DUBLIN –The archbishop of Dublin has said the Irish prime minister’s attack on the Catholic church following a report on child sex abuse in the country should be a wake-up call for clergymen.

Enda Kenny launched his unprecedented attack on the Vatican in the Irish parliament, accusing it of downplaying the rape and torture of Irish children by clerical sex abusers.

He said the recent Cloyne report had exposed an attempt by the holy see to frustrate the inquiry into child sex abuse just three years ago and illuminated the ‘dysfunction’ and the elitism still dominant in the Vatican.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin – close to tears in an interview on RTE Television – said the only way all allegations, abuse and cover-ups could be exposed was through invasive audits of each diocese. ‘I’m very disappointed, annoyed,’ he said.

‘What do you do when you’ve got groups, whether in the Vatican or in Ireland, who try to undermine what is being done or simply refuse to understand what has been done?’

The archbishop said the diocese of Cloyne had ignored Vatican policy issued in 2001 by the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict.

‘What does that say? What sort of a cabal is this that is […]