Members of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference gathered this week in Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth, for their Autumn 2024 General Meeting.
During the gathering, Bishops discussed the Report of the Scoping Inquiry into Historical Sexual Abuse in Day and Boarding Schools Run by Religious Orders, which was published on September 3.
The damning Report said that the Scoping Inquiry, which was set up to examine historical sexual abuse in Ireland's day and boarding schools run by religious orders, heard of some 2,395 allegations of historical sexual abuse involving 884 alleged abusers in 308 schools across all parts of the country between the years 1927 to 2013.
The Irish Government has accepted the principal recommendation of the Report, which calls for the establishment of a Commission of Investigation.
Meanwhile, An Garda Síochána said last week it has been contacted more than 500 times since launching an appeal for victims to come forward after the publication of the Report.
In a statement following this week's gathering, the Irish Catholic Bishops Conference said on October 2: “The publication of the Scoping Inquiry is a further step in shining the light of truth into our collective past. It exposes once again the widespread abuse of our most vulnerable by those in whom parents had placed so much trust.
"The report is testimony to the bravery of survivors who courageously expressed their heart-breaking experience of childhood abuse and trauma, whose impact lasts a lifetime.
“The report makes for harrowing reading. The failure by individuals and institutions is a strong theme in the Scoping Inquiry. All too obvious is the absence of both a culture of child safeguarding and of general respect towards children and their families.
"Today, it is important to assure parents and students that Catholic schools have robust child safeguarding procedures, and that the Catholic education sector is fully committed to maintaining effective child safeguarding by engaging positively with the Department of Education on the development, review and improvement of these standards. In addition, all departmental school inspections include a child safeguarding review.
“While the safeguarding of children is now well established in both policy and culture across the school system and in wider Church and civil society, we cannot relent in our vigilance or in continuing to address the traumas of the past. It is an indispensable part of the renewal of the life of the Church in Ireland."
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