Anglican leader sparks Easter fury with Irish abuse remarks

The leader of the world's Anglicans triggered fury on Easter yesterday by claiming that the Catholic Church in Ireland was "losing all credibility" over its clerical child abuse scandal.

Fr Diarmuid Martin, the Archbishop of Dublin, said he was "stunned" at the comments by Fr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Irish Anglican churchmen branded them "reckless".

The Church of England leader's first remarks on the scandal gripping Ireland risk creating tensions with the Vatican ahead of Pope Benedict XVI's landmark visit to Britain in September.

Relations between the two churches have been strained since last October when the Pope offered disgruntled Anglicans an easy conversion to Catholicism.

Fr Williams, the spiritual leader of more than 70 million Anglicans worldwide, said the Irish Catholic Church's disarray was a "colossal trauma", in a BBC radio interview to be broadcast tomorrow.

"I was speaking to an Irish friend recently who was saying that it's quite difficult in some parts of Ireland to go down the street wearing a clerical collar now," Fr Williams said.

"And an institution so deeply bound into the life of a society suddenly becoming, suddenly losing all credibility - that's not just a problem for the Church, it is a problem for everybody in Ireland."

Ireland, a predominantly Catholic country, has been rocked by two reports in the past year detailing child sex abuse by priests stretching back decades - and Church leaders' complicity in covering it up.

Ireland's Cardinal Sean Brady has faced calls to resign and the scandal's ramifications have spread to the Vatican.

Fr Martin said Fr Williams' remarks were out of order during the Easter weekend, and he had rarely felt so discouraged.

"The unequivocal and unqualified comment... has stunned me," he said in a statement.

"As Archbishop of Dublin, I have been more than forthright in addressing the failures of the Catholic Church in Ireland. I still shudder when I think of the harm that was caused to abused children. I recognise that their Church failed them.