brady’s legacy was the current state of very good relations between the churches in Ireland. “Such a warm, humble person, with no sense of threat” this contributed to the “very strong relationship between the four main churces” in Ireland, he said.