IRELAND
Irish Times
Mark Hilliard
Sat, May 24, 2014
A group representing survivors of clerical sex abuse has welcomed a UN report criticising the four religious orders behind the Magdalene laundries for their “continued refusal” to offer financial compensation.
The US-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (Snap) said the situation was characteristic of an “inexcusable recalcitrance of Catholic figures who still treat these deeply wounded victims with callousness and contempt”.
The UN’s Committee Against Torture yesterday urged the Catholic church to do more to punish perpetrators, help victims and place “meaningful sanctions” on clerics who failed to deal properly with “credible allegations” of abuse by members of religious orders.
It said there had been 3,420 such allegations of abuse by members of the clergy reported to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith between 2004 and 2013. These have resulted in the defrocking of 848 priests and disciplinary action against a further 2,572.
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