What I find amazing is that given their level of personal and political control, their unimaginably vast financial resources, the sheer weight of numbers, and the length of time the Catholic church has had in Ireland, one would have thought that an organisation claiming to be benevolent would by now have had ample incentive and opportunity to create a showcase of a 'state' the envy of the 'Catholic world'. A model of how socially successful Catholicism can be, given the chance.. Instead, they seem to have always done their utmost to do precisely the opposite. I daresay there are countless reasons or excuses ready to be pulled out of the hat, but my (admittedly simplistic) view is that the Catholic church simply isn't 'what it says on the tin'. Hopefully the Irish people are now becoming more enlightened to that knowledge. They deserve better.