The astonishingly public row between the archbishop and a government minister
JOSEPHA Madigan has hit back at Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin after he accused her of pushing a ‘particular agenda’ in her call for women priests.
The minister told the Mail she was ‘somewhat surprised of the personal attack’ and didn’t believe there ‘was a cause for it’.
Ms Madigan, a Minister of the Word at her own Church of St Therese in Mount Merrion, Dublin, stepped in to lead prayers at the weekend when a priest failed to show up for Mass.
And yesterday, Archbishop Martin criticised Ms Madigan after she said female priests should be allowed in the clergy – and he accused her of being ‘deeply disrespectful’ to her parishioners and pushing an agenda.
Speaking on Monday she said the issue highlighted the current priest shortage and need for women priests, saying: ‘Women should be ordained; it should be optional that priest can marry; and lay people should be properly trained’.
The minister added that she will raise the issues with Pope Francis if she gets an opportunity when he visits Ireland in August.
Now an extraordinary war of words has broken out between the two after Archbishop Martin suggested in a statement yesterday that Ms Madigan’s comments had caused parishioners of Mount Merrion ‘considerable distress’. In a statement he insisted it was ‘in no way correct to say that the minister “said Mass”’.
He said: ‘It is regrettable that Minister Madigan used this occasion to push a particular agenda. Her expressed view that a mix-up in a Dublin parish on one particular Saturday evening should lead to the Universal Church changing core teachings is bizarre.
‘Minister Madigan might consider listening to the voices of those people who disagree with her public comments, she might consider the hurt she has caused to parishioners who deem her actions deeply disrespectful.’ Ms Madigan said on Monday that after the mix-up, there was no priest available for the 6pm Mass in her south Dublin parish of Mount Merrion on Saturday evening.
While she said in an interview yesterday she wouldn’t quite call it ‘saying the Mass’, her and other readers came together to step in as they led prayers and readings. And Ms Madigan said she has heard of this shortage of priests happening in other parishes, and believes there should be more of a role for women and lay people in the Church, and that priests should be allowed to marry.
Ms Madigan has also called for a further involvement of lay people in the church, as well as the need to allow women.
She told the Mail: ‘The only agenda I am pushing is one of equality. I feel there should be equality in the Church just as I believe there should be equality in all classes of society.’
She said there has been no direct contact between her and the Archbishop since, but that she did attend a Mass he spoke at on Sunday.
And she also pressed that her parish priest, Fr Tony Coote, and fellow Ministers of the Word ‘know I hold them and the parish and all the volunteers in the highest of esteem’.
Ms Madigan also said she ‘would ask this question of Archbishop Martin, what advice would he have given me and my two colleagues last Saturday evening, cancel the Mass?’
Adding: ‘If the number of priests being ordained continues to decline, then the Church is built on a foundation of sand and will crumble by the time the next generation grows up.’
The minister also reiterated she never claimed to have said Mass, but that they ‘simply carried on with the service as best we could’.
And Ms Madigan said if she ‘didn’t address these issues when I have the platform now, then I wouldn’t in all good conscience live with myself. So it is something that needs to be addressed, I think the Church is aware of that.’
The minister campaigned for a Yes vote in the recent abortion referendum and when asked if this may have been a factor in what provoked the testy exchange, she responded, ‘I’ll leave you to figure that out’, adding: ‘It’s probably not far off the mark’.
‘Women should be ordained’