Read more: New Murphy report section shows evidence of Dublin priest pedophile ring
Read more: Priest played Elvis music to drown child's screams
The Sunday Tribune newspaper in Dublin reported that it was very likely a pedophile ring of at least five priests operated with impunity in Dublin during the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s.
The newspaper explained how the priest concerned divvied up the altar boys and other victims and how children suffered multiple rapes from the group’s members.
Their shocking revelation came after the jailing of Anthony Walsh, a defrocked priest who molested over 100 children during his infamous clerical career.
The jailing of Walsh finally allowed for the missing chapter in the Murphy Commission report on clerical child abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese to be made public at last.
The report called Walsh the most notorious pedophile of all, and showed that he was protected completely by the church, all the way up to the Vatican, before he was finally uncovered.
This was despite the fact that the first complaint about Walsh came very early in his career as a priest and he was reported on numerous occasions afterwards.
Among other crimes, Walsh raped a 7-year-old young boy on the altar, tied him down with ropes from his vestments and played Elvis Presley music out loud to drown his screams.
When finally Archbishop Desmond Connell wrote to the Vatican asking for Walsh to be defrocked they refused and ordered him sent to a monastery instead.
The Murphy Commission reports that numerous conferences were held by all the senior clergy in the archdiocese to discuss the Walsh case, yet at no time did any clerical figure decide to report him to police for raping young boys.
This is a time in Ireland where there are many calls for the heads of bankers and others involved in the crash landing of the Irish economy.
Heinous though their crimes may be, they pale beside the sins of a pedophile ring ignored and silently approved at the very top of the Catholic Church in Ireland.
It is time that some of the priests who saw no evil in these evil men themselves feel the application of the law. Covering up pedophilia, transferring a notorious child rapist from parish to parish, denying access to Irish police to records, are surely crimes worth prosecuting.
Yet many of those complicit continue to serve in major roles in the Irish church today, including two bishops. They use the same excuse as the Nazi collaborators that they saw no evil and were merely bystanders.
But hundreds of defenseless children were raped as a result of the blind eye turned.
It was not until Archbishop Diarmuid Martin was sent to Dublin from Rome that the scope of the issue was fully investigated and understood.
Martin did a superb job, but pretending that pedophilia was some kind of victimless crime where the enablers are without blemish is patently ridiculous.
It is time to call these men what they were, accomplices to the most sickening crimes ever committed in Ireland, and stop them hiding behind a collar.
Does the Irish state have the nerve to prosecute them? Time will tell.
Read more: New Murphy report section shows evidence of Dublin priest pedophile ring
Read more: Priest played Elvis music to drown child's screams
10 Comments
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.curranart | Dec 26, 2010, 04:49 PM EST
I fully agree that covering up pedophilia, transferring a notorious child rapist from parish to parish, denying access to Irish police to records, are surely crimes worth prosecuting.There are also many more worth prosecuiting
SingleDonald | Dec 25, 2010, 08:33 PM EST
Years ago, I read "The Valachi Papers", which explained the origins & organization of La Casa Nostra. Joe Valachi described a scene in an orphanage, when he was 11. A Brother Abel had died, and was laid out on the altar. As each boy passed the body, he took turns spitting on the chest of Brother Abel. Apparently no other Brother was present, and I always thought this to be a morally depraved act, perpetuated by the boys. Now that the Church Scandal has been exposed, I understand the boys' action. Brother Abel was likely a pedophile, and should have been spat on in life, for starters!!
STUMPTOWN | Dec 25, 2010, 01:37 PM EST
To silence the truth to protect the image is more damageing then the actual abusers who shold all be pulled from religious life and have their day in court with thoes that covered up the crime. Thoes that do not want to hear of it and look the other way are also part of the abuse problem. The abused children should bring suit for full damages even to the RCC administrators that forced a oath of silence on them.
paricaliswishes | Dec 24, 2010, 04:11 PM EST
We're Aisy about everything in life that's important that's why we're catholics in the first place.!!!
Advocate | Dec 24, 2010, 11:28 AM EST
ALL involved, the actual perpretrator AND those who know and hide the truth, shoulc be hanged! I also blame the silly, stupid 'traditions' & 'policies' that would require a normal man (or woman), to never marry, have children, Etc., etc. Yahweh/God Himself formed us as sexual beings. He Himself created & defined 'marriage.' For some pope/church to put such a policy designed counterdistinctive against same is highly questionable. It CANNOT BE FOUND ANYWHERE IN SCRIPTURE; but ONLY in the policy of some man! He, too, is quility. When a man decides to become a priest, he seeks to serve, perhaps not fully realizing how powerfull his human created emotions might be! For a mere policy of man to interfer with same is a serious CRIME against our humankind as created & formed by Yahweh!
CER1940 | Dec 23, 2010, 03:37 PM EST
I think it is a scandle that the criminals and sinners who covered up for the abusers are neither being treated as sinners by the church nor criminals by the civil government.
KathyCallahan | Dec 23, 2010, 12:08 PM EST
Thank you Sister Maureen
Monsoonman | Dec 23, 2010, 12:03 PM EST
When they defrock the sitting pope, then you will know they are serious. When Sister Maureen can be seen as the new leader of the church of peter/paula, it will signal the organization has cleansed itself. Until then it is only lip service and all associated with it labor under a cloud of suspicion and taint.
curranart | Dec 23, 2010, 10:45 AM EST
Where I live in N ireland nothing is being done in regard to the sexual and or physical abuse some of us lads recieved while in Catholic schools.Promises were made 2-3 years ago, not a word since,the church's continuing sexual abuse crisis in Ireland, seemingly never happened here. We suffer on.
SisterMaureen | Dec 23, 2010, 09:02 AM EST
The church's continuing sexual abuse crisis in Ireland mirrors much that is similiar in the United States and here as well the bishops, not counting Archbishop Bernard Cardinal Law who effectively kicked upstairs, have not been held accountable for their enabling, facilitating or covering up for sexual abusive priests of all stripes. Some of Cardinal Law's auxiliaries actually received dioceses of their own while others across the country cut deals with civil authorities to avoid prosecution. No, church leadership hasn't got it right yet and the pope's Christmas message is evidence of that. Why here in the U.S. we do not even have a bishop the caliber of Dublin's Archbishop Diarmuid Martin. Would that we did! The actions of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops leave much to be desired and are definitely not to be considered any kind of a Gold Standard as far as the sexual abuse of anyone is concerned. Sister Maureen Paul Turlish Victims' Advocate New Castle, Delaware, USA maureenpaulturlish@yahoo.com