Church of one billion is a victim of mob mentality

DESPITE the grossly unjust generalisations being made by some in response to the Ryan report, it is crazy to speak of the Catholic church as a corporate entity being responsible for these outrages.

There was no comparable systemic abuse in other non-English speaking parts of the church, so why should all Catholics be tarnished with the one brush? There was much less abuse over the same period in Northern Ireland where the institutions were properly regulated by the state.

Half of the church speaks Spanish and even in Spain under Franco, with the unhealthily close relationship between church and state, there was nothing comparable to what happened in Ireland, Britain, the US, Canada, Australia, or even South Africa, all heavily Irish-influenced parts of the worldwide Catholic church. The only connection between a hermit in the Egyptian desert and an Iraqi deacon or a Carthusian monk in the Alps and a missionary nun in a Peruvian forest is that they believe the same doctrines.