The inquiry found that there were 2,395 allegations of abuse against 884 alleged abusers.
Almost a quarter of the allegations involved 17 schools, which catered for children with special needs.
The publication of the report will inevitably prompt more people to come forward to tell their stories publicly.
The Inquiry noted that, based on figures from the 2022 Central Statistics Office Sexual Violence Survey, there are “significant levels of underreporting of childhood sexual violence, particularly among men.”
This suggests that the numbers recorded in the scoping inquiry represent just the tip of the iceberg of the incidences of abuse in schools.
The announcement that the government is to establish a Commission of Investigation into sexual abuse in religious-run schools is to be welcomed, but it should be broadened to include all schools.
Then, for the past few weeks on Liveline, we listened to testimonies of physical abuse inflicted on pupils in national and secondary schools throughout the country before corporal punishment was outlawed in 1982.
I was sickened as I listened to the tales of barbaric cruelty and terror inflicted on innocent young lives. I shed a tear as I listened to my own brother share his experience one afternoon on Joe Duffy.
Feelings of shame and disgust surfaced from deep inside me: shame of how pervasive the finding that members of the institution, founded to proclaim the Gospel message of mercy and love, could behave in such an inhumane and utterly unchristian manner and be unaccountable for their actions for generations.
However, the predominant emotion I experienced was one of outrage: I was outraged to read about another litany of abuse by priests and religious but more so by the persistent failure by Church authorities to address the root causes of the degradation of minors and vulnerable adults, the structural fissures that facilitate such egregious behaviour by clergy.
There are many such factors but I am particularly exercised by one issue, the poor formation offered to novices and seminarians. (I focus on seminarians here, conscious that the report includes schools run by all priests and religious).
The Church will pay out millions in redress schemes to victims of abuse (as it is morally obliged to do so). Yet there is little evidence that the institution will invest in specific training programmes for those responsible for formation in the seminaries.
While there is a focus on being academically well qualified and knowledgeable in relation to spiritual development, so much more is needed when it comes to human formation.
Indeed Pope Francis has called for formation programmes with emphasis on the personal formation of priests, human development being the foundation of priestly formation, strengthened by spiritual formation so as to be in union with God and in search of Christ.
Mandatory celibacy is required of all priests today. The full implications of such a lifestyle and the level of psychosexual maturity required to embrace such a lifestyle in a healthy and integrated manner have rarely been acknowledged.
Neither is the fact that an institution that controls a person’s expression of sexuality also, to a certain extent, controls the spirit and soul of the person. Such control can seriously impair emotional development, resulting in a very challenging journey to become an integrated, whole person.
Most abusing priests are diagnosed as living out a narcissistic syndrome characterised by a failure to progress beyond an adolescent level of emotional maturity. They are incapable of fulfilling intimacy needs in a healthy integrated way: i.e. by growing in self-awareness and risking honest self-disclosure in the hearing of a trusted friend. The propensity of such individuals to seek out unhealthy, abusive expressions of one’s sexuality is enormous.
There is little evidence to suggest that open discussion of human sexuality is ever really encouraged in seminaries. But efforts to live the celibate life devoid of sexual expression must be supported by honest, informed dialogue. Otherwise the years ahead for newly ordained priests are fraught with danger as evidenced in the multiple reports on the abuse scandals in the Church.
Part of the problem stems from the ambivalence of the Church in relation to the goodness of sexuality. The late Dr Donald Cozzens, theologian, pointed out that a Church, which is suspicious of the value and goodness of human sexuality, demands exceptional emotional and psycho sexual maturity of its candidates; otherwise seminarians will just ignore their sexual energies and repress them.
He argues that this could very well dispose a young priest to very destructive expressions of sexuality in later life.
Church leaders must also, in an open and honest manner, explore the link between celibacy and abusive behaviour of clerics (whether sexual or physical) and acknowledge that perhaps not all priests are called to embrace a celibate lifestyle.
So, it should be abundantly clear, that those responsible for human formation of priests should have high-level professional training in all aspects of psychosexual development. Such training will require significant investment. But surely we owe it to parishioners that all our priests can engage with them and serve them in a healthy manner.