IRELAND
Irish Times
January 19, 2021
By Alyson Staunton
Extra-marital sex was a threat to our self-perceived identity of moral superiority
Since news broke of the discovery of a mass grave of babies in Tuam, there has been a fear that publication of the report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes would mark the third in an unholy trinity of Church malfeasance in its stewardship of institutions for the most vulnerable in society.
First there was the report into the industrial schools, then came the Magdalene laundries, both set against the wider backdrop of widespread clerical sexual abuse in the parishes. The auguries were not good.
Instead, to the vocal consternation of some, the Church has emerged relatively unscathed. The commission found no evidence of sexual and very limited evidence of physical abuse, but rather placed the mistreatment suffered by women and girls, some as young as 12, at the feet of the families and fath
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