IRELAND
The Irish Times
[with video]
[Archbishop Diarmuid Martin reflects on past decade]
Visitation from Rome in wake of Murphy report and Ryan report ‘froze the Irish church’
Patsy McGarry
Sat, Apr 19, 2014
A delegation sent by Rome following the publication of the Murphy and Ryan reports effectively held up reform of the church in Ireland and “set expectations it was never going to realise”, Catholic Archbishop Dr Diarmuid Martin of Dublin has said.
They were dispatched by the Vatican following the publication of the reports in 2009 to establish what went wrong in the Irish church.
The apostolic visitation, which comprised seven high-powered teams, “froze the Irish church at a particular moment” and “actually, in some ways, delayed reforms in the Irish church”, Archbishop Martin said.
In a veiled criticism of the Vatican, he said his comments were not a criticism of those who carried out the visitation, but “maybe a criticism of those who planned it”.
The Murphy report examined the handling of allegations of clerical child sex abuse in the Dublin archdiocese and was published in November 2009. The Ryan report on abuse in residential institutions for children was published in May of the same year.
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