VATICAN CITY
Herald-Tribune
By NICOLE WINFIELD
Associated Press
VATICAN CITY – The archbishop of Dublin, a leading voice for reform following Ireland’s devastating Catholic church sex abuse scandal, said Thursday that the Irish church is trying to rebuild even as he demands the full truth be told about the past.
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin told a Vatican briefing that he hoped an upcoming church meeting in Dublin would show the world that the Irish church is “alive and vital and anxious to set out on a path of renewal.”
But the June 10-17 congress is being held against the backdrop of new revelations over how the country’s primate, Cardinal Sean Brady, handled the case of a serial abuser in the 1970s – revelations that have sparked new calls for his resignation.
In 1975, Brady helped take testimony from a 14-year-old boy about the abuse he had suffered at the hands of the Rev. Brendan Smyth, a serial pedophile who went on to abuse scores of children in the U.S. and Ireland before being imprisoned two decades later.
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