Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Martin: Cloyne a model of all that can go wrong

ARCHBISHOP Diarmuid Martin has launched a stinging attack on individuals within Cloyne Diocese and elsewhere for putting their views above both the safety of children and the Church’s rules for their protection.

He also said bishops of other dioceses should bring three as yet unpublished reports into the public domain as "hiding isn’t helping".

During his homily at Mass yesterday in Dublin’s Pro-Cathedral, the Archbishop of Dublin said he was angry at the Cloyne report and that "great damage" had been done to the Church.

Harking back to the liturgy of lament and repentance held in the aftermath of the Murphy Commission report into abuse in Dublin, Archbishop Martin said that while that event had seemed to bring hope, the Cloyne report may have prompted victims to think whether the earlier liturgy was "just another illusion about a Church which seems unable to reform itself".

"As I reflected, the first emotion that came to me was one of anger," he said.

"Anger at what had happened in the diocese of Cloyne and at the response — or non-response — that was made to children whose lives had been ruptured by abuse. Anger at the fact that children had been put at risk well after agreed guidelines were in place which were approved by all the Irish bishops.

"Anger at the fact that there were in Cloyne — and perhaps elsewhere — individuals 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."

He said it was true that while much had changed in the Church, it had also not learned all the lessons of the past.

He said priests who have ministered "untarnished and generously over years ... should not be made scapegoats and objects of hate", but those "in Church and state who have acted wrongly or inadequately should assume accountability".

"Great damage has been done to the credibility of the Church in Ireland. Credibility will only be regained by the Church being more truly what the Church is. "

Speaking afterwards Archbishop Martin said what had occurred in the Cloyne diocese was an example of the very worst that could happen.

Asked for his views on the fact that three reports on other dioceses have still not been brought into the public domain he said there was "no point in having a report that is not published".

"There is a climate within some of the church authorities that leaves me a bit unhappy. If the bishop feels he is being treated unjustly, publish it and then say this is unjust. But hiding isn’t helping. Cloyne is a model of all that can go wrong. There is a lot to be learnt from it."