December 2009, had been sent following a detailed conversation between them. It was sent three days after a meeting of the diocesan council that discussed the Murphy report. A meeting of priests heard demands that Martin be confronted over his handling of the fallout from the Murphy report and claims that the archbishop had become "a source of division" among priests and bishops. Archbishop Martin in August 2010 said that bishops have "a long history of a lack of unity". Pope's Pastoral Letter to Irish Catholics Pope Benedict's letter to Irish Catholics was signed on 19 March 2010 and released on 20 March. Archbishop Martin welcomed the pope's statement, describing it not as a final word but as "a further step in the process of renewal and healing in the Catholic Church in Ireland following the crisis of the sexual abuse of children". Martin said the pope acknowledged the suffering and betrayal experienced by survivors of clerical abuse. "The pope recognises the failures of Church authorities in how they dealt with sinful and criminal acts," he said. Refusal to call for resignation of Cardinal Brady In response to a journalist's question following publicity given to Cardinal Brady's role in canonical investigations in 1975 concerning paedophile priest Brendan Smyth, Martin commented: "I never tell people to resign. I never said people should stay. I ask for accountability. Resigning is a personal decision a person has to make on their own. People should be accountable, and render account of what they've done. Resignations are personal decisions." Asked whether it was acceptable that Cardinal Brady did not stop Smyth after the 1975 investigation, he said Smyth "was not stopped by who had the power to stop him", and "somebody should have stopped him". In the same interview Martin was asked if he had been recently silenced by the church. He replied: "No, I haven't been asked to stop talking. I gave four major interviews in the last four weeks to Irish and international television." Asked if he had been ostracised by other members of the church, he said: "I do things in my own way, which may not please everybody, but in no way was I ostracised. I have to maintain also my own independence of thought." Apostolic visitation In October 2010, the four metropolitan archbishops of Ireland, Michael Neary of Tuam, Seán Brady of Armagh, Diarmuid Martin of Dublin and Dermot Clifford