Irish religious orders €400m short in abuse redress payments

Why should overburdened Irish taxpayers bail out corrupt clerical child sexual abusers as well as casino capitalist bankers. (Gee, Laura - love the she[e]pherded metaphor. If it had been Ruairí's ministerial colleague Shatter, ya coulda used Sepharded!) Still, not uninteresting how the Orders are slow on the draw with their purse strings, in stark contrast to the institutional churches' adeptness at parting pensioners from their frugal shekels down through the millenia. The Mighty Quinn may have to do a King Henry (Rí Anraí) VIII encore in dissolving the monasteries and expelling the monks, if they continue to drag their sandals. For an institution which claims to follow a Messiah whose kingdom was not of this world, they have a fairly impressive real estate portfolio. But then, don't the Anglicans too!

hermitTalker Yes, I agree with you. The Roman catholic church corporation got the heads up and got its money into trusts, untouchable and off shore.You are so right. A child can still be raped in care 2012 and HSE and Gardai are not awfully bound to investigate and the state does not take itself to court. So nothing has changed to protect the wee slaves...oops children

If the orders owe it, then they must pay. It that means selling off property, then they should do so. Their assets should be frozen until this case has been settled. The Church has been escaping free of charge on the child-rape issue all around the world. It's time to pay the piper. I no longer give cash at the collection. I give in-kind services or I volunteer to purchase items for my parish or pay part of a bill. However, I will not give cash.

If they owe it, why not just pay it up, and start rebuilding confidence and rebuilding their property stake, if that is their reason for existing? If property and riches are not the reason they are there, then perhaps this is the best thing that can happen to both the orders and the State.

Before the usual anti-Church, anti-Pope rants begin, may I comment. This is a specifically Irish phenomen where the State worked with the Catholic and other denominational agencies to operate detention and rehabilitation agencies, and some clergy (priests ) and sisters and brothers) more correctly religious sisters and brothers (nuns is not technically correct belonged to those religious communities. Some clergy attached to dioceses and some to reliigous communities and some religious also taught in schools. Each group had physical or emotional sexual abusers in each category. 1. The individual diocese was not resposible for the abuse in the laundries etc within its boundaries. 2. The law is not that clear about the responsibility for its priests/clergy conduct legally as recent events in the UK showed. 3. The Church as institution and the Pope/Vatican have very little endowments, investments - most of the wealth is in buildings and lands, owned by each diocese; and also treasures for the Vatican which are the Patrimony of the world and selling them is not a practical option. 5. The Minister as was reported here before, repeated today, cannot get money from most of the buildings in the current market, and not all are available, for example their retirememt places and medical facilities for some. 6, It is not practical now to repay the debt. One has also to acknowledge that regardless of the culture and fear and social power of the Church as such, gardai and other civil powers and Government were also guilty of neglect, lack of oversight- the Government still is in 2012 with no national oversight for protection of youth, not even screening for baby-sitting/child care privately.