The fact is there has been no comparable scale of abuse in non-Catholic institutions even allowing for their smaller scale.
We just don't know that this is true. Neither you nor anyone else has been able to present compelling evidence on on a very simple clarifying question about your diary -- is this an Irish problem, a social service problem, or a Catholic problem, and what's the evidence? I hope you can see that by not specifying an answer to this question in your piece or responses, you're implicitly arguing that this is primarily a Catholic problem, not an Irish one or a general problem of society or governance. So can you back up that claim with a factual comparison with non-Catholic social service agencies? I'm agnostic on this. I just want to see the evidence.
The answer to this question has no import at all on your central thesis that those who covered up and allowed these tragedies to occur should face some kind of justice and that reforms are also needed. But the answer to this question does clarify an important element about the level of trust I, as a reader of your piece, can have in your thinking as writer. Frankly, if you don't answer or at least clarify your sensitivity to this problem I have to assume you don't even recognize the problem exists and it makes your whole diary suspect.
It is therefore for you to prove that (at least in Ireland) there was no Catholic dimension to a problem which overwhelmingly manifested itself in Catholic run institutions.
No, it is your job of the writer of a diary, not me, the reader, to either clarify or back up or any implied accusations against a class of people with facts and not mere insinuation. I've informed you that your evidence doesn't support an implied thesis that this is a Catholic problem, requiring Catholic reforms, or a different problem requiring different reforms. And comments on your diary seem to have an anti-cleric or anti-Church flavor, justifying my honest questions about your piece.
Obviously you don't agree, but it's your loss as a writer if you choose to be insensitive to such issues and your readers, not mine. I'm challenging you to be a better writer on this topic, take it leave it.
If no one has, then simple honesty and respect for people requires that we clarify that we can't derive any implication about Catholic institutions or clergy as a class from this -- just that we know that a problem definitely exists in at least one major provider of social services, the Catholic Church, and that those problems must be addressed as well as looked into in all other providers of social services.
Really, it reminds me of the health care debate line taken by Boehner, or the climate debate lines taken by the warming deniers.
"Prove it, beyond a reasonable doubt!"
Yeah, right. The threat from the admins in the Church was excommunication for bringing in the secular authorities.
I'm quite willing to the the church versus society in this line of secrecy at all costs. Just makes sense.
So call me a hater. To me, it's fish in the milk. Align culture with our nature.
