Since then the status of the church in Ireland has declined dramatically.

Those identifying as Catholic are down by 20 per cent, according to the last census.

Mass attendance has fallen away, seminaries and religious houses have closed, and parishes are now often run by a single priest.

The majority of people no longer look to the church for guidance in their everyday lives.

When the leadership speaks out on current issues as during the two recent recent referendums many, particularly the young, are antagonistic or indifferent.

The church in Ireland has lost respect and credibility.

A main reason for this has been due to actions by the church itself, including the way in which its clerics and religious have abused their power.

The guilty are those who destroyed the lives of untold numbers of men, women and children in orphanages, industrial schools, reformatories, Magdalene laundries, mother and baby homes, and through sexually assaulting children in parishes.

Protected perpetrators

But not those alone.

The church leadership in Ireland and in Rome who allowed this to happen are equally to blame.

They protected perpetrators and refused to take responsibility when this became known.

The Vatican has been complicit in this cover-up through withholding approval for safeguarding provisions prepared by the Irish bishops, for canon law reasons, and arrogantly ignoring requests from two Irish State inquiries for documents.

Pope Francis must be aware of all this. Saying sorry it happened, sorry you were hurt, does not cut it anymore.

We have heard it all.

What is needed to restore some respect for the church and to give struggling Catholics hope for the future, is for the pope to admit responsibility. He should do so on behalf of the church for the part played by the hierarchy and the Vatican's systemic obsession with secrecy and canon law - which showed a total disregard for the lives of the abused people concerned - in all of this.

Many survivors no longer care what the church says but others are still waiting to see it take responsibility for its actions.

Data protection laws

The bishops in Ireland are still using data protection laws to avoid sharing information with their own safeguarding office. The religious orders are still refusing to honour their financial commitments to survivors, and what happened in Ireland is still happening in countries around the world. Continue reading

• Marie Collins is an abuse survivor from Ireland. She resigned last year from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, after serving for three years, due to its work being frustrated by Vatican officials.
• Image: iCatholic.ie

And the panel would be comprised of, wait for it…bishops.

"Would we have some sort of a panel, a board, of bishops … where we would take it upon ourselves, or a number of bishops would be deputed, to ask about those rumors?" he suggested.

"It seems to me that's one possibility, that there would be some way for the bishops, and that would mean working through our conference … to be able to address the question of sustained rumors," said the Washington cardinal.

To that I would respond, "Well, your Eminence, yes and no."

Yes, there should be a panel- there should be panels in every diocese and every deanery, ready to look into serious allegations made against any representative of the Church.

But with all due respect, sir, no, there ought not be a bishop residing on a single one of them.

There is an old Roman saying, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who will guard the guards?)

In a sense that needs to be asked, now.

The suggestion that the laity and the priests who trusted the bishops to do the right thing before — and have been amply burned for it — should just trust the bishops to do the right thing again would be farcical if it were not so insulting.

Wuerl's remarks suggest that he really has no idea how catastrophic the revelations about Theodore McCarrick's long-standing abuses (about which too many Cardinals and Bishops profess themselves "Shocked, shocked" as they slouch toward Eternity via Casablanca) have been to the trust of the laity.

Let me spell it out: That trust has been shattered. It no longer exists.

The McCarrick story, joined to other tales now emerging about mistreatment of seminarians and lay folk, have effectively worn us out.

We look at stories coming out of the United States, out of Chile, Honduras, and Australia, and we are finally — as perhaps never before — understanding the worldwide nature of the corruption that has taken hold within the depths of the Church, and we're saying no more.

Your Eminence, Esteemed Bishops, please listen: Don't give us another paper; don't give us another bloodless statement about policies and procedures that somehow manages never to admit to failing, never offers a mea culpa, never uses the words "sin" or "Gospel" or brings forth the name of Christ Jesus.

Forgive me, but it feels very much like our bishops and "princes" have lost the plot. Continue reading

• Elizabeth Scalia (pictured) is a Benedictine Oblate who blogs at The Anchoress and is the award-winning author of Strange Gods, Unmasking the Idols in Everyday Life and Little Sins Mean a Lot: Kicking Our Bad Habits Before They Kick You.
• Image: Word on Fire