Will we have to wait as long as Galileo before Rome finally relents?

LIKE most people from one of the minority faiths, I intended to maintain a discrete silence on the revelations about child rape and the surrounding cover-up documented in Judge Yvonne Murphy’s report last week, except to relate one anecdote.

This time 10 years ago I was asked on to a special extended Christmas edition of Vincent Browne’s radio show. We broadcast from a pub off Merrion Square in Dublin and there was a panel of perhaps 20 that night. Child sex abuse came up as a topic, not least because Eamonn McCann, another panellist, had just published his book, Dear God.

As usual on these occasions, I tried to avoid the host’s eye by staring at the table. A bit of me thinks, there but by the grace of God go the other denominations. But another part of me thinks the problem is systemic in the Catholic Church because priestly celibacy is unnatural.