FaithWorld

A report released on Wednesday said children suffered decades of abuse at institutions in Ireland run by Catholic orders.

The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse issued a 2,500-page report which said children had been the victims of sexual, emotional and physical abuse at orphanages and industrial schools now closed during a 60 year period.

The report found after a nine-year investigation that: ”Physical and emotional abuse and neglect were features of the institutions. Sexual abuse occurred in many of them, particularly boys’ institutions. Schools were run in a severe, regimented manner that imposed unreasonable and oppressive discipline on children and even on staff. ”

Here is a link to our story. The full text of the report can be found here.

The Catholic Church in Ireland is already a shadow of its former mighty self. Do you think this report will hurt it even further? Or has its reputation been so battered that more reports of abuse might not deliver the same shock they used to?

Discussions between the British premier and monarch to reverse religious discriminatory laws going back 300 years have sparked consternation in a conservative newspaper while attracting little response from the Roman Catholic church.

Proposed changes of the 1701 Act of Settlement would allow a future king or queen to marry a Roman Catholic, but would still preclude a royal of that faith becoming monarch.

It would also give female heirs an equal claim to the throne.

Nevertheless, Steve Doughty writing an analysis piece in the Daily Mail suggested it was an attack on Britain's constitution, heralding the end of the monarchy as we know it and the Church of England.