Report: Bishops covered up priests' child abuse (Ireland)

[icymist]

Ireland's government ends probe of Catholic leaders, clerics.

By SHAWN POGATCHNIK
Associated Press Writer

DUBLIN — Roman Catholic Church leaders in Dublin spent decades sheltering child-abusing priests from the law and most fellow clerics turned a blind eye, an investigation ordered by Ireland's government concluded Thursday.

Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who handed over more than 60,000 previously secret church files to the three-year investigation, said he felt deep shame and sorrow for how previous archbishops presided over endemic child abuse — yet claimed afterward not to understand the gravity of their sins.

"They were wrong, and children were left to suffer."

There was a similarly shocking investigation into decades of unchecked child abuse in Irish schools, workhouses and orphanages run nationwide by 19 Catholic orders of nuns, priests and brothers.

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Three Dublin archbishops — John Charles McQuaid (1940-72), Dermot Ryan (1972-84) and Kevin McNamara (1985-87) — did not tell police about clerical abuse cases, instead opting to avoid public scandals by shuttling offenders from parish to parish and even overseas to U.S. churches, the commission found.



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[get the red out]

1. They never say they are sorry until they are caught

This institution is dishonest to the core. And the police were as bad, not doing their duty because these "holy people" were above the law others are required to obey.

I can only wonder, or probably not, what goes on in more third world Catholic countries, what those poor children endure, I am sure that NO ONE will speak for them for who knows how many decades.

[Deep13]

2. For how many centuries has the R.C. Church been raping children?

"Abuse" is a euphemism.

And how much of the world does it effect?

[get the red out]

4. Indeed

And you wonder how many generations of people have been scarred beyond being good parents and living useful lives; and how many others they affected along the way?

But speaking out against religion is something still not tolerated well in "polite society".

[Warpy]

3. Mother Rome is still clinging to the Dark Ages

when the church claimed the primacy of canon law over civil law and reserved the discipline of ordained clergy unto itself. The problem then, as now, is that Mother Rome was a little more forgiving of rapists, murderers, pedophiles, and common thieves among its ranks than civil law would have been and there was little redress for the victims of clerical crime.

This battle has been raging for well over a thousand years. Only England managed to break with Rome and eventually put renegade clergy in their places.

Here in the US, we've managed to try a few priests and sue the church for covering up their crimes. However, Rome is up to its old tricks when it comes to its princes, promoting them to the Vatican rather than allowing them to face their crimes in civil court.