Quotes and news

A 2,600-page report documented the physical and sexual abuse that was endemic in Irish institutions for boys run by religious between 1940 and the late 1970s. The report of the Commission to enquire into child abuse said children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from.

In addition to being hit and beaten, witnesses described other forms of abuse such as being flogged, kicked and otherwise physically assaulted, scalded, burned and held under water. Witnesses reported being beaten in front of other staff, residents, patients and pupils as well as in private.

The commission of inquiry, established in 2000, was chaired by High Court Justice Sean Ryan.

Cardinal expresses sorrow

Cardinal Sean Brady of Armagh, Northern Ireland, president of the Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference said that "The publication of this comprehensive report and analysis is a welcome and important step in establishing the truth, giving justice to victims and ensuring such abuse does not happen again.

"This report makes it clear that great wrong and hurt were caused to some of the most vulnerable children in our society. It documents a shameful catalogue of cruelty - neglect, physical, sexual and emotional abuse - perpetrated against children.

"I am profoundly sorry and deeply ashamed that children suffered in such awful ways in these institutions," Cardinal Brady said. "Children deserved better, and especially from those caring for them in the name of Jesus Christ."

'Barbarism' in embryo research

Bishop Marc Aillet of Bayonne, France, has warned that the government sponsorship of embryonic stem-cell research is a move toward "barbarism". Such research, he said, is prompted by the "temptation for man to set himself up as the master of life over his fellow men".

Ordination of married men

Bishop Karl Golser was recently quoted in Tiroler Sonntag, the Church newspaper of the Innsbruck diocese, as saying that regional bishops' conferences should have the right to allow the ordination of married men into the priesthood.

Mgr Golser said: "The question of ordaining proven married men whose marriages have proved stable and who are respected in their communities will therefore come up more and more often."

Religion should be respected

Speaking at the inauguration of an inter-religious effort to promote the role of faith in public life, Cardinal George Pell of Sydney, Australia, said that some political leaders treat religious manifestations as "organised eccentricities" to be tolerated but not taken seriously. "This is more akin to a narrow concept of toleration for strange or suspect minorities than to religious freedom, properly understood," the Australian cardinal said.

(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)