Must be a priest reading your comment, what other idiot would give that statement a thumbs down.

Ah TheJournal.ie readers are a bit touchy about the Catholic Church. They’re still infallible and guilty of no wrong, despite being convicted of it, according to some groups of commentators (or at least, red thumb warriors) on here so no matter what you say, nor how true or fair the comment may be, if it’s anything negative about the church it’ll get red thumb bashed by these people.

Lets just be thankful they’re part of a dying breed. 80,000 attendance down from 1 million only a few years ago recently showed that the Church is, thankfully, on its way outta here.

@Wolfgang you have a US justice system that on one hand is saying he should have blown the whistle on pedo priests and flushed his career and his beliefs down the toilet ,yet anyone who does a similar thing with US government wrongdoing is vilified .You have to ask yourself , How many of us honestly think we would give up job,home,friends and possibly family to do the right thing?.

If turning his back on children being abused is flushing his beliefs down the toilet then his beliefs are hardly christian are they?
This is not about the US system but about how, like Brady in this country, the protection of their own reputation and that of the church was put before the welfare of vulnerable children.
And like Brady’s case there is no excuse for not alerting the police.
I hope this type of case and conviction is the first of many.

@Jeff,

We’re talking about the sexual abuse of children here. I don’t know how you could live with yourself if you were a witness to such a horrific thing and refused to take action over it, frankly, and any family that ditched you for reporting such abuse isn’t worth having in the first place.

With regards to losing your job, the only organisation in the entire world that would fire people for reporting staff for sexually abusing children is the Catholic Church and I’ve no intention of ever working there. Anywhere else and you would be heralded a hero, and rightly so.

You’re defending people who witness little kids being abused and implying you couldn’t report it yourself because you think your boss would be mad. That’s absolutely brutal. Take a good look at yourself.

@jeff, that is very worrying. You must have some pretty huge skeletons in your………

All things in time…We hopefully will see this initiative in Ireland, sooner rather than later.
More’s the pity that we didn’t do it first…We certainly have the candidates! (expecting the thumbs down from the clergy an thumbs up from anyone else with a real social conscience)

Wolfgang I agree with your above comment – but lets stay sensible. This is absolute nonsense. Murderers here get LIFE irrespective of how many previous convictions they have. That punishment is mandated by statute for murder – there is no other sentence possible.

Thereafter its a matter for the Min for Justice when a person is paroled. The last I heard the average was approximately 15 years.

I’m no fan of the Church or this situation but lets stay in the real world shall we

Only 15 years for murder is way too short a sentence. Life should mean life where murder is concerned.

Methinks it must be a child using without parental permission. With no understanding of the serious nature of abuse. Have fun!

Celtic Lady; My comment was directed at yours and not you, although it might have been misconstrued. It was not meant to be offensive toward you and by your reply you seem like a very reasonable person.

The church should pack its bags and conduct as many surveys as it likes somewhere else. Such an evil organisation.

and if they pay for the poll, will the results be honestly communicated? It’s all about trust…and abuse of it..

Celtic Lady, how naive, the church conducting a poll, really! cop on.