IRELAND
GlobalPost
Ireland’s Catholics have been profoundly affected by the scourge of clergy sex abuse. Author Michael D’Antonio explains why the Irish are vital to the future of the global church.
Ireland, once called “the most Catholic country in the world” by Pope Paul VI, isn’t as Catholic as it used to be. Surveys show dramatic drops in the number of Irish people who identify as religious or attend weekly masses. News of heinous sex abuse and coordinated cover-ups challenge the church’s crucial position in Irish life.
The extent of child sexual abuse by clergy in Ireland’s parishes and Catholic institutions was revealed in a series of government inquiries over the last decade. One report revealed how tens of thousands of children were abused in a network of church-run residential schools. Another showed how the church worked to cover up decades of child sexual abuse by priests in Dublin. In March 2010, it became widely known that Cardinal Sean Brady — the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland who has been asked by abuse victims not to take part in the enclave selecting a new pope — attended meetings in the 1970s where two teenage abuse victims signed vows of silence after testifying against a priest who was later exposed as the most infamous serial sex offender in Irish church history.
Responding to widespread outrage, Pope Benedict XVI penned an unprecedented apology letter to Ireland’s Catholics, expressing “shame and remorse” for clergy sexual abuse and criticizing Irish bishops for “failures of leadership.” But the pope did not declare any Vatican responsibility in the chronic scandal or call for any church leaders to be disciplined.
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