I haven’t read the Pope’s letter to the Irish church that was published today. I started to but I got lost on the first line,
Pastor of the universal Church
This statement alone was enough to put me off reading the rest of the letter. How can a group that discriminates against women and gay people, be considered universal. A group can only consider themselves as universal if they include everyone. But anyway that’s only minor annoyance of mine while I attempted to read the letter. But onto the actual scandal.

This current scandal is becoming less and less about the abuse that took place and more about the coverup that followed the abuse. To me this is worse than the actual abuse, purely based on the fact that so much would’ve been avoided if everything had been reported to the civil authorities. What strikes me most is the sheer arrogance of the church back then, I believe that in “Song for a Raggy Boy” this is shown best where, at the end the Bishop shows up and simply says it’s sorted. The probable involvement Cardinal Brady in the cover up and oaths of silence with two of Brendan Smiths victims is, actually I don’t have a word to describe the how deplorable that was. Words such as deplorable, shameful, inexcusable, heinous and despicable seem to mundane to even scratch the surface of the disgust that the nation as a whole feels about what has recently come to light.

For decades Irish people lived in fear of the church and the damage that was done in those decades is irreparable, From the magadalene laundries to the child abuse and the fear that the clergy could wield. Without challenge or question priests could destroy families and exile people from their communities. Despite all this the church still has their devout fanatics who insist that the church can do no wrong. The letter from the pope is apparently in the spirit of healing wounds and moving on. The problem is that these wounds should never have happened in the first place. For an organisation that’s core commandments are concerned with loving your fellow man and always selflessly for the greater cause of being good. They have exhibited an extreme case of selfishness that has destroyed hundreds if not thousands of lives across the world.

The catholic church seems to subscribe to the slogan of

Do as I say not as I do

To sum up in words the church may understand. You’ve lost most of the flock.