it's 2009

and a 'panel' finds that irish children were abused by the catholic church for DECADES. didn't we already know that? we effing knew it, the catholic church knew it and ALL OF IRELAND KNEW IT INCLUDING THE IRISH GOVERNMENT.

didn't we even see it YEARS ago in movies like song for a raggy boy

and the magdalene sisters?

didn't we know not only the catholic church swept it under the rug, but the GOVERNMENT did as well (this time ireland but read up on what happened in newfoundland. and hell, it happens here too. if the clergy are abusing children THE GOVERNMENT MUST prosecute them. NOT have the catholic church move the abuser from parish to parish).

this isn't something that happened once or twice or three times with the catholic church. it's not something that happened 10 or 20 times either. it's something that has happened for years and years and years and years and is STILL happening. why are we silent? why are we allowing this to occur?

i do not care WHAT gods someone believes in, if they think their particular god is ok with child abuse they should be locked up and the key thrown away

Pupils Abused For Decades in Irish Schools
Panel Finds Misconduct by Priests, Nuns Until 1990

By Mary Jordan

Washington Post Foreign Service

LONDON, May 20 -- Thousands of children were physically and sexually abused by priests and nuns in orphanages and reform schools in Ireland from 1930 to 1990, a government commission said Wednesday in the first official accounting of the full magnitude of a scandal that has wrenched the deeply Roman Catholic nation.

The 2,600-page report, which capped a nine-year investigation, said rape and sexual abuse were "endemic" in boys' institutions funded by the state but run by the church. "A climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment, permeated most of the institutions and all those run for boys," it said.

More than 300 people who now live abroad, including in the United States, returned to Ireland to testify at 166 hearings on what happened to them in schools and group homes. In all, more than 1,000 people, most now in their 50s or older, described rapes, molestation, floggings, scaldings and other abuse...........

Abuse ‘endemic' in Irish Roman Catholic schools: Report

SHAWN POGATCHNIK

DUBLIN — Associated Press, Wednesday, May. 20, 2009 11:44PM EDT

A fiercely debated, long-delayed investigation into Ireland's Roman Catholic-run institutions says priests and nuns terrorized thousands of boys and girls in workhouse-style schools for decades — and government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation.

Nine years in the making, Wednesday's 2,600-page report sides almost completely with the horrific reports of abuse from former students sent to more than 250 church-run, mostly residential institutions.

But victims' leaders said it didn't go far enough — particularly because none of their abusers were identified by name.

The report concluded that church officials always shielded their orders' pedophiles from arrest to protect their own reputations and, according to documents uncovered in the Vatican, knew that many pedophiles were serial attackers........