The Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, said this week that Pope Francis will have to address the issue of abuse in the Catholic Church when he visits Ireland next month.
Speaking to RTE Radio’s Marian Finucane Show, the archbishop, who is president of the World Meeting of Families (WMOF), said it would be important for the Pope to address the matter because it is “part of our history”.
But he also emphasised that the Pope must address it “as part of our present because the wounds are there, and new wounds are emerging”, a reference to the information still coming to light about places such as Tuam’s mother and baby home, which was run by the Bon Secours Sisters.
He explained that if he had been asked about abuse two years ago he would have discussed institutional abuse and abuse by clergy. “But now there is the Magdalene laundries, the mother and baby homes and a whole series of other places where … abuse is emerging, as a sad dimension of the way the Church developed.”
He added that there was “a level of brutality that emerged from the Church which is very troubling”.
He also addressed his recent row with culture minister Josepha Madigan over her call for married priests and women priests after she presided at a prayer service in her parish when a priest failed to turn up to say Mass. The archbishop said “a small mistake became blown up” and other “arguments were dragged in”, insisting that there is no problem getting priests to say Mass on a Sunday in Dublin. The shortage related to priests who are overworked seven days a week doing funerals, as well as baptisms, counselling and more.
“If we think that the shortage of priests is about Masses on Sundays then you are making the priest into a ‘Mass machine’,” he continued, adding that in the Archdiocese of Dublin there are probably too many Masses on a Sunday.
Asked also about the deletion of the image of a gay couple in the Amoris booklet for the World Meeting of Families, the archbishop reiterated his willingness, as president of the event, to take responsibility for what happened. He assured gay and single parents that they are welcome at WMOF2018 and said he felt “ashamed” at the way that families are facing challenges and are not being supported in society.
However, the lay Catholic reform group, We Are Church Ireland (WACI), has said it has not been made to feel welcome at WMOF2018, and that its application to have a stand at the RDS Pastoral Congress has effectively been rejected by organisers.
“Almost fortnightly, we have rung the WMOF inquiring about the status of our application. The constant reply has been: ‘Yes, we received your application, but it is on hold’,” spokesman for WACI, Brendan Butler, said. A registered letter sent to Fr Timothy Bartlett, secretary general of WMOF and copied to Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, asking for a decision on its application has failed to draw a response.
In his interview, Archbishop Martin said one of the things that people like about Francis is that “he doesn’t belong to that judgmentalism which was very typical of the Irish Church; he is a man who will repeat doctrine and moral norms, but he understands that people live in grey areas”.