Catholic Church in deeep water.

[Duke of Gloucester]

I'm not sure that members have a sense of just how depraved this abuse was. Moreover, whilst the Catholic Church is deeply ingrained throughout the "moral" framework that created such horrors, the fault is far more that of the republic and all the people of Ireland.

Its an interesting article but I disagree that the blame should go mostly to the state and not the Church. Firstly the Church had direct responsibility for the institutions where the abuse was happening. Secondly, the church itself proclaims standards of behaviour particularly towards children and the poor which were disregarded and subverted in these cases. The church can't claim that the State should have stopped these people behaving in the way they did.

One interesting aspect of the article is that it paints a picture of endemic abuse where emotional and physical abuse were the norm which all "carers" were expected to support. This contrasts with the American, British and Australian scandals which are more about individuals who were allowed to continue and were protected when they should have been stopped and punished.

Not to beat at this again, but it seems to me that a part of the problem is the corporate and monastic nature of the administration. None of these men or women had to go home to a spouse and answer the question, "So, how was your day".

It's an attractive idea, but not, I think, one that can be supported by evidence. Most child abuse happens within the family with the spouse at best turning a blind eye. Whilst these terrible things were happening in Ireland, married men in children's homes in England would have been doing similar things and going home to the wife and behaving quite normally, seeming to the neighbours to have been pillars of the community. It seems that it was much more widespread in Ireland because, if the article is correct, new members of the religious community were expected to fit in with the culture of violence and abuse that had grown up. The fact that these people had taken a vow of obedience to their superiors made it much harder for them to challenge what was going - that would have required real courage and self-confidence. Not that this excuses them. The obedience they swore to would not have included imoral acts which these clearly were. It is yet another sobering reminder of what human beings are capable of.