Wednesday 13th of July, The long-awaited Cloyne Report has been published, detailing how the Catholic Church and the state authorities dealt will allegations of abuse in the County Cork diocese between the years 1996 to early 2000.
The report’s main points:
The “greatest failure” of the diocese was the failure to report cases of abuse to the civil authorities: the diocese failed to alert the Gardaí about nine out of 15 cases that “very clearly” should have been reported.
The Vatican was “entirely unhelpful” in assisting clerics wishing to implement procedures – describing the guidelines as “a study document”.
The response of the Diocese of Cloyne was “inadequate and inappropriate".
Primary responsibility for the failure to implement agreed child sexual abuse procedures lies with then-bishop of Cloyne John Magee. Bishop Magee "took little or no active interest" in the management of clerical child sexual abuse cases until 2008, 12 years after the framework document on child sexual abuse was agreed by the Irish Bishops' Conference.
An American watchdog group BishopAccountability.org said the handling of clerical abuse cases in Cloyne is “eerily similar” to a US grand jury report released earlier this year, which found church leaders showed a “brazen disregard” for both civil law and the church’s own internal policies.
“The Cloyne report is disheartening confirmation that even today, despite the church's knowledge of the profound anguish of thousands of victims, its reform policies are public relations ploys, not true child protection programs,” the group said.
The Boston-based organisation asked: "how many second chances will Irish church officials get before they are criminally charged for enabling the molestation of children?"
This is the fourth report into Child abuse committed by the Catholic Church in Ireland.
- The first was the Ferns Report published in October 2005.
- The Second was Ryan Report Published in May 2009.
- The Third was Murphy Report Published in November 2009.
The main focus of the report Bishop Magee who resigned in March 2009 to spend the rest of his life in some comfortable house paid for by the donations of the shorn flock.
Each report shows that the Catholic Church was only really interested in keeping it's power, and was totally arrogant in the way it dealt with the abuse being inflicted by it's priests.
So then again showing the Vatican is only a power structure, lacking in any form of any moral courage or authority.
It also shows another failure of the Irish Government to do what is best for it's citizens, and shows why letting the Catholic Church to be the defacto 2nd Governent in the Irish Republic is such a very very bad idea.
It’s an incredible con job when you think about it, to believe something now in exchange for something after death. Even corporations with their reward systems don’t try to make it posthumous. — Gloria Steinem
