New Cloyne Report on Catholic Irish Child Abuse

This was on the evening UK news tonight and the Irish RTE report here gives a full account with numerous links, videos  and follow up reactions to the findings.  


The full Cloyne Report  has found that former Bishop John Magee (left) , falsely told the Government and the HSE that the Catholic Diocese was reporting all allegations of clerical child sexual abuse to the civil authorities.





It also found that the Bishop deliberately misled another inquiry and his own advisors by creating two different accounts of a meeting with a priest-suspect, one for the Vatican and the other for diocesan files.


Bishop Magee, whose resignation was accepted by the Vatican last March, is criticised for his handling of allegations.

The report was initially submitted to Government last December, but legal complexities meant it was not approved for publication by Cabinet until today.


Bishop John Magee (74) occupies a unique place in Catholic Church history, having been the only papal secretary ever to serve three popes.
 Between 1969 and 1982 he was private secretary to Popes Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II.

This article from the NCR is also pretty thorough and there is a selection of similar articles at the end of the post.




This is an all too familiar and sickening tale of lies and collusion from some of the Irish hierarchy of the church and the Vatican to clearly implement the guidelines for dealing with sexual abuse of children, as recently as 2008.  

Failure to investigate and pass on information and evidence /allegations is a shocking indictment of the church and the failure to act on information and to cover up the truth by those who bear the Word of Christ is scandalous .


Although the boils have seemingly been lanced and the situation in Ireland may now improve, the report projects a legacy of distrust  that will leave deep scars which will take a long time, if ever for many Catholics to recover from. 


What is clear is that the shameful clerical culture that supported these appalling attitudes and failed to protect its people is long overdue for a complete and radical  reconstruction.  


It is easy to be cynical about it but I am not sure if this hell of a mess can be cleared up soon.



The revulsion felt by many to this report is hard to address in a blog and I can only hope and pray that Catholics will have the courage and the faith to keep asking our church for radical changes.

 Very good interview here from RTE

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