Church
May all the presidents of the Bishops’ Conferences of the world summoned to Rome in February to talk about sexual abuse “awaken the rest of the Church to this reality”. This hope was expressed by Monsignor Eamon Martin, archbishop of Armagh and president of the Irish Bishops, in an interview with SIR news agency, a month after Pope Francis’ visit to Ireland. Archbishop Martin said: “The Church in some countries seems slow to learn from her experiences. In Ireland, the United States, Australia, Germany, and Great Britain, for instance, these situations have been lasting for many, many years. We have learned through bitter experiences that it is necessary for us to have stricter rules and procedures and to put them into practice with the help of the lay faithful. We have also learned the importance of relying on public and civil authorities as well as on ecclesial authorities. The sad thing is that it seems to be taking a long time for these ideas to be accepted and adopted”. “The Church – Mgr. Martin added – has long thought that she could handle all this either with silence or by talking as little as possible about the issue. And here, sadly, the concept of denial comes into play: ‘This could not have happened in our family! This could not have happened in our country!’. I do hope that a large international meeting of the universal Church will be able to neutralize the temptation of many bishops and people with a leading role in the Church to think: ‘This is an Irish problem, or an English problem or an Anglo-Saxon problem’…. No! This is a terrible, sinful criminal tendency in the human person. And “we cannot afford to stay silent on this”.
