Radical action needed to restore credibility

It is natural to disbelieve damning allegations made against an institution you are, more or less from the cradle, encouraged to trust and support. 

That cultural shaping is generally positive but, in recent decades, the danger of blindly accepting the credibility of establishment institutions has had disastrous consequences for society.

The exposure of criminal behaviour in the Catholic Church, and that Church’s “moral reservation” lies to try to protect paedophiles, destroyed that institution’s credibility and pushed it from the centre of Irish life. Whether it can regain the moral authority it once enjoyed is an open question.