RELAND
The Irish Times
[Vatican delegation delayed church reform, says Martin]
Full interview with head of Dublin diocese by Patsy McGarry
Sat, Apr 19, 2014
The Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin will be 10 years in that role on Saturday next, April 26th. He reflects on the past decade in an interview with Religious Affairs Correspondent Patsy McGarry.
What was the high point of the past 10 years where you are concerned?
“It was the way in which the peoples in our parishes rallied after the Murphy report (it investigated the handling of clerical child sex abuse allegations in the Dublin archdiocese and was published in November 2009) and the establishment of robust child protection facilities. It was very impressive to see how people took responsibility to address a problem and a challenge which they didn’t cause. The 2012 Eucharistic Congress was an important event. Will it go down in the corporate memory of Ireland as did the 1932 Eucharistic Congress? The answer is no.”
And the low point?
“The Murphy report. The most traumatic experience was the gathering and acquainting myself with the information involved with the report, as well as listening to victims, which is still going on. Listening to the trauma brought on them, families, spouses and children…The Murphy Commission couldn’t have worked if we hadn’t co-operated. Some say gardaí and HSE got off light. We provided information and I haven’t the slightest remorse about having done that. I believe it was absolutely important that it come out. Looking back, the most frightening for me is that we had, at the same time, 10 serial (clerical) paedophiles active in the archdiocese of Dublin (in 1970s). There’s no way you can say that was system’s failure. That was a terrible thing. It’s very hard to explain it.”
Critics of the Murphy report have been busy of late. What’s your view of them?
“There’s a certain revisionism of the Murphy report abroad. I have no mandate to defend Judge Murphy but there was a reality there. If people don’t say that shouldn’t have happened then I don’t know what world they belong in. The Pope himself has said that he wants to take/assume a responsibility within the Church for what happened. There can be no denial of that and there can be no denial that the Church in which that happened had got it severely wrong.
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