A cartoon by Martyn Turner which was published in the Irish Times in April

You may recall how Martyn Turner’s cartoon, above, was removed from the Irish Times website shortly after publication, on foot of Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin complaining about it during a Holy Thursday mass in Dublin’s Pro Cathedral.

Mr Turner’s cartoon was published a day after retired parish priest Fr Gearóid Ó Donnchú told Chris O’Donoghue on Newstalk that he would not break the seal of confession under any circumstance.

They were discussing this because then Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald had just published the Children First Bill, which provided for the mandatory reporting of child abuse and the Catholic Church’s seal of the confessional.

Further to this, journalist Ed Moloney writes:

“It was heartening to see the Irish Times leading the condemnation from Irish journalism of the brutal Jihadist attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo last week and defending the right to free expression by participating in an international protest organised by Index on Censorship.”

“The “right to offend”, the paper opined, “must be defended with courage and vigour”.”

“However it would have been even more uplifting had the Times injected a note of regret in its commentary that it had failed to take its own advice to defend the “right to offend” with “courage and vigour” when last April its editors censored and withdrew from the internet a cartoon drawn by in-house cartoonist, Martyn Turner because it had offended senior members of the Irish Catholic hierarchy.”

“It seems that sauce for the Catholic goose is not sauce for the Islamic gander.”

When Will The Irish Times Remember The Cartoon It Censored At The Behest Of Religious Fanatics? (The Broken Elbow)

Previously: Bless Me Father

Act Of Contrition