This was 2003, just after I’d successfully campaigned for Ferns Inquiry, the 1st investigation of clerical abuse in an Irish diocese. The Church fought tooth & nail against its establishment. This attempt to suppress information is no surprise #Stand4Truth irishtimes.com/news/social-af…
We were campaigning for a full inquiry into abuse in the Archdiocese of Dublin at the time. The Church was still denying that abuse was commonplace & that it knew about it & had covered it up. It argued that Canon (church) Law was superior to the law of the state. #Stand4Truth
It was also the the same period within which the Vatican asserted diplomatic immunity to block my civil action against the Pope to try force them to reveal what they knew about the priest who had raped me and dozens of other boys. #Stand4Truth
So all at same time, the Church was saying Canon Law was superior to law of the state, trying to get an agreement based upon international law that would allow it to bury records of the Irish Church , and asserting diplomatic immunity to avoid civil law proceedings #Stand4Truth
The Vatican was always quick to act to protect itself. That’s why from 1987 on every Irish diocese took out insurance policies to protect themselves against cost of litigation taken by victims of clerical sex abuse. A shame they had no interest in protecting kids #Stand4Truth
Think about that for a moment. Over a year or so, from ‘87 on every Irish diocese took out that insurance policy. A decade later they would baldly lie & tell us they didn’t know such abuse was even happening.That they, like the rest of us, were on a ‘learning curve’. #Stand4Truth
They lied. All the way from the Vatican down to local bishops. They claimed that revelations of abuse were just efforts to damage the church but anti-catholic forced and that abuse was not a significant issue within the church.
We were condemned as liars, accused of slandering bishops & the Church. And before you think that everything has changed, that @Pontifex is remarkably different, remember his first response to victims in Chile #Stand4Truth theguardian.com/world/2018/jan…
They lied. All the way from the Vatican down to local bishops. They claimed that revelations of abuse were just efforts to damage the church *by* anti-catholic *forces* and that abuse was not a significant issue within the church. #Stand4Truth
