FATHER CUSHEN’S kitchen countertops can hardly be seen for the array of cards covering them.

IRISH survivors of clerical sex abuse have been invited to travel to the Vatican on October 31 to demand change from the Roman Catholic Church.

ONE of Ireland’s best-known clerical abuse victims has described Pope Benedict’s planned legal defence against a US lawsuit as “perverse”.

THE Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Most Rev Diarmuid Martin has, for some time now, been preparing us for the report of the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation into clerical sex abuse.

CHILD abuse claims have cost the Diocese of Ferns more than €8 million, the bishop of the diocese, Dr Denis Brennan, has confirmed.

BECAUSE I am not a Catholic, I was reluctant to wade into the Bishop Magee controversy. The Ferns diocese in Co Wexford went through a decade of turmoil, which Cloyne is now experiencing. We discovered more than 100 individual allegations of clerical sexual abuse between 1962 and 2002. These involved 21 priests.

ANYONE who saw the RTÉ programme on Monday night that revealed how our overstretched childcare services can’t protect vulnerable children must be concerned that we learnt nothing from the appalling tragedies lurking in our past.

MOST families will know of the great emotional and practical challenges involved in offering the endless support needed by a son or a daughter, a brother or a sister or even a neighbour’s child, born with intellectual difficulties.

THE moment of truth is approaching in the North. On past performance one might be hard pressed to believe Ian Paisley is finally going to say ‘yes’.

A LEADING support group for victims of child sex abuse has dismissed the Catholic Church’s new child protection guidelines as a “giant step backwards”.

PERPLEXING paradoxes underlie Vatican guidelines reaffirming the ban on active homosexuals and “supporters of gay culture” becoming priests.

Ireland is the most media-saturated country in the world. But that saturation doesn’t supply variety. For example, radio, on the afternoon the Ferns Report came out, offered an infinity of choices but no alternative. If you went for talk radio, you got a bucketful of Ferns, no matter where you went on the dial.

IN the context of what happened in Wexford, it may be significant that Fr Seán Fortune ended his suicide note thus: “After my death, I know that I will be reunited with my father and mother in heaven.”

POLITICIANS in Wexford have been criticised for failing to voice support for victims of cleric abuse in the diocese of Ferns during a decade of public disquiet about the controversy.

ANYONE who fails to act when they believe children are at risk of sexual abuse will face criminal prosecution under laws to be introduced by the Government.

A SUICIDE note left by Fr Sean Fortune was never disclosed to the Garda and instead destroyed by a priest who feared it was a deliberate attempt to destroy Bishop Brendan Comiskey.

THE Gardaí responded in a “wholly unsatisfactory” manner to one of the most infamous clerical child abuse cases in the Diocese of Ferns, the Inquiry report has stated.

THE Ferns Inquiry identified more than 100 allegations of abuse by 21 priests over a 40-year period beginning in 1962.

THE Ferns Inquiry report is the first report of its kind in Ireland, following the first completed investigation by the State into how a church body conducted its affairs.

The damning report on sexual abuse of young people by priests in the diocese of Ferns is a scathing indictment of failure by the Catholic Church on both a national and international level to prevent the predatory activities of paedophile priests.

The Ferns Inquiry has cast a dark shadow over the seminary which produced almost all of the priests involved in cases of child sexual abuse in the diocese.

The diocese of Ferns is expected to emerge today as one of the worst in the world for clerical child abuse.

SPECULATION about the content of the imminent report into clerical sexual abuse in Wexford is not just inaccurate, it is also unhelpful, according to one of the support groups for victims involved in the probe.

IRISH swimming is facing a fresh crisis following allegations of child sex abuse at a pool used by one of the country’s most successful local clubs.

A mother who was celebrating the christening of her baby son in a Bray pub has claimed the accused used abusive language towards the deceased man, hours before he was fatally stabbed, the Central Criminal Court has heard.

THE Irish Conference of Priests has welcomed the dismissal by the Pope of two members of the clergy convicted of sexual abuse.

THE Government has been urged to implement a national strategy to respond to sexual violence on the basis that up to 750,000 men and women have still not reported or sought support for their experiences of sex abuse as children.

KEY witnesses in an inquiry into clerical sexual abuse in Wexford says the bishop who managed the diocese at the time should not be made a scapegoat in the ongoing State probe.

Seán McCárthaigh

FORMER Bishop of Ferns, Dr Brendan Comiskey, who resigned over his handling of sex abuse allegations against the late Fr Sean Fortune, is expected to give evidence to the inquiry into sex abuse in the diocese later this month.

AN INQUIRY into clerical sexual abuse in a Wexford diocese will take more than a year, with an interim report most likely to be published in March, its secretary has estimated.

ANYBODY watching Questions and Answers on Monday night would be left in no doubt that the attitude of the public to abuse claims relating to orphanages and industrial schools is changing.

A HOUSE bought by the Diocese of Ferns for former Bishop Brendan Comiskey has been sold.

AN inquiry into clerical sexual abuse in a Wexford diocese is to begin

A Catholic priest at the centre of a major sex abuse compensation payout in Ireland has fled to Brazil, it was claimed tonight.

TWO brothers who alleged that a priest sexually abused them when they were altar boys are taking a civil action against him and possibly the Diocese of Ferns.

AN inquiry into clerical sexual abuse in the Diocese of Ferns is finally up and running – over 15 months after it was promised.

CLERICAL sex abuse victims were angered by weekend claims that a diocese rocked by scandals has dealt with cases “expeditiously and well.”

Priests and church volunteers in the Diocese of Ferns are being told to avoid contact with children while not in public view.

FRESH complaints of child sex abuse have emerged against a now deceased Catholic priest of the Diocese of Ferns.

CLERICAL sexual abuse victim Colm O’Gorman was finally vindicated yesterday.

Five years after initiating a High Court action against the Diocese of Ferns, and 30 years after suffering sexual abuse at the hands of a priest, Colm O’Gorman yesterday received justice.