Archbishop asks colleagues to take responsibility for abuse failures

From Ireland-

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin called on his episcopal colleagues be take responsibility for the Irish Catholic Church's failures in dealing with child sexual abuse by priests.

"Without accountability for the past there will no healing and no trust for the future," Archbishop Martin told reporters March 20 after Mass at St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral in Dublin after Pope Benedict XVI's pastoral letter to Irish Catholics on the abuse crisis was released.

Archbishop Martin described the letter as "part of a strategy of a renewal of the church." Many people "felt it was much stronger than expected," he said.

Asked why the pope did not make any reference to a Vatican role in the crisis in Ireland, Archbishop Martin said, the responsibility "very much" fell on the Irish church.

"The Vatican had produced the norms of canon law and they weren't respected in the management of these cases," he said.

The pope's letter was read in full during Masses March 20 and 21 in parishes across Ireland. Copies of the letter made available in some parishes were snapped up quickly by parishioners eager to see exactly what Pope Benedict had to say.

Reaction from abuse victims and their representative groups to the papal letter was mixed, with some expressing disappointment and others welcoming the initiative.

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