Father Brian D’Arcy has said the fact that he survived abuse gives him the strength to speak out against the Church or “any institution that puts its good name ahead of the vulnerability of a child”.
The broadcaster was a guest on The Tommy Tiernan Show on RTÉ and spoke openly about his experience and the impact it had on his convictions in later life.
In an honest interview, the priest said: “It gave me the courage to speak truth to power… I’m sure if I hadn’t had to survive abuse, I wouldn’t have had the same conviction when I was speaking.
“And I can say to anybody now, to the Pope or anybody else: any institution that puts the good name of the institution ahead of the vulnerability of a child deserves no respect.”
The 74-year-old was given a round of applause by the studio audience, both for his bravery and sentiment.
Father D’Arcy is a veteran of the Irish and British media, having been a regular on radio and television programmes.
He has been widely praised for his open admission about the abuse he suffered as a child.
He has criticised the Catholic Church in the past for its failure to acknowledge the damage caused by child abuse.
He told Sean O’Rourke on RTE Radio 1: “There’s something systematically wrong within the set-up in the church that’s failed to acknowledge the damage that the abuse of children and young people results in.
“But there’s something even worse, there’s this failure to acknowledge that it’s an ongoing deeply-rooted within the system itself failure and unless we tackle that everything else is merely window dressing.”
You can take a look at Father D’Arcy’s interview with Tommy Tiernan below.
“It gave me the courage to speak truth to power”@FrBrianDarcy on the courage he found after surviving abuse.#TommyTiernan pic.twitter.com/1CEAWmLXSH
— RTÉ One (@RTEOne) June 15, 2019
Written by Andrew Moore