After a year of news dominated by the London Olympics, the US Presidential Election, international financial crisis, Hurricane Sandy, and most recently the Newtown massacre, we took a step back and looked at which news stories have been most popular on IrishCentral this year.

An Irish teacher has been granted over $900,000 in damages against the HSE over the manner in which it investigated sexual abuse claims made against him.

Pope Benedict XVI has appointed a Boston priest as the Vatican's new sexual crimes prosecutor.

Catholic priest Fr Piero Corsi has stirred up some controversy in the wake of his Christmas message in which he asserts that with women becoming increasingly “provocative,” they have brought physical and sexual violence upon themselves.

Miss New York Mallory Hagan, an Irish American from Brooklyn,  won the Miss America pageant in Law Vegas on Saturday night, walking away with a $50,000 college scholarship.

An Irish American sex offender has been spared extradition to the United States by a British judge who has no faith in the US judicial system.

Monsignor Eamon Martin, 51, the administrator of the Diocese of Derry, is about to become the next leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland. He will be the youngest bishop or archbishop in Ireland when he is inaugurated in a few months.

An Irish judge has revoked bail in the case of a serial rapist who abused his daughter for a decade.

The new Bishop of Cloyne has vowed to bring about reconciliation in one of the dioceses worst hit by clerical sex abuse scandals.

A Catholic Archbishop has described the efforts of the American church to thwart police investigations into clerical sex abuse as ‘terribly sad and evil’ – after he banned Cardinal Roger M. Mahony from public life.

Cardinal Roger Mahony will still help to elect a new pope, although he was barred from performing any public duties in his Los Angeles archdiocese by the current archbishop because of his handling of multiple sex abuse cases involving pedophile clergy.

Ireland’s Cardinal Sean Brady is the latest to come under pressure to quit the upcoming papal conclave because of the alleged cover up of pedophile priest activities.

Alleged pedophile swimming coach George Gibney has fled his Florida home after a campaign by a local child protection agency.

The British church leader sacked by the Pope openly boasted of his friendship with notorious pedophile and TV personality Jimmy Savile.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien said in a statement on Saturday that he apologizes for any offenses and has asked for forgiveness after three priests and one former priest accused him of inappropriate behavior last week.

Archbishop of Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley has said the next pope must deal with Bishops who allowed abusive priests to remain in ministry.

The case of a Cork woman who was abused at the Dunderrow National School in 1973 has been opened at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg.

The founder of One in Four, an organization that supports victims of sexual abuse in Ireland, said the appointment of Pope Francis evoked “a spark of hope” in him.

A Roman Catholic priest found guilty of the sexual assault of a 17-year-old girl has confessed that he was in a secret 14-year marriage with a former parishioner, despite his vow of celibacy.

Cardinal Keith O'Brien is being investigated for sexually assaulting a priest only hours after he was ordained a cardinal.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has responded to Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier of Durban’s comments on sexual abuse. The Dublin Archbishop has stated that the abuse of a child is “very clearly a crime.”

TD Denis Naughten slammed the Irish government and their abundant loopholes that have making Ireland a “safe haven” for pedophiles.

An elderly Irish cleric is appealing his dismissal from the priesthood directly to Pope Francis and to a top Vatican court.

The disposition of New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan is to be released among the files on the alleged sexual abuse by priests in Milwaukee.

The Irish language activist and TV host Domhnall O Lubhlai (84) died before facing sexual abuse claims.

A new documentary claims that Domhnall O Lubhlai, who has been branded the “Irish Jimmy Saville”, sexually abused dozens of boys over two decades.

The chief executive officer of one of Ireland’s largest Irish colleges, Colaiste na bhFiann, has backed calls for the police to order a review into sexual allegations against the recently deceased Domhnall Lubhlai.

The victim of a serial child sex abuser has spoken about how her wedding day was ruined when her attacker showed up as an unwelcome guest and refused to leave.

The National Board for Safeguarding Children (NBSCCCI) has published audits of several dioceses and states that the now retired bishop of Clogher, Joseph Duffy, repeatedly missed opportunities to prevent clergy from abusing children.

The Irish Georgian Society has said it "strongly disagrees" with the proposals made by the Office of Public Works (OPW) to build a commemoration to the victims of institutional abuse in the Garden of Remembrance.

Nearly 30 years after he was originally convicted, former priest Bill Carney has finally been arrested in London. He will soon appear in court to face the charges of sexual abuse made against him, according to the Irish Sun. Having avoided punishment of any sort, and receiving $39,283 from the Catholic Church to leave the priesthood, his case has been called “tragic” and “nothing short of catastrophic.”

Investigations into the Dalkey “house of horrors” case have been reopened and will examine claims that a pedophile ring, led by Gardai, used their influence to hinder scrutiny of their activities.

The Vatican has ordered Cardinal Keith O'Brien to leave Scotland. Britain's most senior priest retired from the church in Scotland after admitting inappropriate sexual conduct with priests and planned to move to a house in Dunbar in East Lothian after vacating his official residence in Edinburgh.

Boston College: Enda Kenny, Ireland’s Taoiseach (Prime Minister), will give the Commencement Address to Boston College’s 4,400 graduates at Alumni Stadium this morning.
 
In the three years since coming to power, Kenny has looked to build a “Republic of laws,” a Republic that many Irish expatriates in the US—myself included—identify with because it closely mirrors the society in which we now live, a society where the letter of the law rather than the unspoken assumption of a doctrinaire moral code determines social policy.
 
Savita Halappanavar is a victim of that moral code and social policy. Mrs. Halappanavar died of sepsis, an infection brought on by the miscarriage of her seventeen-week pregnancy, in a Galway hospital on 28th October 2012. Her grieving husband described the medical treatment meted out to his wife as “horrendous, barbaric and inhumane.” To read the “Timeline” of his wife’s eight-day ordeal, based on evidence presented at the week-long official inquest, induces shame and anger. A young healthy woman fell victim to a lack of political will.
 
Enda Kenny outlined his vision for a very different Ireland during a Dáil Éireann speech in July 2011 when responding to the publication of the Cloyne Report. Like earlier reports—Murphy, Ryan, and Ferns—Cloyne echoed the well established narrative of clerical child sex abuse and confirmed the Catholic hierarchy’s failure to report such abuse to the civic authorities. The Bishop in question observed the dictates of the Vatican rather than the law of the land.
 
But Cloyne was of a different order too. It detailed how the Vatican deliberately organized to frustrate an Irish State-commissioned inquiry into clerical child sex abuse as recently as 2009. In an unprecedented move, Mr. Kenny, a devout Catholic, entered the Dáil chamber, the seat of political power in Ireland, and called the Vatican to account. And, he declared the primacy of the State’s standards, not those of the Catholic Church, in all matters related to the protection of Ireland’s children.
 
The “Cloyne speech” represents a watershed moment because it encapsulates a new vision for the nation:

Two sisters who found the courage to give evidence at County Sligo Circuit Court about their sexual abuse as children at the hands of their uncle were left speechless and dismayed by what they called his light sentencing.