After a chaotic twelve months that involved Antifa, the New IRA and Islamic celebrations, the reign of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has entered its final stretch.
His last years saw the Vatican Embassy closed by supposed Catholic Enda Kenny, his infamous ‘The Church got a wake up call’ response to the vote to invent new marriage and his defeatist response to the removal of the right to life of unborn children.
None of those however compared to the disasters of late 2019 into 2020. In December 2019, Martin failed to comment on the Catholic Bishop’s charity Trocaire attending a violent event alongside the political wing of the New IRA, and alleged killers of journalist Lyra McKee, right within Dublin City. Then in August 2020, with the church in lockdown and people being banned from funerals of loved ones, the final straw occurred when he attended an NGO organised celebration of the Islamic Festival of Sacrifice. The images caused Catholics in Ireland and across the world to seethe with anger, the arrogant responses defending the outrageous insult to people banned from their Mass only made the situation worse.
It would not be true to say that this summarises his time in charge entirely, there was the successful growth of the Latin Mass Chaplaincy, but in the minds of the faithful, this is how it went. For the clergy, many of them are often even more uncharitable in their summation. People may not like us saying that openly, but are we to pretend that people do not say these things? Or that the way to avoid these problems again is to say nothing?
So it was to the relief of many that today Dermot Farrell, BIshop of Ossory, was declared to be the Archbishop to take over from Diarmuid Martin. Farrell has served as President of Maynooth amongst a number of other roles throughout the years.
We wish him the best in his new role and look forward to a new beginning.