NORTHERN IRELAND
News Letter
Published on Monday 7 May 2012
THIS is what I wrote in this column on March 22, 2010: “It has been an awfully bad week for the Catholic Church: which is really saying something when you consider its centuries’ long history of brutality, bullying, intimidation, suppression, corruption, war-mongering and persecution.
“I know one should always avoid the temptation to judge any organisation or religion by the actions of a few individuals, but what do you do when hundreds (maybe thousands) of individuals have betrayed their positions of trust and responsibility and when there is very clear evidence that their activities have been covered-up by their superiors?
“And what do you do when it is equally clear that the needs of the Catholic Church outweigh the hurt of the abuse victims?
“This isn’t just about a ‘few rotten apples’ in the bottom of the barrel, either. This is a scandal which embraces every level of the Catholic Church from the Pope himself to priests in the backs of cars and in the laundry rooms of orphanages. It’s about a culture of secrecy. It’s about the systematic abuse of the vulnerable.
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