Editorial - A Fresh Voice in Ireland 

SPEAKING before his inauguration as Coadjutor Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Diarmuid Martin last week gave an interview to the local media that was stunning in its frankness.

“The Irish church has been basically authoritarian, probably because it is based on authority. It must learn to be a different sort of church … I will try to avoid that temptation and be more someone that listens ... I have to find a different style of being archbishop.”

He added, “As archbishop I will open windows and let air and light go both ways.” He said that he would spend time being “an archbishop as foot soldier,” and meet with ordinary people.

At last, words of wisdom and consolation from a leader of the Catholic church in Ireland which has singularly failed in its responsibilities towards its flock.

Martin has grasped the nettle that so many church leaders in Ireland, and indeed throughout the world, have failed to do. In the wake of catastrophic pedophile sex scandals that have rocked the church to its foundation, the need for plain speaking leaders ready to heal and reach out has never been greater.

The church has been rocked by sex abuse cases and by bishops who in the main preferred to brush it all under the carpet rather than have the dreadful situation looked at by the proper authorities.

The church, so long the bastion of Irish society, has developed feet of clay with a rapidity that must have surprised even its most ardent detractors. Attendance is falling, vocations are at crisis level and the young in Ireland find less and less relevance in an organization that has so severely compromised itself.

At last, however, the church seems to have understood the depth of the crisis it faces. Last week in Dublin when the next archbishop of Dublin was sworn in — though he will not takeover from the current incumbent Cardinal Desmond O’Connell for some time — one could almost feel the winds of change.

Dr. Martin is a Vatican “lifer,” a man who climbed close to the top of the Vatican service where he was known as an outstanding diplomat. Given the nature of the crisis in Ireland, the Vatican has now summoned him to go back to Dublin and try and sort out the mess.

His current boss, Cardinal O’Connell, has made the most grievous errors, covering up for pedophile priests, presenting an intolerant face of the church and generally giving every impression that he was far more suited to the academic life that he left to become pastor to Ireland’s largest city. 

One got the sense that he was much more at home calculating how many angels could dance on the head of a pin than facing the real problems which were cascading down around him.

O’Connell is now a part of the discredited past, though how long he hangs around before allowing Martin to take over is not clear. He should go immediately. 

The church he has led needs the leadership now of a younger and more pastoral bishop. It seems clear they have found him in Martin.

Speaking of pedophile victims, Martin stated that he would never lose sight of the fact that “victims carry the hurt all their lives,” and that pastoral policy must reflect that. The response to the clerical child sex abuse crisis had “not been adequate or quick enough,” and that needed to change.

How refreshing it is to see an honest assessment of an institution by a man who will lead it. It is something many American bishops too could learn from. 

There will be high hopes for Martin from all those Irish Catholics who desperately want to see their church confront the problems that have bedeviled them over the past decade or so. The Vatican may well have found the right man.