I am on an Irish discussion group that is mostly people posting pretty pictures of Ireland scenes, Irish lace wedding gowns, people asking for prayers for their sick relatives and friends, etc. Unfortunately the group admin, who is Irish directly from Ireland, also has a big agenda against all the abuses that were covered up and will post pictures and stories about child abuse (physical and sexual) by clergy and religious and we get all the comments you describe. It’s a bit out of place in a group that otherwise is just pretty pictures and nice posts. People have complained about this child abuse content in the past but the admin is very adamant that she is going to continue with it so I just scroll past the posts as I’m already aware there were bad abuses that went on and don’t need to read more about them especially when the cases are like 50 to 100 years old and there’s nothing to be done about them now, nor did I have any part in them, and the posts just seem to be places for people to vent.
I do get the impression that the priests and religious in Ireland were much more controlling and exerted more power over their parishioners than was the case in USA where people were more free to just go do what they wanted and to disagree with their priests or the nuns running the schools. So I think some of the anger is a reaction against that kind of oppression. The Church kind of brought this on themselves unfortunately. I do pray for the priests currently in Ireland now as they have a lot on their plate.
