Irish archbishop, speaking in Milwaukee, demands candor on sex abuse

April 05, 2011

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin insisted that Church leaders should shoulder the responsibility for the sex-abuse crisis, and release pertinent information about past policies, as he addressed a conference on the scandal at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

“I still cannot accept that no one can take responsibility,” said the Irish archbishop, who has been outspoken in his criticism of the ways that other prelates handled the problem.

Archbishop Martin’s call for candor and for accountability was, ironically, delivered in a city where the former leader of the Catholic Church (Archbishop Rembert Weakland) paid $400,000 in archdiocesan funds to secure the silence of a young man who claimed the archbishop had exploited him sexually, and at a university whose current president (Father Robert Wild, SJ) has been implicated in the coordinated campaign by leaders of the Chicago Jesuit province to cover up the misconduct of a prominent priest who has now been jailed and laicized, after being charged with abusing boys for several decades.

 

---

For all current news, visit our News home page.

---

 
Further information:

• Dublin archbishop urges church to reveal secrets (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)