‘We must face the failures of the past’

ARCHBISHOP Diarmuid Martin has insisted victims of paedophile priests must not be “fast-tracked” through a healing process and criticised Catholics who say their church should move on from grief about the child abuse scandals.

His comments came as the Vatican claimed the Pope sees the sex scandals rocking Catholicism around the world as a “test for him and the Church” and cardinals rushed to Benedict XVI’s defence amid accusations he played a role in covering up sex abuse scandals.

Archbishop Martin told a packed congregation at Holy Thursday Mass in St Mary‘s Pro-Cathedral in Dublin there could be no short-cut in addressing the past.

“The credibility of the Church in this diocese of Dublin will only be regained when we honestly recognise the failures of the past, whatever our share of responsibility for them,” he said. “There is no way we should impose fast-track healing on those whose vulnerability was abused.

“Shameful abuse took place within the Church of Christ. The response was totally inadequate.”

He said he did not wish to give the impression that he wanted to go on forever hammering home a message of grief about the past, that he was obsessed with the past.

“Some ask me, ‘Can we not leave all that aside now, proclaim closure and move on?’,” he said. “I cannot agree. There can be no overlooking the past.”

The Mass concelebrants included Auxiliary Bishops Eamon Walsh and Ray Field who offered their resignations following the Murphy report.

In Italy, Venice’s Cardinal Angelo Scola used his Holy Thursday homily to claim the Pope had been the victim of deceitful accusations and to praise the pontiff for trying to remove all “dirt” from the priesthood.

In his own Holy Thursday homily, the Pope made no mention of the sex scandals instead talking of priests’ vocation to be men of peace before washing the feet of 12 priests in a symbol of humility.