Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Archbishop: paedophile priests scandal a 'colossal trauma' for Irish Catholic church


From The London Telegraph-

In a radio debate, the Archbishop took the unusual step of commenting on the Catholic Church, saying the scandal had caused the church in Ireland to lose "all credibility".
He added that the issue had proven the need for church institutions to be more open and honest, saying it was a "lesson we've all had to learn the hard way".

He said: "For an awful lot of Christian institutions until fairly recently the default setting would be to try and hang on to institution's credibility and we've learned that that is damaging, it's wrong, it's dishonest.

"It requires that very hard recognition which ought to be natural for the Christian Church, based as it is on repentance and honesty, and we had to learn honesty and truthfulness are the only way in which we can survive in any institution."

Dr Williams was forced to apologise at the weekend after some of his comments were leaked to the press ahead of the full broadcast of Start the Week on BBC Radio 4 on Monday morning.
In remarks published ahead of the programme, he spoke of how the scandal had deeply affected the Catholic Church in Ireland.

He said: "I was speaking to an Irish friend recently who was saying that it's quite difficult in some parts of Ireland to go down the street wearing a clerical collar now.

More here-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/7555843/Archbishop-paedophile-priests-scandal-a-colossal-trauma-for-Irish-Catholic-church.html

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