BishopAccountability.org
	A Despicable Betrayal of Trust Irish Independent July 22, 2009 http://www.independent.ie/opinion/editorial/a-despicable-betrayal-of-trust-1834263.html Is there no end to the shameful catalogue of abuse and deception? Gardai are to investigate almost 100 new cases of alleged abuse by Catholic clergy as a result of calls to a hotline set up when the Ryan report was published recently. These are serious cases which the gardai are sufficiently confident warrant a response. Meanwhile, the Minister for Justice is studying the report of the Dublin Diocese Commission that has identified hundreds of victims of abusers. Mr Ahern will refer the report to the Attorney General for advice on publishing the findings without prejudicing cases due to come before the courts. Set up three years ago, the commission has investigated how child abuse allegations against a representative sample of 46 priests were dealt with by 19 bishops in Dublin between 1975 and 2004. The contents have already been described as "shocking" by the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, who has warned priests and parishioners to expect the worst. What will be more shocking – the accounts of priests' perverse actions, or the sly attempts by their superiors to cover them up? All too often, devout Catholic parents who discovered that their child had been abused by a priest made the mistake of approaching a religious superior instead of reporting to the civil authorities, only to discover subsequently, to their horror, that the offender had simply been moved to another parish or institution. What a despicable betrayal of trust by educated men of supposed high moral standing.
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