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By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
The archbishop of Dublin washed the
feet of victims of clerical abuse yesterday in one of the most
visible acts of contrition for the systemic mistreatment of children
that has shattered the Irish Catholic Church.
Addressing hundreds of people packed into Dublin's Pro-Cathedral,
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin then made what victims said was the
most explicit apology to date for the role of the Church hierarchy
in enabling the abuse.
Archbishop Martin and Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston, who was
sent to Ireland by the Vatican to study the response of the Dublin
archdiocese to sexual abuse, lay prostrate in front of an empty
stone altar at the start of the service.
They later invited five women and three male victims of abuse
to the altar, where they knelt down and washed their feet, a traditional
Catholic gesture of humility.
Three of the victims held hands and sobbed as Martin poured water
on their feet and O'Malley dried them with a towel.
Others stared into the distance, expressionless.
A 2009 Irish government report on widespread child abuse by priests
in the Dublin archdiocese between 1975 and 2004 said the Church
in Ireland had 'obsessively' concealed the abuse.
The report said one priest admitted abusing more than 100 children.
Another said he had abused children every two weeks for more than
25 years.
'For covering up crimes of abuse, and by so doing actually causing
the sexual abuse of more children... we ask God's forgiveness,'
the archbishop told the congregation.
'The archdiocese of Dublin will never be the same again. It will
always bear this wound within it.'
Schools told to go easy on disruptive
gypsy children or face action under the Equality Act
Archbishop Martin has apologised for abuse in the diocese before,
but the Irish church has never as clearly acknowledged the fact
that the actions of the Catholic hierarchy actually caused abuse,
said abuse survivor Marie Collins.
'They were absolutely clear about the accountability of the leadership
in the diocese and not just the abusers... That is something we
have not heard clearly before,' said Collins, who was abused by
a priest as a 12-year-old in Dublin in 1960.
Darren McGavin, 39, who was abused as a child by a priest in his
west Dublin parish, added: 'For them to get down on their knees,
it was humbling.
'I've found it hard to forgive, but today I found a small bit
of closure.'