Pope Benedict letter to Ireland fails to ease anger over abuse scandal

At the time, David Quinn, Director of the Iona Institute, a right-wing religious group, noted that the poll was conducted just after the release of a government commissioned report into the abuse of children in state institutions from 1936 onwards. Popularly known as the Ryan Report after its chairman, Justice Sean Ryan, it detailed what went on behind closed doors in religious and state institutions in Ireland over a period of sixty years. “It seems,” Quinn commented, “this has had no negative effect whatever on church attendance.”

Now in her 60s, Lily Christie has been a mass-goer all her life. She is horrified by the abuse in the first instance, and the drip-feed of revelations about the extent of the cover up. But none of this has impacted her faith. “They’re just people that belong to the same church as I do. Unfortunately they enforce the laws, but they don’t have anything to do with my conscious contact with God, who’s my higher power… I will always have that conscious contact.”

But not everyone is capable of that detachment. Brian Finnegan, editor of Dublin-based Gay Community News, says that when the Murphy Report came out late last year, he felt he had to act.

This report investigated the rape and molestation of 320 children by 46 priests in the Dublin Archdiocese. Though baptized a Catholic, Finnegan had not practiced this faith in his adult life.

“I just thought well, I don’t want to be a statistic for the Catholic Church," says Finnegan. "I’ve long been disillusioned with the church because of my sexuality, and when the Murphy Report came out, it just hammered home to me the level of power they hold and that they were unwilling to relinquish. One voice is only a small voice, but I believe that you should use it.”

He signed up with countmeout.ie – a web resource for people who wish to officially leave the Roman Catholic Church. Once provided with personal details, the site generates the documentation required to carry out an official "declaration of defection" from the church.

The 'second reformation'?

Freda Donoghue, who said she was abused by Smyth in County Cavan as a girl, finally went to the Irish police in 1993. Her testimony, together with that of her sister and her two first cousins, all of whom were abused by Smyth, led to his conviction on twenty charges of child abuse. He was sentenced to twelve years and died a month into his sentence.

“I’m not a Catholic anymore.” says Donoghue. “Obviously I was baptized as one, but as far as I’m concerned I’m not one. The church obviously needs to be completely overhauled. I heard someone say that this is like the reformation and it is; it’s the second reformation. And I really do feel sorry for priests who are trying to do something from within, because they really do believe and I wouldn’t say anything against anybody’s faith.”

“You remember that rhyme, when we were kids? Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors and here are the people. You’d use your hands, and your fingers were the people. That’s what the church has forgotten," says Donoghue. "It has done everything it can to protect the institution. Now it needs to start protecting the people.”

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