**Advisory: Article contains graphic details**
The Murphy report into the rape and molestation of 320 children by 46 priests in the Dublin Archdiocese has found the Church and a former Garda Commissioner covered up abuse.
The 700 page report has just been published, it finds 4 Archbishops in Dublin did little or nothing to protect children from paedophile priests.
The Government has just published the report into the handling of clerical child sex abuse in the Dublin Diocese.
The 700 page “Murphy” report details 320 children’s allegations of rape, molestation and sexual assaults against a representative sample of 46 priests between 1975 and 2004.
The reports contents are shocking – it reveals Gardai did not investigate child rape and says the goal of the church was to cover up.
The commission finds one priest raped or molested more than 100 children while another admitted abusing children every two weeks for more than 25 years.
One of the most shocking allegations is that former Garda Commissioner Daniel Costigan was contacted by Scotland Yard in the UK in 1960 and told that the Chaplin of Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children had sent photographs of children in sexual positions to the UK to be developed.
The Commission finds that the photographs disappeared after being given to the Gardai and Commissioner Costigan didn’t launch an investigation into allegations of molestation. Instead he held a meeting with then Archbishop, John Charles McQuaid, and allowed the church to investigate alone. Archbishop McQuaid concluded no crime had been committed.
The report concludes that there was not a paedophile ring operating between Dublin priests but some of the trends of abuse between priests who knew each other or were friends was “worrying”.
The Archdiocese of Dublin under Archbishops John Charles McQuaid, Dermot Ryan, Kevin McNamara and Cardinal Desmond Connell was found to have a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude to child abuse.
The Murphy report concludes that one of the biggest tragedies of abuse it found in this investigation was that in these instances, unlike others, children were believed by their parents and some in authority but the Church and Gardai didn’t investigate.
