By Nicola Tallant
Sunday Independent [Ireland]
October 1, 2006
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1698227&issue_id=14715
The Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has described how he felt "violently angry" on hearing stories of priests abusing children.
The former Vatican observer who took over the job in the capital in 2003 says his strict new child protection guidelines for priests are the only way to attempt to regain the trust of parents and bring people back to the church.
Archbishop Martin says he is aware he has angered some priests who say the measures are "over-strict" and often result in clergy being stood aside from ministry when they are innocent.
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| Archbishop Martin: 'It Has Changed Me' |
"The credibility of the Church has suffered. If I talk to parents about child sex abuse, they are horrified to imagine their own child at risk," he says.
"It is now a question of regaining confidence - and you have to earn it. I try to do that by having norms in place to deal with any future allegations. There have been priests taken out of ministry who are innocent. They can be very angry with me and have a right to be angry with me," he said.
"I do believe that anyone in any caring profession against whom a reasonable accusation emerges should stand aside until that is fully investigated. That is because of the need to protect the most vulnerable, who are children, in this very painful process."
But he admitted: "Sometimes those who are innocent go through horrendous suffering and the assessments are extremely invasive."
In an interview to be screened in a new One to One series on RTE television today, the Archbishop admits he didn't want the job back in Dublin when he was appointed three years ago to sort out the clerical abuse mess.
"I had been away for a long time. I didn't think I was the person to deal with it - and not just the clerical and sex abuse questions.
But Archbishop Martin says when he did begin the job he made it his business to trawl through the abuse files from the early to mid-Forties to the mid-Eighties, to see if any areas of abuse had not been discovered.
He says the details of the abuse left him furious and having to remind himself that the abusers "are people too".
"When you listened to some of the stories, you couldn't but be violently angry. At one stage I went out to a school and asked to see eight-year-olds. I had just seen someone who was raped when they were eight and it was a terrible thing. I was so furious - you couldn't but be.
"It has changed me and it makes me see this question in a very different way."
Some 102 priests in the Dublin diocese have had accusations made against them involving between 350 and 390 victims since 1940. He insists that the only way forward for the Church is to follow the Our Children Our Church document on child protection.
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