Irish Catholic Church hid sex abuse for decades: official ("Tsunami of sexual abuse")

[Bluebear]

DUBLIN — Ireland's Catholic Church apologised and admitted its shame Thursday after a damning new report showed it covered up child sex abuse over more than three decades.

The Irish government also said sorry for failing to protect children after the latest report, published six months after a first landmark study revealed widespread abuse of children in Catholic care.

"I offer to each and every survivor my apology, my sorrow and my shame for what happened," said Diarmuid Martin, who has been archbishop of Dublin since 2004.

"I am aware that no words of apology will ever be sufficient," he said, adding that "the fact that many abusers were priests constituted both an offence to God and an affront to the priesthood."

Following a three-year investigation in the Dublin Archdiocese, the country's largest, the report concluded that four archbishops routinely protected abusers and failed to inform police of the allegations.

"The volume of revelations of child sexual abuse by clergy over the past 35 years or so has been described by a Church source as a 'tsunami' of sexual abuse," said the report.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i75ARlz1g9vdw5GMzoyHJ-_0Dkeg

[Justitia]

1. So, I assume, no communion for them? -eom

[Bluebear]

2. No, we reserve that for people who let women make decisions about their bodies.

[Cirque du So-What]

3. Enough contrition to float a boat

once the church leadership got busted, that is.

When will people finally cast off the chains of organized religion? Their entire raison d'être is shot to hell - and I'm not just picking on the RC variety of religion.

[Nikki Stone1]

4. Sinead told us so.

That was why she tore up the picture of the Pope.

[Warpy]

5. Yeah, but nobody will tell her she was right and they were wrong

I hope this loosens the chains around the Irish people that they've endured so long from a church that is more vicious there than it is most other places because it's felt so safe in a relative backwater like Ireland.

The Irish church here isn't much better.

And they wonder why I stomped off in sheer disgust at the age of ten.

[Nikki Stone1]

6. I will. Sinead, you were right!

:patriot: