In 1989, Paddy Doyle broke the wall of silence on the horrific abuse comitted by Catholic institutions in Ireland on children when he published “The God Squad”. The abuse, both sexual and what only can be described as torture, was widespread and happened in dozens of institutions.
Ten years since the publication of “The God Squad” hundreds of cases of abuse of children in care have come to light. The silence is shattered. The fierce grip that the church once had on Irish society is nothing more than a tenuous link.
Trust has been broken and lives have been damaged – in some cases – beyond repair. I have taken some criticism for writing “The God Squad”. I was accused of “bringing about the “collapse of the Church in Ireland”.
It was never my intention to “wreck” the church. The Church by its own hand brought about its own demise. Writing “The God Squad” was at times painful for me. I relived the horrors of abuse. My motivation in writing it was to bring the truth to people.
And what has the response of the Church been?
Church asks rich to pay sex abuse bill
The Catholic hierarchy has discussed asking wealthy benefactors and priests of independent means to foot the estimated ┚¬25m compensation bill for victims of child abuse.
According to Cardinal Castrillon, the clerical abuse scandals are not the fault of the Catholic Church. The problem is “today’s culture of pansexualism and libertinism”. It is interesting to note that this insightful individual is a possible successor to John Paul II, with the bookies quoting him at odds of 20 to one.
Here’s a list of 135+ Catholic institutions involved in Irish abuse whose victims are legally qualified for damages. The Catholic Church in response, has forced the Irish public to pay for some of the abuse claims, saying, well hey, you sent them to our institutions. What exemplars of love and compassion they are. Or maybe just a bunch of thugs.
8.7 million Irish pound settlements to victims buried in Church accounting report. They tried to sneak it past everyone. It didn’t work.
Irish bishops levy Irish catholics for abuse bills
In the most serious financial crisis to beset the Catholic church in Ireland, bishops disclosed last week that they are running out of money to meet the spiralling costs of indemnifying the victims of clerical sex abuse.
The sex abuse, both in Ireland and the US, as well as elsewhere is widespread and institutionalized. The Church has still not apologized in any meaningful way and Pope John Paul never even met with an abuse victim.
Nor will the next Pope. The rot is too deep for that.