ARCHBISHOP DIAUMUID MARTIN – DANGEROUS “SIXPENCE EACH WAY” MAN

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin is a very ambitious church politician who runs with the hares and hunts with the hounds.
In Rome you see him in the presence of the pope dressed immaculately in a purple stripped cassock with skull cap, belly band, episcopal ring and pectoral cross. He knows how Benedict likes him to dress.

But then watch him as he makes an appearance on the RTE Late Late chat show on a Friday night and he is dressed in a trendy, semi-secular grey suit and white shirt – looking the populist “Bishop Trendy”

He is constantly talking and lecturing on the need for dialogue in the Catholic Church. Any yet he refuses to meet the new Association of Irish priests to engage in that dialogue!

He is always talking about innocent little children and taking care of them. Last year my youngest sister Sandra (39) who was mentally disabled died in Dublin and my family and I needed a church for her funeral. I sent Diarmuid Martin an email asking him to help. I got a reply from his iPhone from Rome refusing me a church for the funeral!

It is well known that Diarmuid Martin rules his priests aloofly from his Drumcondra palace and many Dublin priests have told me that they have no time for him.

Diarmuid Martin is a “sixpence each way” man. He is as Roman as they come but he puts on a great show for the media. The liberal journalists in Dublin love him.

Diarmuid Martin, in my opinion, has his eyes set on greener fields than Dublin. He came to Dublin after years of being a Vatican diplomat at the UN. I think that he wants to go back to Rome and head one of the prestigious Vatican Congregations and be elevated to cardinal.

Dublin is not his destination. Dublin is an important station on the way to his desired destination.

Knowing this I once emailed him and addressed him: Diarmuid Martin. Area Manager. RC Church. Dublin. He replied: “I don’t mind being called an area manager.

He is a manager – an area manager who is looking forward to being one of the Vice Presidents of RC International based at corporate headquarters in Rome, Italy.

Give me a died in the wool fundamentalist any day. At least you know exactly where you stand with one of them. But a “sixpence each way” man ?

There is quite a few more “sixpence each way” men swanning around the Eucharist Congress in Dublin this week in swishing cassocks. I’ll talk about them at a later date.

Bishop Pat Buckley

11/06.2012