All the abuse was perpetrated by individuals

Ake, like Joe you are recognising one crime but overlooking another which is far more serious. The crime you recognise is the abuse of children by individual priests and other religious. As Joe has argued, this crime is broadly comparable with similar abuse by certain individual scoutmasters, teachers and others who are put in authority over children, except that priests have always enjoyed exceptional advantage arising from their unique role in sacramental absolution.

I would not blame the catholic church for this crime any more than I would blame the scouting movement. I recognise that paedophiles have sometimes sought positions in such institutions to gain access to their prey rather than to fulfil any sort of vocational calling. I don't particularly castigate such institutions where they have allowed paedophiles to slip through the net, and I am cautious about how the abusers should be punished. I assume it is only a matter of good fortune that I don't have paedophilic tendencies myself and I recognise that many abusers are also victims of abuse.

(Child abuse within families, which exceeds all the abuse by strangers, priests and others put together, is a separate matter and does need empathetic handling to take account of factors such as any value there may be in maintaining the family unit.)

The crime you overlook is the crime of institutional complicity: a determination to cover up even the most depraved abuses which has often extended to a demonising of those who have been brave enough to complain about what they have endured. In this respect the catholic church has behaved with overwheening arrogance and has completely lost its moral compass. It is utterly inexcusable. If Ratzinger had an ounce of moral decency about him he would sack Brady and then, on the basis that the buck stops with him, tender his own resignation.

Unless there is a gesture on that kind of scale the catholic church in Ireland is dead in the water.