Cover-up culture goes beyond the Irish Church

A LAST attempt by an ecclesiastical dinosaur to block full accountability by the Catholic Church on sex abuse cases was abandoned yesterday, but it would be premature to think that a new era is beginning.

The decision by Cardinal Desmond Connell, the retired archbishop of Dublin, not to proceed with his High Court challenge does not signal a massive change of heart by a Church very much on the defensive.

The scandal of evasion and cover-up over sex abuse by clerics goes far beyond the archdiocese of Dublin and the Irish Church. The full story may never come out, here or elsewhere.