Irish punishing church for abuse scandal

Recent surveys show that the number of Irish that would describe themselves as religious has declined in the past seven years from 69 to 47 percent. The conservative daily the Irish Independent attributes this trend to the Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandal: "And what has been the response of the Church authorities to this accelerating drift away from organised religion? Sadly, instead of tackling the issues head on, the Vatican seems to believe that there is nothing wrong with the Irish Catholic Church that the re-imposition of old-style centralised discipline won't cure. The Vatican Visitation to the Irish church, the summary of whose findings was published last March, revealed that the church authorities were still in denial over the scale of the crisis facing the Irish church and of their responsibility for that crisis. ... Until this preoccupation with centralised command and control by the Vatican gives way to genuine contrition for the wrongs done to innocent children by Catholic priests and religious, the proportion of Irish people turning their backs on the church will continue to increase."

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