Archbishop Martin calls on young people to embrace a ‘culture of mature sexuality’

ARCHBISHOP Diarmuid Martin of Dublin prayed on Good Friday for young people to embrace “a culture of mature sexuality, where love and respect are fostered over and above exploitation or empty pleasure”.

Leading hundreds of pilgrims in the Way of the Cross in Dublin’s Phoenix Park, Dr Martin made his comments following the details that emerged in the Belfast rugby rape trial.

He prayed that young people would understand that success “springs from a culture of deep respect” and was not just a rat race about themselves.

“Help our young people to embrace a culture of mature sexuality, where love and respect are fostered over and above exploitation or empty pleasure,” he urged those in attendance.

Earlier this week, rugby players Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding, and their friends Blane McIlroy and Rory Harrison, were cleared of all charges in relation to the trial.

In his reflections for the Catholic Church’s holiest day, Dr Martin also prayed for the protection of “the vulnerable from exploitation” and for the rediscovery of “the challenge of the joy of love, Amoris Laetitia”, a reference to Pope Francis’s pastoral document on love, marriage and the family.

Addressing pilgrims, he had a message to look beyond mere consumerism.

He said: “The superficiality of consumerism can eat away at integrity and courage and seeking what is good and principled. The throwaway society, unknown to itself, inevitably begins to throw away even its principles.”

The archbishop added: “Evil generates evil. Evil generates victim after victim. Evil breaks down society.”

Dr Martin prayed that young people would dig deeper into their hearts to discover true values.