Martin reveals extent of abuse cover-up

Archpishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin has said there should have been a tribunal of investigation to examine the handling of the case of paedophile Fr Brendan Smyth covering both Northern Ireland and the Republic, writes Sarah Mac Donald.

At a fundraiser in aid of Aware’s support services for those who are suicidal or suffering from depression, the archbishop said a previous call he made for a thorough investigation into police handling of accusations against the Norbertine priest had been dismissed by a Minister for Justice.

Questioned about his perceived resilience at the time of the clerical abuse scandals, Archbishop Martin revealed that when the Murphy Report was published in 2009, Cardinal Seán Brady was the only Irish bishop who contacted him and that he had encountered “a lot of hostility” from other church members.

He said he was motivated to keep going because he couldn’t accept that children had been abused and that nobody in the Church was responsible.

“I wasn’t out to get people”, he said, and explained that he could not accept the argument that the abuse perpetrated by priests was a matter of a systems failure.

His predecessor in Dublin, Cardinal Desmond Connell, who died this week (see page 29), had taken him to court to try to prevent the handing over of 80,000 files from the archdiocese of Dublin to the Murphy investigation. What had made him “really angry” was when he learned what abusers had done to children.

“You can say child abuse is everywhere, in families, in swimming clubs and sports, but how could it be in the Church of Jesus Christ? How could it have been so prevalent and unnoticed? When Jesus said children are a sign of the Kingdom ... then all your statistics (saying the Church is like elsewhere in society) miss the point – if you are a person who believes in Jesus Christ.” The archbishop also recalled how he had been warned off confidential files by part of the administration in his diocese when he attempted to obtain records on clerical abuse.