Whitewash in Irish Church Abuse Investigations?

An inquiry in Britain and Ireland is looking into the history of abuse experienced by young girls at the hands of the Catholic Church. According to reports, 50,000 children were interned between the 1920s and 1980s in hundreds of institutions where they were locked away, starved, beaten, sexually abused and forced to slave without pay. Hundreds are seeking compensation, but there may be efforts to suppress the whole thing.

Angelique Chrisafis writes for the Guardian:

Even the commission's former chairwoman, Ms Justice Laffoy, denounced it as "devoid" of independence. She resigned last year, complaining of delays and a lack of resources and cooperation from the government. In a recent report, she found that the department of education, which was responsible for the institutions, had not adopted a "constructive approach" to the inquiry, which it controls. She also criticised many of the Catholic orders which ran the institutions for contesting every point. Opposition politicians have called for the inquiry to be removed from the department of education, but the education minister has refused. John Kelly, of Irish Survivors of Child Abuse, which distances itself from other survivors' groups funded by the government and religious institutions, said: "Credibility in this process has long gone. The department of education has rigged the deck from day one. We always predicted it would be a whitewash. The department cannot be allowed to investigate itself."

The long delays, if they continue, will mean that many victims will be dead before the inquiry is over and so they'll never see any sort of justice. Who is being protected by delaying a report on what children suffered at the hands of Catholic clergy - priests, monks, and even nuns?

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