Overview

Finally the lid is lifted on how a group of priests in Wexford were able to abuse children over a thirty-year period. Boys and girls were molested, raped, stripped of innocence and left devastated. Inept supervision by bishops, botched police investigations, weak sentences, and a philosophy of hear no evil, see no evil, allowed priests to sexually abuse at will. Fr Sean Fortune's suicide in 1999 set in train events in Ireland that led to the first voluntary resignation by a bishop in the Catholic Church in Western Europe, and precipitated the first State investigation of clerical abuse. The Ferns Report, which documented hundreds of allegations of abuse since 1966 against twenty-one priests of the Diocese of Ferns, sent shockwaves around the world. Eventually, a few good men said 'enough is enough'. This is a searing indictment of the Catholic Church and the society that spawned and protected the abusers.

Full Product Details

9781848890992

Table of Contents

Reviews

'Tom Mooney brilliantly weaves together a compelling narrative of how the powerful in society colluded and stood idly by as the weakest were being abused. The implications of this inactivity are profound. Many children suffered needlessly. Joe Duffy, Irish Mail on Sunday 'Possibly the most chilling non fiction read since Alison O'Connor's A Message from Heaven - .read it and weep. Hot Press 'Meticulous and insightful' Evening Echo

'Tom Mooney brilliantly weaves together a compelling narrative of how the powerful in society colluded and stood idly by as the weakest were being abused. The implications of this inactivity are profound. Many children suffered needlessly. Joe Duffy, Irish Mail on Sunday 'Possibly the most chilling non fiction read since Alison O'Connor's A Message from Heaven - .read it and weep. Hot Press

Author Information

Tom Mooney is editor of the The Wexford Echo group of newspapers, newspapers at the heart of the Diocese of Ferns. He has reported on the clerical abuse scandal in Ferns since 1990 and was one of two journalists to report the first ever trial of a priest in Ireland charged with sexual assault. A journalist since 1988, he has won a Law Society Media Justice Award and an Amnesty International Media award.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available