Sir, – It is both heartbreaking and almost impossible to imagine the suffering endured by the victims of abuse in schools at the hands of the very people who should have been protecting them.
Going to school every day, dreading what they were facing is horrific, feeling shame through no fault of their own, and knowing that their parents would not believe that those in authority could be capable of inflicting such torture.
It is right that compensation should be made, but no amount of money can ever make up for lives that were ruined and are still affected by the past.
Surely such atrocities can never occur again and perhaps the victims will derive some comfort and consolation from the sympathy and understanding now offered to them. – Yours, etc,
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MARGARET BUTLER,
Booterstown,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – Institutional child sexual abuse, homophobia, misogyny, cover-ups, obfuscation, legal foot-dragging over compensation to victims, and corporate moral cowardice are leading to the disintegration of the Catholic Church. The significant drop in Mass attendances over one generation is evidence of this.
The present institution appears to be beyond reformation. Either way, its religious congregations should no longer be in receipt of State funding for the provision of educational or healthcare services.
I say this as a Catholic. – Yours, etc,
CHRIS FITZPATRICK,
Dublin 6.
Sir, – Have we forgotten what Jesus recommended for those who would corrupt children? – Yours, etc,
PADDY McEVOY,
March,
Cambridgeshire, UK.