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Clerical child sex abuse

WE have been told that the Papal Nuncio in Dublin declined to co-operate with the Commission of Investigation into clerical child sexual abuse. Simply put this means that the Vatican, a sovereign state, refused to co-operate with an investigation into a criminal conspiracy against Irish children. Should the 26 County state therefore not immediately break off diplomatic relations with the Vatican and expel the Papal Nuncio?
This would be one sure way to send out a clear signal that as one government Minister recently declared ‘a collar will protect no criminal’.
MARIE FALLON,
Kildare.


THE recent disgusting revelations in the Ryan and Murphy reports which have exposed the depths of depravity and subsequent cover ups of child sex abuse by members of the Irish Catholic Church has also exposed the dysfunctional nature if this state since its foundation.
As James Connolly predicted, the partition of Ireland created a ‘carnival of reaction’ resulting in two sectarian states on this island. In the North, a supremacist Orange state was created which has depended for its survival on the persecution and disenfranchisement of the nationalist community. In the South, a conservative, confessional neo-colony saw establishment political parties, the media, the Gardaí, the judiciary, the education and health systems prostrated before the institutional Catholic Church. This was the antithesis to the vision of the leaders of the 1916 Rising.
A united, secular and socialist Ireland as envisaged by Connolly is the answer not just to our current economic woes but also to the unhealthy relationship between Church and state here. A first step must be to kick the Church out of the Irish education system. Now that we know the extent and nature of what priests have perpetrated against our children how can we do otherwise? When will political leaders face up to their responsibilities?
PAUL MURRAY,
Dublin 11.