It is now over five years since the Vatican first got their claws into me. Most of the time I believe I have moved on, that my life has been interesting for those years, that I have moved into a different world, got to know many interesting people. But once in a while a wave of anger comes over me. I know that anger, if it gets a grip on a person, is destructive, so I usually manage to let it go.
The Archbishop of Armagh, Eamon Martin, on the news that Archbishop Charles Brown was being transferred from Ireland after six years as Papal Nuncio, praised his “energy, courtesy, openness, warmth and cooperativeness”. I suppose these are the sort of things that senior Church people say about each other, especially when they are departing the scene. Considering that I am on record as publicly stating that Archbishop Brown was the most destructive presence in the Irish Church, and calling for his removal, I can hardly call myself an objective commentator.
04 March 2017
Statement from the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP)
on the Tuam Babies revelations and
the resignation of Marie Collins from the Vatican Commission on Clerical Sex Abuse
The latest revelations about the burial of babies in the former Mother and Baby home in Tuam, though widely predicted, provoke a sense of both sadness and shame. Sadness, that the very precious, elemental relationship between mothers and their children could be so disrespected by institutions of Church and State in Ireland; and shame because as priests we are part of an institution that has played a central role in this sorry saga.
