The long awaited report on clerical sex abuse in Dublin's archdiocese is due to be published, after much delay, on Thursday.
As luck would have it, that's also a major holiday in the U.S. Makes for a slow news day, a relatively quiet day, and it's less likely that the Irish diaspora will get many details in their newspapers. By Friday, of course, it's old news.
The report would have come out sooner, but there's a strike scheduled and people who might need mental health counseling after reading the report would find that the helplines are down due to industrial action.
Then there was the Department of Justice weighing in, adding to the delay. One of the priests mentioned in the report is about to be tried for child sex abuse, and they didn't want certain information relevant to their case to be released.
All the delay, yet it won't be much news in the end. It's well known by now that the Catholic Church had a pattern of moving abusing priests around from parish to parish. It was done all over the globe, in every parish in every country. And the State did nothing, not when it was the Catholic Church they'd have to deal with. The bishops didn't tell the authorities, the authorities didn't pursue cases aggressively because the bishops promised to take care of it, and the end result was thousands of children abused and broken.
On Thanksgiving Day, while the Americans are sitting down to a feast, the people in Ireland will be sitting down to yet another litany of abuse. A sensitive telling of the story, in fiction form, can be found between the pages of The Leaven of the Pharisees, if you're interested in learning more.
And Patrick Kennedy's bishop has decided that the man is to be denied Communion for his political views.
How can they wonder why no one takes them seriously?
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