Stop asking the question why the victims didn't report the abuse, as if they were at fault. It doesn't seem hard to grasp that rural and working class children and their parents didn't get their concerns considered credible, or considered at all. I am still not sure at all you fully grasp the might of the church in Ireland that lasted well into the nineties (and one can wonder to what extend it has gone away).


Why didn't people come forward? Because they were threatened with eternal damnation and suffering in the fires of hell? Because the guards wouldn't go against the church? Because the victims were ostracised when they tried to speak out?


I remember well the furore when Annie Murphy spoke publicly about her son, fathered by Bishop Eamonn Casey (and supported by church funds). 'That woman' had dared to speak out and ruin a good man. That was the atmosphere. As the song has it 'sure god love them, they're only human'. And that wasn't by far as difficult a matter as an abuse case would have been at the time (early nineties).


Other cases. Like the Brendan Smyth one? The industrial schools? Aren't the patterns of cover up and evasion we've seen there well enough established to warrant the questions asked about the complicity of Hierarchy, and asked again with regards to the Walsh case? These questions should be asked again and again, certainly as long as the Vatican considers it an insult when they are asked at all.

I believe and agree with you there was an element of inexperience, incomprehension and pure dumb inability to deal with these matters at the time. But only an element, and only up to a point. Cover up and damage limitation to the extend they occurred are unforgivable and deserves further scrutiny. And those responsible for the cover ups should be held accountable. First of all to do right by the victims to allow them justice and vindicate them for their suffering and secondly to avoid this shielding of crimes and protection of evil doers to re-occur.