'No resources' available to translate archbishop's speech

A SPEECH delivered by Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin in Italian was not translated into English “for logistical reasons”, according to his spokeswoman.

The speech, which was delivered to a Catholic lay group in Rimini on Tuesday, was not translated because there were “no resources” to do so, she said.

“I didn’t have anyone available beforehand who had adequate Italian to translate it. If I find someone, I might yet have it translated.”

The spokeswoman pointed out that the Archbishop would have to read and correct any translation before it could be released.

She denied that the archdiocese could not afford the €500 it might take to translate the speech. Details of the address were published in yesterday’s Irish Times .

In the speech, Archbishop Martin described the Irish Catholic Church’s child sex abuse scandal as a profound scandal for the Irish faithful and not “an invention of the media”.

Catholics in Ireland were shocked not just by the sex abuse crimes of priests but also by the handling of those crimes by the Irish hierarchy, he told lay group Communione E Liberazione.

His remarks were criticised by the editor of the Irish Catholic, Garry O’Sullivan, who claimed the Archbishop had a long association with Communione E Liberazione.

“It is akin to saying that a Fianna Fáil minister got great support at a Fianna Fáil ard fheis; hardly surprising.”

In a letter to The Irish Times , Mr O’Sullivan accused Dr Martin’s leadership of being “wedded to the easy soundbyte” and stubbornly refusing to open itself to scrutiny.

He added: “How can we Catholics have a quality debate when our Archbishop, who has dismissed the democratic notion of a diocesan synod, regularly engages in megaphone criticisms of his priests; his own youth ministry, the Catholic press, his fellow bishops, refuses to name alleged ‘strong forces’ at work in the church and leaves the country refusing interviews rather than allow any intelligent questioning of himself or his current policies and strategic direction for the Dublin Diocese.”

SIC: IT