by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
Pope Benedict XVI was said to have become “visibly upset” on Friday when presented with the details of a report documenting clerical sex abuse in Ireland that occurred from 1975 to 2004.
The three-volume report, issued by the government, revealed decades of sex crimes committed by priests and accuses four former archbishops, clergy and senior members of the police of covering up the crimes.
The Murphy Commission of Inquiry into the abuse of children in Dublin identified 320 people who complained of child sexual abuse between 1975 and 2004. In one case, a priest admitted to abusing more than 100 children. Another said he had abused children every two weeks for more than 25 years.
London’s Guardian reports that Irish justice minister, Dermot Ahern, also concluded that the vast majority of priests turned a “blind eye” to abuse, although some individuals did bring complaints to superiors, which were not acted upon.
In addition, senior members of law enforcement often had in appropriate relationships with priests and bishops and would simply report abuse complaints to the diocese rather than investigate them. In one case, police even allowed a perpetrator to flee the country.
“I read the report as justice minister. But on a human level – as a father and as a member of this community – I felt a growing sense of revulsion and anger at the horrible, evil acts committed against children,” Ahern said at a press conference.
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin and Cardinal Sean Brady of Armagh met with the Pope last Friday when they presented him with the report’s findings.
According to Zenit News, Cardinal Brady later told the bishops of Maynooth that the pope “listened very carefully, very attentively, very sympathetically to what we had to say and he said in reply that this was a time for deep examination of life here in Ireland in the Church.”
Archbishop Martin added: “[The Pope] was very visibly upset, I would say, to hear of some of the things that are told in the Ryan report, how the children had suffered from the very opposite of an expression of the love of God.”
Members of a survivors group are urging the Pope to come to Ireland and apologize for the clergy’s behaviour. John Kelly, of Irish Survivors of Child Abuse, said only a papal visit would exonerate the Church in the abuse scandals.
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