Archbishop appeals for an end to ‘amoral’ violence

The Catholic Archbishop of Dublin has expressed deep concern at the level of violence in the capital after the gunning down of men in front of children.

Archbishop Dr Diarmuid Martin said a sense of public morality demands that voices are raised in a united way to express horror and rejection of the violence.

“No economic or no political aim can be achieved through such violence. It is simply amoral. Anyone who has the possibility to end such violence and to keep the perpetrators of violence away from their mission of death must assume their responsibility,” he said.

Dr Martin made his comments in a homily delivered at a Mass at St Michan’s Church at Halston St, Dublin, to mark the opening of the new law term. The congregation included Attorney General Máire Whelan and senior members of the judiciary.

And, he told the congregation he believes the proposed wording for the children’s referendum is a “balanced” attempt to address rights and obligations of interested groups while giving “a new focus on the centrality of the child’s interests”.

He called for dialogue aimed at creating “a mature climate of public opinion” and warned against “spin”.

Complex questions regarding values must be presented comprehensively, he said.

Stressing that he was expressing a personal view, Dr Martin said he hoped public debate on the referendum “will reflect the same seriousness which has marked its realisation”.

A constitutional change, he warned, will not be “a magic formula which will resolve all the challenges for parents and children which sadly often emerge in our complex society”.

Dr Martin also stressed morality and ethics “are not a separate compartment from public life”.

Morality, he said, “belongs to and shapes the common good” and requires the responsible participation of all in society.

The work of fostering justice and the administration of justice is a vital one within society and the real challenge was to see how we work together to build “a just society”, he said.

A just society must be constructed not by an elite but “a participative society in the broadest sense”. This required finding new ways of educating and fostering responsibility and involved “education to morality and to the ability to seek and discern what is truthful and good in the fullest sense”.