So sorry to interrupt the group hate here, but let’s get some things straight.

1) He did not brush off the report. He only sought to put some of the hysteria in perspective, pointing out that the Reuters report was sensational. When did Reuters suddenly become so free of bias? He is concerned that the report demeans the real suffering went through by those who were raped by comparing it to getting a slap.

2) He obviously didn’t say it all happened in the 1970s. I mean, not only is that taken out of context, but it wasn’t even what he said, which was that 82% of the incidents took place before 1970. And he said that in relation to the allegations of physical abuse and lack of emotional attachment; because corporal punishment was more common back then and the ‘touchy-feely’ revolution hadn’t taken over parenting. That doesn’t excuse the physical abuse, it puts it in perspective; it happened in a different era with different social values. It also means the vast majority of the wrongdoing stopped happening almost four decades ago.

3) Nor does he say the abused deserved it. He pointed out corporal punishment was more frequent, especially when dealing with what we’d call juvenile delinquents.

4) Nor does he say all those abused were delinquents.

5) He also points out that only 1 in 8 offenders were Priests, so the Reuters headline is again misleading.

6) He correctly points out that the article throws in the numbers of all those not sexually assaulted while throwing around the term abuse - which creates the impression of the abuse being much more wide spread than it is.

Finally -
#15 You are reading it wrong. 30k kids passed through. The number of incidents is only a fraction of that. I’m not sure if the 12% is out of all the incidents or just the sexual-related ones, but it certainly isn’t out of 30k kids.

To those claiming ‘slapping’ is abuse - do you report parents you see spanking their children to child protection services? Sheesh.

To finish, these abuse are of course disgusting. Those responsible must be punished. But I wrote this so that the truth of the matter would come out, and that these real evils done would not be overshadowed by fantastic (as in fantasy) allegations about the level of abuses.

Oh - one final thing. It is the Irish government, not the Church (who’s clergy are saying the guilty should be punished before the law), that is refusing to prosecute these crimes.

CR