He then accepted the resignation of Bishop John Magee, an aide to three popes before being assigned to Ireland, who was found to have mishandled allegations of clerical sex abuse in his County Cork diocese. With the Church still reeling from the reports' findings, a fresh scandal erupted in March 2010 when it emerged the head of the Irish Catholic Church, Cardinal Sean Brady, was present at meetings in 1975 where children signed vows of silence over complaints against a paedophile priest, Fr Brendan Smyth.Ĭardinal Brady resisted calls to resign but issued an apology for mishandling the matter.Ī few days later, on 20 March, Pope Benedict XVI apologised to victims of child sex abuse by Catholic priests in Ireland. Six months earlier, another report - the result of a nine-year investigation - documented some six decades of physical, sexual and emotional abuse at residential institutions run by 18 religious orders. The Pope accepted two but told the other two he wanted them to continue.
In the wake of the report, all Irish bishops were summoned to the Vatican to give an account of themselves in person before the Pope.įour bishops, named in the report, handed in their resignations. The Dublin archdiocese, it said, operated in a culture of concealment, placing the integrity of its institutions above the welfare of the children in its care. In one, four Dublin archbishops were found to have effectively turned a blind eye to cases of abuse from 1975 to 2004. Two major reports into allegations of paedophilia among Irish clergy last year revealed the shocking extent of abuse, cover-ups and hierarchical failings involving thousands of victims, and stretching back decades. The Church pledged to set up a victims' support centre in a first attempt to rebuild public trust, and to co-operate more with the police. However, he found no indication that the Church had systematically sought to cover up cases. The abuse was found in nearly every diocese, and 13 alleged victims had committed suicide, he said. In September 2010 the head of the commission released harrowing details of some 300 cases of alleged sexual abuse by Belgian clergy. Police controversially raided the commission and Church offices, suspecting some evidence was being covered up - but this move was ruled illegal by a Belgian court. The scandal drew in the former head of the Catholic Church in Belgium, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, who had advised the victim in April not to go public with his story until Vangheluwe had retired in 2011.Īfter the Vangheluwe case came to light, a commission set up to investigate the extent of abuse in the Belgian Church received a flood of calls. The bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, resigned in April 2010 after admitting that he had sexually abused a boy for years when he was a priest and after being made a bishop.