Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Archbishop hopes congress will show renewal of church

ARCHBISHOP DIARMUID Martin of Dublin expressed the hope in Rome that next month’s International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin will “showcase” the ongoing process of renewal within the Irish church.

Although he was in the Vatican, ostensibly to present the Eucharistic Congress, the Archbishop of Dublin inevitably found himself having to field questions about the current controversy surrounding Cardinal Seán Brady.

The archbishop quickly said that it would not be “appropriate” for him to comment on Cardinal Brady’s position, pointing out that the Irish primate had already issued his own lengthy comment on the situation.

Asked by The Irish Times if he was worried that the ongoing Brendan Smyth controversy might prompt public protest at the congress, he said: “For the last two years, I have had protests outside my pro-cathedral in Dublin . . . but we go on, we celebrate Mass every Sunday. I’ve met the protesters myself, I’ve listened to them, we’ve tried to dialogue with them. Irish society protects freedom of speech. All I ask people is to respect our freedom to come together as a believing community and to celebrate our liturgies in peace.”

Archbishop Martin argued that right now the Irish church faced a “much deeper” challenge than clerical sexual abuse, saying: “The overall challenge for the church in Ireland isn’t actually about child sexual abuse. It isn’t about any individual. It’s a much deeper challenge . . . The phenomenon of secularisation that goes across western Europe is there and has been there for some time."

“I think the church in Ireland for many years did not recognise the extent of the process of secularisation in Irish society and is still trying to address today’s problems with the pastoral methods of the past.”

Archbishop Martin argued that the Irish church of the future, the church that will emerge from the Eucharistic Congress, will be one that has to learn to be a “minority” church. 

“We need a much deeper reform of the church in Ireland . . . it will be a different type of church, more modest in its dimensions and its role, it will be, perhaps it already is, a minority church, but that doesn’t mean it has to be an irrelevant church. The church has to learn to present its message in Ireland in a secularised society in a different way. The Eucharistic Congress is an example of this, particularly if you look at the programme.”

In relation to the question of clerical sex abuse, Archbishop Martin pointed out that one day of the congress would be dedicated to the victims of abuse and to “reconciliation and communion”.

He also said that right now it was not clear just how many victims would attend, adding: “One of the difficulties is that many of those who were abused by priests don’t belong to and don’t want to belong to any organisation, it has been such a terrible trauma for them, and they haven’t been able to speak to anyone about it for years. Some people just don’t want to be named and labelled as victims and you’ve got to respect that.”

Finally, the archbishop said that Pope Benedict XVI had been invited, adding however that the pope’s visit to Ireland “would have to come in the context of a process of renewal . . . and might indeed be the culmination of that process” at some, unnamed future date.

Asked to react to US president Barack Obama’s comments in favour of same-sex marriage, Archbishop Martin said the church’s teaching on the sanctity of marriage between man and woman was clear, unchangeable and dated from the biblical account of Adam and Eve in Genesis.

“There’s a sense in that that somehow or other, this diversity between the sexes represents something of the image of God itself,” he told the Asssociated Press. 

“It doesn’t mean the rights of people in their lives can’t be protected. But the institution of marriage for the church is not a social construct which can be changed.”