> ...responsibility solely to "the Church," meaning all those who are currently Catholic

Let's clarify one thing first: I have not been using or thinking of the words "the Church" to indicate all people who happen to be Catholic, but merely as a shorthand name for the specific organised structured religion and those who run it. This is how I've always understood this term, which is used a lot in Ireland, and that's the context I believe it tends to have here. But: that's my own perception and I would be interested to know how many of the Irish interpret the word the same way as you do and how many don't. As you say, the majority of them are Catholic, so it seems as though they would need a phrase to distinguish between themselves and the (for want of a better word) authorities. I'm not trying to quibble about semantics, but to unpick the differences in what each of us means when we say something.

If you are stating that ordinary Catholics should not be blamed for the atrocities, we have no disagreement at all. Of course they shouldn't and it's as offensively wrong as hearing all _____s described as _____-_____s. (Fill in the blanks yourself, people. In another thread. I'm not going there.) But it's exactly the same process.

But do not tell us, from a distance of 6000 miles, that we "stood by and watched" or "condoned abuse and molestation" or any of those other few-word phrases. It's just not true. Where do you get that from, except as a long-distance observation through a mental telescope-lens? You are making an unfair and blanket judgement when you don't know WHAT went on. (You probably saw, at the bottom of the article in Alice's link, the statement: "Police and social workers charged with stopping child abuse didn't start getting cooperation from the church until 1995. This opened the floodgates to thousands of abuse complaints...")   

> The worst of the crimes happened in government-owned schools that were staffed by members of religious orders.

Really? I never knew the state owned the Magdalene laundries. Or don't those count if they weren't officially Documented? The industrial schools were only part of the story and it's disingenuous to just ignore the parochial ones. But in any case, what on earth difference does it make, given the close collusion between the two authorities? We will never really know where the worst of the crimes took place, or the actual extent of them, because we're not going to ever have the full truth. There are too many blanks in the story, too many heartbreaking silences from spirits defeated by shame, despair, mental illness, and suicide. Or plain old age.

> How is that different from a teenage gang beating a teenager, with hundreds of people watching and nobody doing anything, because they were afraid to get involved? Are only part of the crowd responsible for failing to stop the beating?

Such a beating is PUBLIC, visible and obvious, and a crowd is pretty much equal in number to a gang (interesting analogy, that). And people have been known to join forces to throw off attackers. But how are you supposed to stop assaults that have already happened, or which were not known about because they occurred behind closed, well-protected doors and the victims were too terrified or ashamed to complain? (Don't underestimate the horribly unreasonable amount of self-blame that sexually abused kids incur, which usually makes them withdraw inside themselves and clam up.) This gang-beating scenario is far too simplistic to be a valid comparison.   

Your perception just appears selective to me, taking on board some factors of the story in Ireland while deflecting others, to fit a preconceived theory. You're arguing from a standpoint of ideological generalities which vastly oversimplify and reduce the individual human population of a country you have not lived in to an abstract, which you then pronounce blanket judgment upon. It almost sounds like an exercise in dialectical logic. You don't like it (nor do I) when people do that to you.

I have lived in Ireland for nearly 19 years and spent another 20 years in London's strong and active Irish community. But I was born and raised only about 60 miles (? or however far away Stockton is) from where you are based; and I can tell you from first-hand experience of both that there are significant differences between the two regions, and those arguments are neither fair nor properly informed regarding life here as it was realistically lived (I'm not referring to matters of the faith itself). You cannot condemn one from the matrix of the other.

I want out of this thread now. There's no point. You do not appear willing to entertain anything that runs counter to your established ideas, and it's just become a circular argument. Why waste further emotional energy or Mudcat bandwidth going round and round? We're never going to change each other's minds. Certainly I have a lot of respect for the travails and battles you have faced in your own spiritual journey, and wish that you had not been made to suffer for this black episode.