His call follows controversy over a mass grave containing the remains of nearly 800 children from a convent-run home in Tuam in County Galway.

The children, aged one to nine, died between 1925 and 1961.

The remains, in a disused septic tank, were discovered 40 years ago.

It was initially thought the children's deaths were in the 1850s.

Archbishop Martin said the truth must come out about the homes.

If something happened in Tuam, it probably happened in other such homes around Ireland, Archbishop Martin told RTÉ radio.

"That's why I believe we need a full-bodied investigation," he said.

"There's no point investigating just what happened in Tuam and then next year finding out more.

"We have to look at the whole culture of mother and baby homes; they're talking about medical experiments there."

There have been reports that vaccinations were trialled on children in some of these homes.

Archbishop Martin also said that he wasn't sure if the full blame for the issues at these homes could be placed on the Church.

"There was collusion between church and state institutions," he said.

The Irish government has set up an inter-departmental group to look at the case.

"They're very complicated and very sensitive issues, but the only way we will come out of this particular period of our history is when the truth comes out," Archbishop Martin said.

The Tuam home was run by the Bon Secours sisters for 36 years.

In a statement, the order said it handed its records to the state after the home closed.

The Tuam home was one of 10 institutions in which about 35,000 unmarried pregnant women are thought to have been sent.

The children of these women were denied Baptism and segregated from others at school.

If they died at such facilities, they were also denied a Christian burial.

County Galway death records showed that most of the children buried in the unmarked grave had died of sickness or malnutrition.

Sources

• BBC
• The Journal
• Image: Irish Independent

American-born Archbishop Charles Brown told the Catholic News Service that this rebirth is like spring after 20 years of winter.

"You see a renewed enthusiasm among young Catholics in Ireland now," Archbishop Brown said.

Young Catholics represent what is best in the tradition of Vatican II, "the idea of communicating the ancient unchanging faith in a new, vibrant and attractive way", he explained.

After working at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Brown was appointed to his current role in 2011, amid widespread outrage about abuse in the Irish church.

Archbishop Brown says he is impressed by young Irish seminarians he has met.

"A new generation has gone through that difficult period, but has been purified by that," he said.

But Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin revealed this week that only two priests in his archdiocese are younger than 40.

The nuncio believes overall priest numbers will decline for a while.

"Parishes will have to share resources and combine and cluster, and that will be an opportunity for lay people to take on a larger role in the Church," Archbishop Brown said.

He said priestly vocations remain crucial for Church renewal.

But Ireland has had a recent reminder of darker aspects of its past with reports of the bodies of 796 children from a Catholic-run mother-and-baby home being put in a mass grave.

The deaths were in a home for unwed mothers in Tuam run by the Bons Secours nuns in the west of Ireland from 1925 to 1961.

The remains were reportedly buried in a disused septic tank.

Local death records cite sicknesses, diseases, deformities and premature births as causes.

This would reflect an Ireland that, in the first half of the 20th century, had one of the worst infant mortality rates in Europe, with tuberculosis rife.

The Irish government has established a working group to address details emerging about such Catholic-run, state-funded homes and the burial of deceased children.

Sources

• Catholic News Service
• The Tablet
• National Catholic Reporter
• CBC
• Image: Irish Echo