"I'm certain that isn't what Jim meant."
It certainly isn't what I meant and our 'Sanitising' friend knows it - only it doesn't suit his role as apologist for the abuse that took place to admit it.
The sooner we get away from trying to pin this on homosexual behaviour, or 'a few bad apples' (or even the thousands that there actually were), or bad clegymen and neglectful (even co-operative) heirarchy, and examine it from the point of view it is now being examined here in Ireland, the quicker we'll understand what has taken place and how.
Throughout the 20th century the Catholic church got itself (or was placed) into a position where it influenced virtually every aspect of day-to-day Irish life - the home, marriage, birth, death, the food, and when it was to be eaten, the education of children, the music....... and relevant to what has happened here, what went on in the Irish bedroom.
If any good has come from this horrendous affair, it is that the stranglehold has now been broken and will never again be re-applied.
If you want to know about the abuse that went on, read the Ryan Report, or any decent condensed version of it, or the accounts of what happened at Ferns and Letterfrack - and brace yourselves for a long overdue report on the Magdelene Laundries.
If you want to know how, and to what extent it was covered up, read the Murphy Report.
Interesting insight into this in The Irish Times the day before yesterday.
A priest was found to be a child abuser by his superiors, and was moved on to several parishes, until his behaviour got out of hand and was sent to a mission in Brazil. He was found to have made his home above a créche in Sao Paulo - now doesn't that give 'care in the community' a whole fresh meaning?
The question yet unanswered is WHAT HAPPENS NOW?
From a legal point of view the law has to deal with the abusers and their accomplices as they would any other serious and dangerous criminals.
From a spiritual point of view, if it is to survive, the church has to deal with the abusers and their accomplices immediately (judging by an incident in the US, thanks to Vatican intervention, a priest found abusing can be defrocked - a bishop found to have been an abuser cannot).
From a civil point of view, the church must never again be allowed the malignant influence it once had and abused - and it must never again be given access to the bodies and minds of children.
Ireland was described in an article a few days ago as "A Catholic country, but not necessarily a Christian one" - there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that this is the case.
Jim Carroll