A Catholic priest, who for over 20 years has been a leading advocate of the rights of people sexually abused by clergy, has warned the worst is not over where the issue is concerned.
"Nothing could be further from the truth," US Dominican priest Fr Tom Doyle has said. A canon lawyer and former US air force chaplain, in 1985 he helped draft a report on clerical child sex abuse for America's Catholic bishops. He is a regular visitor to Ireland.
"It [clerical child sex abuse] may not be front-page news, but the nightmare is still going on. We are only starting to see the extent of clergy abuse in non-English speaking countries.
"We'll continue to see victims come forward because the sickness is far deeper and wider than anyone can imagine."
Speaking in an interview with Realitymagazine, he said "the hierarchy have never faced it head on and done something effective to find out why clergy sexual abuse has been so much a part of clerical culture. It's been hidden and denied, but it's there and has been for centuries."
He said the Catholic Church's monarchial structure compounded the problem
"There are no checks and balances. Bishops all report to the pope. As one cynical old monsignor once said to me: 'They're all playing to an audience of one!' That's not an effective management and in reality each bishop is basically the lord of his own kingdom and acts that way, being held accountable by no one."
He claimed that clerical child sex abuse was a bigger problem for the Catholic Church than other churches or institutions.
"Some experts have estimated the percentage [of priests who abuse] is about 4.5 per cent. Right now the average percentage is about 9 per cent. That's devastating. Can you imagine the public response if the same kind of information came out about medical schools, teachers, lawyers or even carpenters?"
He said that "by trying to keep the lid on it, it's got far worse".
"The cover-up had made it the serious problem that it is."
He believed "the obsession with power has been at the root of this terrible scourge", and that "the whole Catholic philosophy of human sexuality needs to be honestly re-examined".
Mandatory celibacy also needed to be honestly evaluated, while "popes and bishops have to stop acting like royalty and start acting like true followers of Christ".
