The least surprising thing about the latest revelations of the Irish Catholic Church’s complicity in thousands of cases of horrific child abuse is that almost none of it is surprising at all. Shocking, yes, but not surprising. Even those of us with an appropriately cynical view of the Chuch, mind you, can only marvel at the breathtaking mendacity displayed by the Church.
The Archbishop of Tuam, Michael Neary, says he is ” mindful of the perceived hollowness of repeated apologies” and he has a point. Because until they were caught, the Church displayed no remorse whatsoever. Time and time again, as the Murphy Commission’s report makes only too clear, the clerical authorities, often with the full connivance of the Gardai, lied and lied again as they protected child abusers an endangered and exploited the children in their care.
And the cover-up continued into this decade too. This was not merely a case of ancient history.
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