The Catholic Church must keep away from the authoritarianism of its past, and also avoid any type of clericalism which would suggest a group seeking privilege rather than serving the Church's mission, the Coadjutor Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, has said.
In an interview published in Rome, he said there was a need for a much broader understanding of the Church community, "seeing it as a community where more and more people are active participants in the Church".
Speaking to Vatican specialist Gerald O'Connell in an interview released this week by the Italian Catholic Youth news agency, Korazym (www.korazym.org), Dr Martin said he had been "surprised" by his appointment.
He admitted that he must now "get to know the country again" after living in Rome for most of the last 30 years.
"When I went to study in Rome 30 years ago, there were no direct telephone lines to Ireland, but today there's the Internet. (In Rome) I could read the front page of every Irish newspaper in the morning but, over those years, I've lost touch with the details of what goes on in Irish life.
"I left Ireland, having lived seven years in a seminary, so basically the Ireland I knew was the Ireland when I was a teenager, and that's going away back to the early 1960s. Since then, there have been enormous changes in Irish culture, which I have to get to know.
"I left an Ireland that was extremely poor, where there was double-digit unemployment and high emigration, whereas today Ireland is a much more prosperous country and in that sense a better Ireland for most of its citizens, as this extreme poverty has been greatly reduced."
He praised the generosity of both Irish citizens and the Irish Government in offering aid and assistance to the developing world, highlighting both the Government's development policy, aimed at spending 0.7 per cent of GNP on international targets, as well as the work of organisations such as Trócaire, Concern and Goal. Asked about his first priorities in his new job, he said that it would be "to listen and to get to know people, to rebuild old friendships, to see the realities that are going on".
The Irish Church will have to learn from the wounds inflicted by the clerical sex abuse scandals, rejecting its authoritarian past and become a Church that is humble but not humiliated, according to Dr Martin.
The phenomenon of abuse was a very sad and shattering experience for the victims who carry it with them for the rest of their lives.
"I've met some whose love of the Church is so strong that they have actually been able to come back and strengthen the Church, even after their experience. I've met others whose hurt is so deep, and the rejection of trust that they put in the Church is so strong that it is very difficult for them to think in terms of talking to the Church.
"Just as the victims will carry their sufferings with them for the rest of their lives, I think there is no way that the Church can simply say, let's put all this behind us as if it hadn't happened; the Church will also have to live with this wound, as long as the people who are suffering are still there, and it will have to learn from that wound."
"The Church in the past was extraordinarily authoritarian, in some cases one might even say abusively authoritarian, it was actually disrespectful of people's autonomy in many ways. I think we have to avoid any type of authoritarianism, and also any type of clericalism," he said.