BishopAccountability.org
	Comment: Every Diocese Should Have Sex Abuse Inquiry Kerryman December 2, 2009 http://www.kerryman.ie/lifestyle/comment-every-diocese-should-have-sex-abuse-inquiry-1960799.html IRELAND--THE shocking implications of the Murphy Report are a matter for all jurisdictions of the Catholic Church and a commission should be established to inquire into the sexual abuse of children by clerics of all dioceses, including Kerry, at the earliest opportunity. Such a move is necessary if the people of this country are to have any confidence in the Church's ability to protect children within its ministry in all corners of our island. It can only be the first step of any meaningful attempt to address the wrongs inflicted by the abusers of the Church and the superiors who protected them. No other step towards ending this culture of protection can happen without it, as it is the only baseline for a full and honest rehabilitation of the Catholic Church in Ireland. All its good work, all its devoted laity and all its compassionate religious cannot hope to recover their standing until the whole is examined in minute detail with regard to these crimes. The Murphy Report is shocking in its catalogue of abuse, but more than that it is an incredible chronicle of the hierarchy's horrific betrayal of powerless children. The very members of its congregation who should have been protected above all others — in clear accordance with Christ's teachings — were time and time again brushed aside by an administrative behemoth hellbent on protecting itself from all criticism. Where Christ's teachings were at their most unequivocal, the Church failed completely. Unlike other dioceses, Kerry has not become a byword for the sexual predation of the innocent. The hierarchy here did not cover-up or conspire to suppress all knowledge of a widespread abuse, as in the Dublin Archdiocese. One priest of the Kerry diocese was convicted for the sexual abuse of children; Fr John Brosnan, who was sentenced to four years' imprisonment in 2009. In all, allegations were made against 11 of the 310 priests in ministry in the Kerry diocese since 1955. But even if the recent history of this county appeared completely free of clerical sex-abuse, the diocese would still require such an inquiry. For the people of Kerry cannot be guaranteed of any change until the State is allowed examine its treatment of our youngest citizens with the knowledge we now have of how entrenched the evil became in Dublin.
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