The Catholic Church should hold an annual Day of Reparation for the scandals, and also days of celebration for its achievements.

That’s according to retired Professor of moral theology, Fr Vincent Twomey.

Speaking at University Church, Dublin, on Wednesday evening, he said the Church in Ireland could learn from the example of Germany in recognising the horrors of the second world war. The event was co-hosted by The Iona Institute and the Notre Dame-Newman Centre for Faith and Reason.

He proposed that one of the institutions mentioned in the Ryan Report on abuse in industrial schools should be turned into a public memorial by a combined effort of both Church and State. He also proposed an annual day of public fast and abstinence on the part of priests and religious in reparation for both clerical and institutional abuse. “One day at the beginning of Lent – perhaps the first Friday in Lent – could be designated as a Day of Reparation. On that day the clergy (Religious as well as secular) would undertake a day of fasting and prayer, and go to confession, culminating in an evening Prayer Service of Reparation and a Celebration of Reconciliation in every Cathedral in the country.”

He added that reparation must be matched by more festive celebrations of the gift of God’s presence among His people, of the men and women of faith who devoted their lives to education and the care of the sick, both at home and abroad, of the great saints of Irish Christianity, and of “the astonishing artistic and intellectual achievements of the past”.