Catholic Church braces itself for more damning revelations

The Catholic Church is bracing itself for more revelations about its disgusting cover-ups of child abuse in Ireland.

The new report of the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation, which runs to 700 pages, will be published at the end of next week and will show that the Church failed to rein in predatory priests who were known to be abusing children.

They include 19 clerics in the Catholic hierarchy, including Cardinal Desmond Connell who last year dropped a court challenge to stop the commission getting access to 5,586 secret Church files. Seven of the bishops who served in Dublin are dead. Yesterday, Mr Justice Paul Gilligan ruled that all but one chapter of the report of the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation be published. Chapter 19 — and some 21 references to a cleric who is awaiting trial that are peppered throughout the report — will be temporarily censored in case it prejudices any criminal proceedings relating to the unnamed priest.

Up to 450 people have made abuse allegations against former priests since 1940.