IRELAND
Newser
By Mary Papenfuss, Newser Staff
Posted Mar 5, 2012
(Newser) – Catholic officials’ failure to adequately police and punish molesters in the clergy has placed the Irish church at a “breaking point,” Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin tells Sixty Minutes. The Irish Catholic leader has angrily criticized the church hierarchy for moving pedophiles from parish to parish, and defied Vatican orders by releasing thousands of pages of investigations of molester priests. He calls the abuse of children “devastating.” Abuse “isn’t just the actual sexual acts, which are horrendous,” Martin adds. “But sexual abuse of a child is a total abuse of power. It’s saying to a child, ‘I control you.’ And that is saying to the child, ‘You’re worthless.'”
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