Innocent religious should not be victims of a rush to judgement

PEOPLE may have felt a sense of betrayal over the disclosure that Bishop Eamon Casey had fathered a son, but in the last analysis it was their own sense of innocence that was exposed.

He ultimately became the victim of a system that preyed on ignorance for far too long.

For generations Irish people shirked their responsibility to inform their own consciences and think for themselves, preferring instead to follow blindly the dictates of the clergy and hierarchy. It was as if the concept of infallibility was invested in the Irish Catholic Church.