Taoiseach Micheál Martin has asked Pope Leo to pressure religious orders in Ireland to come forward with redress for survivors of sexual abuse at a meeting with the pontiff at the Vatican on Friday in which the two also discussed peace and the Middle East.
“I asked that every effort would be made to get the religious orders to engage proactively on the matter of redress,” Martin told reporters after the discussion in Pope Leo’s private library.
He told the pontiff that the Government had established a commission of inquiry into day schools and boarding schools but that some religious orders have yet to engage on the issue.
Martin told the pope that “some orders have come forward, but a lot of orders haven’t, and that assets are being sold, and that we want those assets allocated in revenues from them to redress”.
The pontiff, who was elected just over a year ago, was “very clear and frank about the need for the church to take ownership and to be very clear in terms of supporting those who have been traumatised by abuse”, Martin said.
“We discussed that trauma is an enduring thing. It doesn’t end when you have an inquiry or when you have acknowledgment, it’s something that endures for the lifetime of an individual.”
The discussion also covered Leo’s advocacy for peace, and Martin said he had offered the assistance of Irish officials who had experience with the Northern Ireland peace process in “any work that the Vatican is involved in, in terms of conflict resolution”.
“He was interested in the Irish experience,” Martin said, saying that Leo had an “affinity and empathy with Ireland”. Martin told the pontiff that he would be very welcome to visit, though no commitments have been made.
Martin and his wife, Mary O’Shea, were greeted at the doorway of the Apostolic Palace as they arrived by official car for the visit, the first with Ireland’s head of government since Leo took office.
It is one of a series of meetings as Martin holds talks with different European heads of state in the run-up to the start of the Irish presidency of the European Union in July.
Martin told the pope that international countries, including many EU governments, were forming a united front to ensure “that multilateralism can hold”.
Martin is set to meet Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome on Friday afternoon.
The Taoiseach met French president Emmanuel Macron on Thursday to discuss the priority issues for the Irish EU presidency, including the EU budget and efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.