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  Former Holy Cross Priest Hits out at Church Abuse

Belfast Telegraph
August 24, 2009

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/former-holy-cross-priest-hits-out-at-church-abuse-14465407.html

Former Holy Cross priest Father Aidan Troy has hit out at the Catholic Church from his new parish in France over the issue of clerical child abuse.

The well-known priest has called on the church to halt recruitment to the priesthood until it has addressed the issue properly.

In an interview in a Sunday newspaper yesterday. Fr Troy accused the Catholic Church of a "wholly inadequate response" to the recent revelations over clerical child abuse.

"I'm ashamed by the Church's response to the Ryan report," he told the Sunday Tribune.

"It has been more about improving the Church's image than tackling fundamental problems."

He added that he believed trust in the Church had been badly affected by the episode.

"The Church must halt recruitment, reform and reorganise, then begin again," he said.

"Instead it says 'this abuse is awful' but continues its old failed ways. We have a broken, wounded Church and those wounds are self-inflicted."

His congregation in Paris is around 2,000-strong and includes people from 40 nationalities, a far cry from his daily routine in Ardoyne, north Belfast.

"On my morning walk to Ardoyne shops for the paper somebody would ask me to sign a Mass card," he said. "Somebody else would say: 'Father, will you visit my sick mother in hospital?'

"I miss all that, but there are other challenges here."

 
 

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