Irish Church child abuse a horror legacy of unwanted Famine children

Why Irish Church got away with abuse for so long

Civil war in Irish Catholic Church over child-abuse scandal

How Ireland has failed to learn lessons from Famine

The report of the Commission on Child Abuse makes clear the depravity and monstrous behaviour of the Catholic Church. They stole, lied and terrorised. They assaulted children. They scalded them, flogged them and . . . raped them. Sometimes, the children were gang-raped. The holy men and women locked children up for days in tiny rooms, cupboards and pig sties. One recalls being bitten by rats during his incarceration.

Eight hundred pedophiles were known to have existed within the Church. Obviously, there were more than 1,000 pedophiles (perhaps many more) raping and/or molesting boys and girls. The question on most people’s lips in Ireland has been: "How did the Church get away with it for so long?"

Fear is one answer; deference another but what put fear and deference there? It’s a legacy of the Roman Empire and the Great Irish Famine of 1845-50 when "unwanted" children became a burden. It is also related to Italian nationalism – the Risorgimento of the 19th century. By 1861, when the Italian peninsula was unified, the Papal States were absorbed by the larger Italy. They continued to exist until 1870 but their days were numbered. The Pope in Rome (Pius IX) barricaded himself into the Vatican in protest.

Legacy of the famine

The Papal States (the Italian football team ‘Lazio’ is a remnant) at the time measured about 16,000 square miles. Taxes were heavy as the population were made finance wars against Protestant kings. People in the Papal States were generally the most ignorant and backward of any in Western Europe. Mind you, the loss of the Papal States was a serious setback for Rome. Henceforth, Rome would target Ireland as a substitute, formidably abetted by Cardinal Paul Cullen who led “the devotional revolution” in the country.

It’s a legacy of the Famine. This was largely blamed on the British (the Irish benefited too from land-grab). So, the decision was made: better be under the [Holy] Roman Empire than the British one. Given the timing of the rise in Italian nationalism and the fact that Cardinal Cullen was utterly loyal to Rome (he wrote the encomium that proclaimed Papal infallibility in 1870) Cullen was described as “being more Italian than Irish”.

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Nster.com