The history of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland is a tale of scandal after scandal. The stories of abuse of young women in the Magdalene Laundries, the more recent stories of child abuse, neglect and death in homes for the children of unmarried mothers - there's been growing outrage in a country where Church and State have been joined at the hip for decades. The BBC's story on the results of a government inquiry are an indictment of the continuing failure of the Irish Government to hold the Church accountable, and the total refusal by the Church to atone in any meaningful way for the crimes that have been committed. Demanding justice for women and children abused by Irish nuns by Sue Lloyd Roberts is an unsettling story. Warning: there are some very graphic stories in the account.
More below the Orange Omnilepticon.
These paragraphs from the BBC report give an idea of how great is the government's failure to come to terms with the crimes committed over decades:
It was not until Coppin and others went to the United Nations Committee Against Torture (UNCAT), which in turn put pressure on the Irish government to investigate, that Senator Martin McAleese, a former member of the Irish Senate and a devout Roman Catholic, was asked to head an inquiry into what exactly had happened behind the convent walls.
Survivors were astounded to read in his report that "ill treatment, physical punishment and abuse… was not something experienced in the Magdalene laundries".
The government has now called another inquiry into what happened at another church-run institution, the Mother and Baby homes for unmarried mothers, after it was revealed earlier this year that nearly 800 young children had been buried in unmarked graves from 1925-1961 at a convent in the west of Ireland. Some remains were found in a concrete tank.
So the Magdalene laundry survivors are asking for this latest inquiry to have a wide remit, and to investigate the laundries again.
"I would love them to get to the real truth, but they won't," says Coppin. "They won't inquire properly because I know what the government are like."
There are several accounts in the article from those who survived. They are brutal.
One of the nastier aspects of the story is the financial side of the abuses by the Catholic Church, which was effectively running slave labor prisons for decades.
The Irish Examiner newspaper, which has investigated the finances of the religious orders involved in running the laundries, says they owned assets in 2012 of 1.5bn euros ($1.9bn, £1.2bn).
The wealth of the nuns is a running sore, not only with the survivors who feel they have been so unfairly exploited, but increasingly with the Irish taxpayer. Despite the shortcomings of the McAleese report, the government has apologised for the suffering of the women and appointed much-respected Judge John Quirke to implement a compensation scheme. He has won favour with the survivors who say that at least he listens to them.
The final bill for compensation is likely to exceed 150m euros ($190m, £120m) and yet the religious orders have refused to contribute. I asked the Deputy Prime Minister, Joan Burton, why the government was not putting pressure on the nuns to pay up.
"There is a conversation ongoing with the religious orders to make contributions appropriate to the total amount of money that has been spent by the state," she said. So she will be putting on pressure? "That's a continuing conversation, yes."
The BBC will be airing a show about the abuses September 27 and 28:
Ireland's Hidden Bodies, Hidden Secrets.
It remains to be seen whether Pope Francis will respond to the revelations; his predecessor is widely considered to have been more interested in preserving the authority of the Church than in dealing with the abuses committed in its name. There are indications Vatican policy under Francis may be changing, as this NPR report by Scott Neuman relates: Vatican Arrests Defrocked Archbishop On Sex Charges.
Religion News says: "The 66-year-old envoy is the highest-ranking Vatican official to be investigated for sex abuse. He was found guilty after an inquiry conducted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which oversees all clergy sex abuse cases in the Roman Catholic Church."
However, Wesolowski is now "awaiting trial on criminal charges at the Vatican and could eventually face charges in the Dominican Republic and in his native Poland," Religion News says.
Charles P. Pierce over at Esquire has been keeping an eye on Francis as well. He observes
the Pope is shaking up the hierarchy, and
getting serious about it.
Justice for the victims of the Church in Ireland has yet to be done; Pope Francis appears to be a person who might be determined enough to make it happen.