Archbishop says pending report to show Irish priests abused 'thousands' of children

Archbishop says pending report to show Irish priests abused 'thousands' of children

rawstory.com

At a Thursday mass in Dublin's Pro-Cathedral, an Irish Archbishop shocked his congregation, which included numerous priests, by exclaiming that a forthcoming investigative report will reveal that over three decades, Irish Catholic priests have abused "thousands" of children.

"[The report] will make us and the entire church a humbler church," he said.

"The archbishop said the report, compiled by the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation, is expected to show that 'thousands of children or young people across Ireland were abused by priests in the period under investigation and the horror of that abuse was not recognized for what it is,'" reported the Associated Press.

(visit the link for the full news article)

IMO this is a good sign that the RCC is facing up to what has happened in the past, and is taking steps to ensure that it no longer happens.

Abuse by priests has been something of an open secret for many years, but maybe, just maybe, the RCC is going to do something concrete about it, instead of instructing adherents to pray for those who abuse.

In years gone by, an accused priest would simply be moved to a different parish and kept an eye on.

Hopefully this signals that this will no longer happen and that abuse will not be tolerated.

Abuse by priests takes many forms, including physical abuse by Christian Brothers and Nuns who were responsible for educating hundreds of thousands of Irish children

In time, perhaps we will also see priests who consort with parishoners be punished with something more than a slap on the wrist.

In time, perhaps we will see those guilty of physical abuse punished for what is a crime of assault.

Perhaps in time people will learn again to trust the faith to which they have given their lives - but probably not until unworthy people have been rooted out, punished and taken far away from those they did harm to.

rawstory.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Some more from the article:

"Martin is seen as a reformer sent in by the Vatican to clean up a church rocked by a decade and a half of scandals," reported the Guardian. "One of the most notorious, in the mid-1990s, involved priest Brendan Smyth and indirectly led to the collapse of Albert Reynolds's government.

"Accusations that the Irish attorney general's office blocked moves to extradite Smyth to Northern Ireland led to the Irish Labour party pulling out of coalition with Reynolds's Fianna Fáil and the government falling."

"The Archdiocese of Dublin is facing challenges of a kind that it has not experienced for many years," he said, according to the Press Association.

"Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin warned that a massive investigation of parishes in the Irish capital will find children were subjected to horrific attacks between 1975 and 2004," the group reported.

According to the BBC, "In 1999, the then Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern delivered an unprecedented apology to the victims on behalf of the state.

"He also set up the commission to report on abuse allegations in institutions such as schools, orphanages, hospitals and children's homes that were funded by the state, but were mainly run by Catholic religious orders.

"Some of the allegations date back to the 1930s."

source

Guardian article here