From the late 1980s, allegations of sexual abuse of children associated with Catholic institutions and clerics in several countries started to be the subject of sporadic, isolated reports.
In Ireland, beginning in the 1990s, a series of criminal cases and Irish government enquiries established that hundreds of priests had abused thousands of children over decades.
[8] The Church forbade its members (the "faithful") to use artificial contraception, campaigned strongly against laws allowing abortion and divorce, and publicly disapproved of unmarried cohabiting couples and illegitimacy.
In 1984, a group of seminarians in the 'senior division' of St Patrick's Seminary, Maynooth, expressed their concerns to the senior dean regarding the inappropriate behaviour of Micheál Ledwith, then vice-president of the college, towards younger students.
The commission found that Catholic priests and nuns had terrorised thousands of boys and girls for decades and that government inspectors had failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation.
In 2005 the Church published an Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders.
In 2008 the Health Service Executive had required a child safety audit which the Bishops felt unable to co-operate with for legal reasons, and in 2009 they asked the NBSC to perform this role.
In its report of 2010–March 2011 the NBSC complained that it had also been denied the same information, also for legal reasons, and that Church funding for its training programmes in child protection had ended in 2009.
On 1 April 2002, Brendan Comiskey, Bishop of Ferns, resigned over charges that he had failed to deal adequately with allegations that Fortune and others were sexually abusing children.
Ireland's national police force announced that they would study the report to see if it provided any new evidence for prosecuting clerics for assault, rape or other criminal offences.
The bishops spent a major portion of their 8–10 June meeting discussing a report from the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, published 20 May under chairman Sean Ryan.
In a joint statement, the bishops said that, "the Ryan report represents the most recent disturbing indictment of a culture that was prevalent in the Catholic Church in Ireland for far too long.
Heinous crimes were perpetrated against the most innocent and vulnerable, and vile acts with life-lasting effects were carried out under the guise of the mission of Jesus Christ.
"[37] Cardinal Seán Brady expressed remorse on behalf of the church and the religious saying "we are ashamed, humbled and repentant that our people strayed so far from their Christian ideals, for this we ask forgiveness."
"[38][39] In December 2010, Archdiocese of Dublin "singing priest" Tony Walsh was sentenced to 123 years in prison for 14 child abuse convictions involving sex-related offences dating from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s.
In November 2009, an independent report[43] commissioned by the Irish government investigated the way in which the church dealt with allegations of sexual abuse of children by priests over the period 1975 to 2004.
It concluded that "the Dublin Archdiocese's pre-occupations 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.
He admitted indecently assaulting an adolescent boy during the years 1988 and 1989, while he was a boarding school chaplain at St. Jarlath's College, Tuam and was given a four-year prison sentence.
[42] An eight-year (1999–2007) enquiry and report by Dr. Elizabeth Healy and Dr. Kevin McCoy into the Brothers of Charity Congregation's "Holy Family School" in Galway, the major city of the archdiocese, and two other locations was made public in December 2007.
A review[44] that was published on 30 November 2011, into the handling of clerical child sex abuse allegations in the Diocese of Tuam has praised Archbishop Neary for his actions.
The report said it is clear from the "excellent records" that a genuine effort was made to gather evidence from victims and their families during the Church inquiry stage and such "thoroughness is to be commended".
It is to his credit that in spite of opposition, Archbishop Neary has maintained his authority and kept some men out of ministry where there is evidence to suggest that they should be viewed as dangerous and should not have access to young people."
"[45] In 2008, bishop John Magee found himself at the centre of a controversy surrounding his mishandling of child sex abuse cases in the diocese of Cloyne.
On 7 March 2009 Pope Benedict XVI appointed Archbishop Dermot Clifford of Cashel and Emly as apostolic administrator of the Cloyne diocese, though Magee remains Bishop in title.
[57] As well as the diocesan clergy, a number of Irish members of Roman Catholic religious institutes have been named in criminal prosecutions for abuse; some were tried outside Ireland.
Kevin Reynolds, fathering a child, was baseless, and this has caused a political scandal in Ireland since the national television network aired the allegations without arranging a DNA test.
[67] Alan Shatter, the Irish Minister for Justice and Equality, commented about the RTÉ programme that he had "a sense of revulsion at the unspeakable catalogue of abuse against children.
[78] Survivors of Child Abuse coordinator John Kelly said in a statement, "This letter is a possible step to closure and we owe it to ourselves to study it and to give it a measured response.
Liam O'Brien, parish priest at Currow, in Killarney, County Kerry, was subjected to claims of sexual abuse for more than four years starting in December 2008.
In May 2013, his accuser, Eileen Culloty, a woman in his parish who had stalked and harassed the priest, even disrupting a funeral service he was conducting in 2011, apologised unreservedly in a letter read to the High Court.