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Dublin archbishop: Sex abuse report will shock (1,000's of children sexualy abused)
He says it will show that thousands of youths were abused from 1975-2004
The Archbishop of Dublin said Thursday that an upcoming report on child sexual abuse involving Catholic priests will likely reveal that thousands of youngsters were abused from 1975 to 2004.
The report "will shock us all," said Diarmuid Martin, during Mass at Dublin's Pro-Cathedral.
The archbishop said the report, compiled by the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation, is expected to show that "thousands of children or young people across Ireland were abused by priests in the period under investigation and the horror of that abuse was not recognized for what it is."
The government-appointed commission was set up to investigate abuses within the Dublin archdiocese in 2006, the same year the diocese admitted that up to 102 of its priests were suspected of abusing children. The report is studying how complaints of child sexual abuse were handled.
The commission has also now begun an investigation into the Diocese of Cloyne, in County Cork. Commission member Ita Mangan said that could potentially delay the publication of the Dublin report which had been planned for this summer.
"The commission will be finishing the report in May; we then send it to the government, and they then decide when to publish it," Mangan said Thursday. "The government is obliged to publish it, but not necessarily the next day. It could be further complicated by the fact that we're also inquiring into the Cloyne diocese. It is possible the government would decide to publish the two reports together, which could then be September, October."
The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform said Thursday that it could not confirm any planned date of publication.
Ireland, a predominantly Catholic country, has been rapidly secularizing in recent years, spurred by the outrage at the hidden abuses within the clergy. Archbishop Martin, a Vatican diplomat assigned in 2003 to address the problem, appeared to address that disillusionment Thursday in his homily.
"There is a dramatic and growing rift between the church and our younger generations and the blame does not lie principally with young people," he said.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30134892/
Ireland archbishop admits child abuse report 'will shock us all'
One of Ireland's most senior clergyman admitted yesterday that an imminent report on the sexual abuse of children by clergy will shock the country and reveal that thousands of children were abused by priests.
In an unprecedented homily for Holy Thursday, Diarmuid Martin, the Archbishop of Dublin, warned that the depth of the abuse "will shock us all".
The report from the commission on child sexual abuse will be published in May, and according to Martin it will throw up challenges to the Catholic church in Ireland it has never experienced before.
At a mass in Dublin's Pro-Cathedral, Martin said: "It is likely that thousands of children or young people across Ireland were abused by priests in the period under investigation and the horror of that abuse was not recognised for what it is. The report will make each of us and the entire church in Dublin a humbler church."
Organisations representing the victims of clerical sex abuse in Ireland last night welcomed the archbishop's words.
Martin is seen as a reformer sent in by the Vatican to clean up a church rocked by a decade and a half of scandals. One of the most notorious, in the mid-1990s, involved priest Brendan Smyth and indirectly led to the collapse of Albert Reynolds's government.
Accusations that the Irish attorney general's office blocked moves to extradite Smyth to Northern Ireland led to the Irish Labour party pulling out of coalition with Reynolds's Fianna Fáil and the government falling.
"We have no time to waste," Martin said yesterday. "There is a dramatic and growing rift between the church and our younger generations, and the blame does not lie principally with young people. Our young people are generous and idealistic but such generosity and idealism does not seem to find a home in the church."
He also illuminated the recruitment crisis in Irish Catholicism, in a country that once used to export its priests and nuns all over the world. "In the [Dublin] diocese there are 10 times more priests over 70 than under 40. In just a few years we will only have a little over 200 diocesan priests to minister to our almost 200 parishes."
Maeve Lewis, executive director of the One in Four organisation, which campaigns for the victims of clerical sex abuse, welcomed Martin's remarks, saying he "has been at the forefront of addressing the issue of sexual abuse within the Catholic church. He has drawn up models for child care and protection in Dublin that can be followed anywhere in the world.
"From the viewpoint of those who have experienced clerical sexual violence I think his statement and his recognition of their abuse will probably be of some comfort. For the first time, a member of the hierarchy has accepted the depth of the abuse that took place over the years".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/10/child-abuse-catholic-church-ireland
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