Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The visit of the Pope will be an important event for those of the Catholic faith in this country and they have every right to celebrate his visit and the occasions around it. I acknowledge Deputy Micheál Martin's comments that Pope Francis has spoken in a very progressive manner on migration against a frightening background of a rise in far right xenophobic and anti-migrant political forces in Europe. That is positive. The Pope has also spoken positively about the need to address global poverty and on behalf of the people of Palestine. We should be respectful of the visit and the celebration of those who are of that faith. However, it is also important that this would not prevent us from asking important questions of the Vatican. The questions that matter most to people who felt they have been hurt by the church and its role in the likes of the adoption scandals and particularly in clerical abuse relate to the Vatican files on what it knew, when it knew and what it did about reports of clerical sex abuse. That is terribly important. The survivors and victims of clerical sex abuse deserve that and we must ask those hard questions. There have been reports and tribunals here but those questions must be asked of the Vatican itself.

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