Irish church sex scandal

CNN Pope Francis spoke during his visit to Ireland Saturday of his shame over the "appalling crimes" of historic child abuse in the Catholic Church and said outrage was justified. The bells of knockshrine will ring out on Sunday morning as we welcome Pope Francis. More Videos Pope Francis speaks out on sex abuse scandal. Pope addresses Ireland's child sex abuse scandal. Pope on sex abuse report: 'we abandoned the little ones'.

The sexual abuse cases in Dublin archdiocese are major chapters in the series of Catholic Church sexual abuse cases in Ireland. The Irish government commissioned a statutory enquiry in that published the Murphy Report in November In his biography of the archbishop, John Charles McQuaid Ruler of Catholic Ireland , John Cooney relates a number of stories which suggest that the Archbishop had an unhealthy interest in children. The main allegation — that the Archbishop had attempted to sexually assault a boy in a Dublin pub — is based on an unpublished essay by Noel Browne. No reputable historian or journalist supports these claims. Murphy, Emeritus Professor of History at University College Cork , have stated that the author should not have included the allegations.

Vatican City : The Vatican Monday announced that it will dispatch four senior clerics to Ireland in September as inspectors chosen by Pope Benedict XVI to investigate the handling of sex abuse cases involving priests there. Benedict first referred to the probe, or apostolic visitation, in a March 19 letter to Irish Catholics in which he apologised to those who suffered molestations when they were children. They are also set to monitor the effectiveness of and seek possible improvements to the current procedures for preventing abuse, it said.

His decision was sparked by the realization that in many parts of the world, bishops and religious superiors continue to deny or play down the severity of the scandal and protect their priests and the reputation of the church at all costs. Much of the developing world has largely escaped a public explosion of the scandal, as have conflict zones and countries where Catholics are a minority. But even majority Catholic countries have lagged. Just this week, the online resource BishopAccountability listed Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines, Congo and a handful of other heavily Catholic countries as places where the church leadership has failed to respond adequately when priests rape and molest children.