March 4, 2012 7:05 PM

The Archbishop of Dublin challenges the Church

Polly: I honestly--

Simon: You think there's more to come?

Polly: I do.

Monica Polly still believes in God, she says. She goes to church every week. So does Paddy Sheehan. But he has concerns about his church. Paddy has lived here all his life. He runs a cable car that takes farmers and birdwatchers to an island just across the channel.

Simon: Were you surprised?

Paddy Sheehan: We were surprised. To me, we were surprised that there was so much cover-up. You know? So much hidden. So much children, so many abused. You know what I mean? To me and I would say maybe to the parish there was too much cover-up and that was a pity.

Simon: Why was there this cover-up?

Polly: They cover it up because the priests were supposed to be perfect. They had an image of what they should be and they kept to that image rather than the reality.

[Martin: How do we pass that sense of strong faith to the coming generations?]

Patsy McGarry: Archbishop Martin is probably the only senior figure in the Catholic church of Ireland, who has retained or achieved the necessary credibility where this issue is concerned.

Patsy McGarry is the religious affairs correspondent for the Irish Times. He says other high-ranking figures in the church have been directly tied to the cover-up.

[Cardinal Sean Brady: We must admit that grave errors of judgment were made.]

Including Archbishop Martin's superior, Cardinal Sean Brady. When he was a young priest, Brady interviewed two teenagers who'd been abused by a priest. Twenty years later, when one of them sued the Church, it was revealed that Brady had ordered him to remain silent.

McGarry: He met those young people, he believed those young people, he swore them to secrecy as part of the canon law investigation process. He never informed the police, he never informed the health authorities. He informed nobody in civil society.

Just last November, the church agreed to a secret financial settlement in Dublin High Court. Cardinal Brady has apologized for his actions and said he was ashamed he did not uphold the values he believes in. The priest he helped protect went on to abuse 20 more children.

This is how bad it's gotten. Just last summer the Vatican recalled its ambassador to Ireland. The first time that's happened in 1,600 years of Roman Catholicism in Ireland. That followed the government's charging that the Church in an Irish diocese had ignored complaints against 19 priests as recently as 2009. And Ireland's prime minister accused the Vatican of placing its own interests over and above the protection of children.

Enda Kenny: The revelations of the Cloyne Report have brought the government, Irish Catholics and the Vatican to an unprecedented juncture.

An Irish prime minister had never before spoken out against the Vatican in public. And Enda Kenny did it in parliament.

Kenny: For the first time in this country a report into child sexual abuse exposes an attempt by the Holy See to frustrate an inquiry in a sovereign Democratic republic as little as three years ago, not three decades ago.

The Vatican, says Patsy McGarry, also overruled Archbishop Martin's suggestion that two bishops associated with the scandal step down.



© 2012 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
70 Comments +
Now on your iPhone®, iPad® & iPod touch® Get it now »
"60 Minutes Sports" on SHOWTIME. Order Now! Order Now »
60 Minutes on Facebook

  • 48 Hours iPad App

    Big changes for the 2012-2013 season! Watch the current week's episode for FREE up to a week after it airs or subscribe for access to all shows, classic episodes and more!