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The Archbishop of Dublin challenges the
March 4, 2012 7:05 PM
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The Dublin archdiocese refused to turn over records
on priests who abused children, that is until
Diarmuid Martin became archbishop. Bob Simon
reports.
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(CBS News) An Irishman named Diarmuid Martin says
the Catholic Church in Ireland has reached a
breaking point, a crisis that he says results from
the sexual abuse of children by priests and the
cover-up by the Church. Martin has provided tens of
thousands of pages of evidence against specific
priests, and his words and actions carry
extraordinary weight. That's because Diarmuid Martin
is the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin. Bob
Simon reports.
The following script is from "The Archbishop of
Dublin" which aired on March 4, 2012. Bob Simon is
the correspondent. Tom Anderson, producer.
The head of the Catholic Church may be in Rome, but
its heart has always been in Ireland. From the early
fifth century, when Saint Patrick was named a bishop
and started converting the Irish, Catholicism has
been more than a religion. It's been a culture and a
way of life.
But in recent years - the faith of the Irish has
been sorely tested, not their faith in God
necessarily, but their faith in the Church, after
several damning investigations provided appalling
detail on the sexual abuse of children by priests.
For decades, the outrage was covered up and the
priests were largely protected. An Irishman named
Diarmuid Martin would not disagree with any of this.
He has dared to publicly criticize the Church, and
his words carry a lot of clout because Diarmuid
Martin is the archbishop of Dublin.
Bob Simon: You have said that the Church in Ireland
has reached its breaking point.
Archbishop Martin: It has. It has reached a breaking
point. It's at a very difficult stage.
Simon: To what extent, archbishop, do you think this
crisis in the church is due to the sexual scandals?
Martin: Oh, enormously.
There's overwhelming evidence that the Church
hierarchy was not only aware of the sexual abuse,
but did little about it. The Dublin Archdiocese knew
who the predator priests were, even wrote reports
about them but then locked up the files.
Investigators on a state panel, the Murphy
Commission, asked for the files, but the Church
refused until Diarmuid Martin became archbishop.
Martin: I provided the Murphy Commission
investigation into Dublin Diocese over 65,000
documents. And the material was there. It was in my
archives.
The documents revealed that one priest admitted
abusing over a hundred children. Another said he
abused children twice a month for 25 years.
Archbishop Martin believes thousands of children
suffered similar fates.
Martin: Abuse isn't-- it isn't-- it isn't just the,
you know, the actual sexual acts, which are
horrendous, but sexual abuse of a child is-- it's a
total abuse of power. It's actually saying to a
child, "I control you." And that is saying to the
child, "You're worthless."
To find out how small parishes have been affected by
the scandal, we went to the village of Allihies on
the Beara Peninsula on the southwestern coast. It
doesn't get more Irish than this. No one we talked
to was aware of any abuse here, but even so the
parish is required to follow strict new church
regulations designed to protect children. Hard to
believe but priests are now never even allowed to be
alone with a child. An adult supervisor has to be
there at all times. Monica Polly is on the church
council.
Monica Polly: They never take the children out on
their own, they never speak with the children on
their own, there's always somebody with them.
Under the new regulations, drawn up by Ireland's
bishops, any allegation of abuse has to be reported
to civil authorities. And any priest accused of
abuse has to step down while the charge is being
investigated.
Polly: To be honest, I don't think we've seen it all
yet.
Simon: Really?
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