If you pay careful attention to the stories coming out of the Vatican you can just about make out a sound in the background.

It's the sound of ancient shutters being forced open. It's the sound of secrets being pushed out of dark rooms where they've been hidden for decades.
 Finally, the Vatican might just admit that the entire foundations of the Irish church need to be dug out and started again.

The Vatican has been exceedingly slow to act on the Irish child sex abuse scandal.

It's hard to see what took them so long.

For instance, it's hardly news that Irish priests built a perverted house of horrors for themselves in Ireland.

It's hardly news that children - of the poor - were treated worse than dogs in those awful institutions.

The American priest and Boystown founder Fr Flanagan was waving giant red flags about the Irish church during his visit there in 1946.

Fr Flanagan could see how bleak the Irish Church was - and how bleak it would remain.

If only official Ireland had listened to him instead of damning him with faint praise.