I resent suggestion that I or other abuse victims are out for revenge

I WISH to respond to Vincent Lavery’s letter (December 7) in which he said my comment that “nothing has changed” since the publication of the Murphy report was “ridiculous beyond belief”.

If Mr Lavery had read my comments he would know that they referenced the reaction of the Catholic Church leadership. I found that we got yet more apologies — “for the umpteenth time”, to quote Mr Lavery — for the actions of the abusers, etc, but not one leader stood up and addressed the key finding of the report (1.15) in relation to the leadership of the Dublin archdiocese:

“The Dublin archdiocese’s preoccupations in dealing with cases of child sexual abuse, at least until the mid 1990s, were the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the church and the preservation of its assets. All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities. The archdiocese did not implement its own canon law rules and did its best to avoid any application of the law of the state.”