During his 1996 Joe Jackson interview, Father Brian D’Arcy revealed for the first time that he was sexually abused. Two decades on, Joe Jackson revisits that memorable encounter.
He was highly critical of the laws of celibacy in the Catholic Church, claims that his spiritual training was "life denying" and that he needed to "re-learn" a "version of goodness." Jackson says, "I’d forgotten how truly soul-searching D’Arcy was, more so than I had space to allow him to be in the original magazine interview. D’Arcy certainly is more outspoken than he now is allowed to be having been censured in 2012 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican.
Watch: Father Brian D'Arcy on Claire Byrne Live:
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Joe Jackson says: "I made this programme, but listening to it months later when it was broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1, last Christmas, I nonetheless was once again staggered, as I had been the day I interviewed Father Brian D’Arcy, by how forensically focused his critique of the Catholic Church was. Many of his comments also, sadly, ring as true in 2018, if not more true, than they did back in the Ireland of 1996."
The Joe Jackson Tapes Revisited: Father Brian D’Arcy, February 25th at 6pm RTÉ Radio 1.
