A big issue over the last weeks has been the recent Commission findings exposing the scale of child abuse in the Dublin Diocese and the criminal conspiracy to cover it up. Here Joe Higgins’ party colleague, Councillor Clare Daly discusses the issue, arguing the scandal underlines the need for a total separation of Church and Sate. She argues that talk over whether or not culpable Bishops should resign misses the point – they and Cardinal Connell should be prosecuted!
The fact that members of the hierarchy responsible for the cover up are still in situ is shameful. Frankly whether or not they remain Bishop or Cardinal is missing the most important point, namely that in any other walk of life people who did what they admit they have done in terms of the protection of child rapists and abusers would face criminal charges and quite likely go to jail.
However from Brian Cowen’s statement yesterday in the Dáil where he attributes no bad motives to the Papel Nuncio and the Vatican for their blatant obstruction of the Commissions enquiries it is clear that key sections of the political and judicial establishment are happy to apply a different standard of the law to the Catholic Church.
The obstructing role of the Vatican and in particular the secret correspondence, in Latin, from the then Cardinal Ratzinger, to the hierarchy ordering them to report instances of abuse to him in the first instance and not the authorities in Ireland must go down as one of the most hostile acts ever by a foreign political establishment in Irish affairs for totally criminal ends and we don’t even get the token of aN official protest from the Department of Foreign Affairs or the expulsion of diplomats!
Similar enquiries need to be conducted in all the other Diocese. The Church hierarchy in Ireland has demonstrated itself yet again as a totally inappropriate institution for running public services funded by the tax payer. Church run and church influenced schools and hospitals are an anachronism that needs to end once and for all along with every other vestige of the church state connection.
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