By LIAM COLLINS
Sunday January 03 2010
Controversial singer Sinead O’Connor has said that the Pope should come to Ireland to personally apologise to the Irish people for the litany of crimes against children outlined in the Ryan and Murphy reports.
“In 1987, the Church in Ireland took out an insurance policy to protect themselves from claims they foresaw would be brought against them from survivors of clerical abuse and their families. If they knew as far back as 1987, why did they not deal with the issue then?” she said.
“In all this time and with the Ryan report and now the Murphy report, why did neither Pope John Paul II or Pope Benedict get on a plane and come to Ireland to meet the survivors, to personally apologise and thank them for their bravery in coming forward?
“It seems to me the Church themselves should have been the ones to bring this matter into the public arena,” she said. “One of the reasons I feel so passionately about these issues is that I am myself a survivor of severe child abuse.”
She said that by resigning, Catholic bishops were actually getting off the hook.
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