Wake up, Ireland, and smell the corruption. But before you inhale, answer me a riddle.First think of the priests who've listened to your woes, buried your dead and comforted the bereaved.
Think of the nuns who taught your children or spent their lives in exile on behalf of the poor.
Think of your joy at baptisms, first communions, weddings, parish ordinations.
Now to the riddle: How could so much good co-exist for decades with so much evil? You assumed senior prelates put you and your children's welfare top of their list. You were wrong. In your worst nightmares you never dreamed they would do what Jesus hated most, cast your pearls before their swine. Was this why the awful stench didn't get to you earlier? 
I smelled this deadly odour in 1968 when Paul VI insisted his ban on contraception was constant Catholic teaching. I knew this was a lie.
He praised the safe-period which most popes before him condemned. He demanded complete obedience though his entire commission, including the most right wing, said his views had no basis in scripture or natural law.
Power
A few cardinals, among them the future John Paul II, warned Paul VI that to permit contraception would lead to the loss of papal power.
People would conclude that what his predecessors labelled mortal sin is the right way to act during, say, a population explosion.
This would suggest popes were wrong when the likes of Marie Stopes and the Anglican Church, which approved contraception, knew more about morals than the Vicar of Christ. Paul VI was won over.
He opted not for truth or the general good but for absolute papal power. I resigned the priesthood in protest.
Absolute power creates monsters. It corrupts all who wield it, especially the "holy".
Today, Benedict XVI prefers millions of Aids victims to die rather than use condoms because he, like Paul VI, fears to lose his power.
A case of deja vu.
Bishops protected priest paedophiles. Only they had the power to manipulate senior cops who dared not question them on moral matters. Their abuse of power led to widespread sex abuse and child rape. Their chief aim was to safeguard not truth, certainly not children, but their power.
They lied to the Gardai, to parents and victims, to insurance companies and to themselves. They pretended not to know that making children sex slaves is a crime and covering it up is another.
Modern Herods, they slaughtered holy innocents to protect their thrones.
For decades Catholic Ireland was ruled by moral decadents chosen by power-hungry popes.
The stink hanging over your land is the blight of absolute power.
Its cause was the readiness of your chief shepherds to lay down their sheep for their lives.
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