The Coadjutor Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, said yesterday that the church talked too much about commandments in the past.
"We talked a lot about things ‘thou shalt not’ do as opposed to what ‘thou shalt’ [do]," he said in a homily Mass in the Church of the Holy Child at Whitehall in Dublin.
The archbishop said the important thing was to concentrate on the essentials of what Jesus said, and warned against the temptation to improve on the words of Jesus through interpretation.
This didn’t mean there were no rules, but they were rules which liberated and gave life, he added.
The archbishop said pure, unspoiled religion was about coming to the help of orphans and widows when they needed it.
"Its about caring for those who have lost support in this life."
He added that the Christians should be known to be caring and in solidarity with others. The church should do "what people look to the church to do".
Speaking at the Liturgy of Welcome for him in Dublin’s Pro Cathedral on Saturday, Archbishop Martin said the church teaches with authority, but it should never be an authoritarian church. It must be a "humble church".
He said clergy or religious who abused children misused a position of authority and trust placed in them by the weakest members of the community.
"Those who suffered abuse carry its wounds for their entire life. I am humbled by the faith of many of those who suffered abuse [but] whose love of the church is so strong that they have remained firm in a commitment to their faith in Jesus Christ and in the church, despite all their suffering."
He added: "I appreciate that there are other survivors whose hurt and estrangement is so deep, and their sense of betrayal of trust so profound, that they have lost their faith in the church.
"To them I say: your wounds are our wounds, the wounds of the entire church, and there is no way that the church can forget that, as long as you, still feel hurt. I renew the commitment I made when I was first introduced here in the Pro-Cathedral by Cardinal Connell to work in the future with those who suffered abuse."
The archbishop said a listening church would become a more welcoming church for women, appreciating the work of women in society and in the family.
"The church, in its structures must listen to what women say. I mean listen not just in a passive way. The church in Dublin must become more visibly a church with a masculine and a feminine face," he said.
"I am from Dublin and I am a priest of the diocese of Dublin. That was something about which I was always proud."
He said the priests of Dublin deserved "our recognition".
"They know well that their strength is not to be sought in narrow clericalism," he said. "Being a good priest is not easy today and so I appeal to you all to accompany your priests with affection and prayers," he said.