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ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN Diarmuid Martin has said misogyny is present in the Catholic Church.
In an interview with Miriam O’Callaghan on RTÉ Radio One, the Archbishop said he would like to see a stronger female presence in the Church.
“I believe that is achievable… But it depends on the ability of the male priesthood to reach out,” he said.
However, he added that he did not believe he would see female priests working within the Church in his lifetime.
When asked about the former Irish President Mary McAleese’s recent controversial comments in which she described the Catholic Church as an “empire of misogyny” he said:
Misogynism is present, it is obviously present in the church. There is a danger in an all male presbyterate that misogynism can enter. You can have a men’s club and I think all of us have to examine our consciences to see where we are on this. How do we change it is the question. Mysonyism is a sign of human immaturity and that is a worry.
He added:
If there are priests that are misogynists, it means they are not mature in themselves and they’ve either never had healthy relations with women or they don’t understand that.
Martin said society needs to examine how to change this now.
“Misogyny is really about men feeling they are in charge, men feeling they have particular rights… where does it begin in their lives, does it begin in family?” he asked.
He said we all have to be careful of our use of language. He said certain things that might have been looked at in the past as funny are not and never were.
Abuse
Referring to the abuse allegations against Father Malachy Finnegan, Archbishop Martin questioned how scandals like this are only coming out now.
How all these stories are only coming out now. I don’t know that people covered up, or didn’t talk, or were afraid to talk or didn’t want to talk, but as I say let the truth come out. If a church investigation, if people don’t have confidence in that, get external people to verify.
He said the Murphy Report (Commission of Investigation into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin) has been a huge benefit as it exposed things that happened and they had to take steps to make sure it won’t happen again.
Martin added that he gave over 74,000 documents to the commission. “I believed it was the right thing, I wasn’t always encouraged to do it,” he said, adding that some thought it best not to air the Church’s “dirty laundry” in public.
The archbishop said he disagreed and said “it is the only way” to bring about change.
Tuam babies
During the interview, Archbishop Martin became upset as he recounted telling the Pope about the Tuam babies story.
He said the Pope asked him how he was during their meeting.
“There is a terrible story emerging about children’s bodies being found,” Martin said he told Pope Francis.
Martin said the issue caused the Pope to become “visibly upset”.
Speaking about the Pope’s visit to Ireland in August, he said he would like the Pope’s visit to be inclusive, but stressed that it was a short visit.
“I’m worried that some of the protocol issues will take more time than meet with the poor”, he said.
Asked who he would like the Pope to meet on his visit, the Archbishop mentioned struggling families, refugees, prisoners, the poor as well as victims of clerical abuse. He would also like the pontiff to learn something of Traveller.
Archbishop Martin described Pope Francis as “a complex figure, not all smiles. He’s determined, he knows when people are not being true to him, not being loyal to him. He’s nobody’s fool. When he wants to do something, he’ll do it.”
“He’s a free man. He’s in nobody’s pocket,” he added.
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Retrofitting is only available to the people with plenty of cash . Same as most other benefits .
All I read in the above article is that we need to lower our living standards drastically. I do not trust anyone who tells me we need to eat less meat and then replace it with processed crap.
@An Drew Bearla: Yes, all that came out of the big meeting in Davos is that we must stop eating meat and dairy or the world will starve, and we must share our cars or cycle or walk, all the mullarkey Ryan is spouting and all from a bunch that then sat down to a four course meat laden lunch after flying in on 1500 private jets. The narrative to blame the ordinary consumer and deflect away from their lavish carbon laden lifestyles is ridiculous. Animal farm springs to mind
Will do this, will improve that. All talk and no action. The government has no motivation to implement any of these policies. Still using diesel commuter trains ffs.
@Tomo: We are making progress faster than ever before. I would live to speed it up too, but denial of what’s happening is nor helpful.
Bottom line is what comes out of our chimneys and out of the vehicle tailpipes isn’t good for us and has resulted in worse health for our population and more deaths. Even if you think climate change isn’t real (it is) then only a fool would continue to not tackle us poisoning ourselves.
@Barry Somers: a few more new taxes will sort everything.
That’s the problem, the greens solution is to tax the problem with no alternative. Of course, people are turning against it
@Jim Buckley Barrett: Not true.
@Nicholas McMurry: Yes it is true. Tax tax tax from a fella that knows about as much about climate change as my 8yr old. All the solutions Eamo is pushing for at present are financially or infrastructurally unviable like hydrogen which is inhibitively expensive to make or offshore wind which we have no way due to planning restrictions and lack of infrastructure make, but which are the chief objectives of E3G which ol Eamo is/was a senior associate of, as usual the self serving bull we have gotten used to in Irish politics. Any man that signs off on tax incentives for fuel for private jets and the writing off of carbon footprint for such is not green. No viable alternatives for anything, no reduction in our carbon footprint despite all the waffle, lying about our agricultural footprint throwing our farmers and food producers under a bus because they are a soft target while letting big corporations off the hook by giving them all our carbon credits from our grasslands, hedgegrows and forestry. Ireland is not one of the worst polluters as we are so often told to justify taxing the life out of us we just fall foul of the carbon credit rules that the large industrial countries set up to make themselves look far better than they really are, America, Germany France etc
@Nicholas McMurry: of course its true, if the government and greens in particular wanted to actually do something that wasn’t a punitive tax measure, it would be a shock.
Insulation is the most effective measure, yet they persist in making the retrofitting policy, part of the convoluted seai scheme which requires “trained” certified installers, when homeowners could, depending on their current skills learn to install it just as effectively themselves, by watching a few instructional videos, just like the “trained” installers did…
Subsidising insulation for domestic projects with a zero vat rate, would encourage more people to retrofit insulation to their homes themselves, reducing the amount of heating from all sources, along with particulate and carbon emissions across the board.
Better put the old age pension up. Where will all the food come from? More homes will be needed.
Anyone find those TRVs (main image) a complete waste of time?
I find that after a year the da*n thing is stuck on full heat. (I’ve checked the pin underneath and it seems to move freely) Was this just another way for the plumbers to make a few bucks :) ?
So, if we live in England or Wales and insulate our homes we could live for 836,000 years. I don’t want to live that long.
Why does an article in an Irish publication write about a foreign country without stipulating that it is a study done in that foreign country?
have your say