Essay:Response to the Papal letter of apology

This is a response to Pope Benedict's letter of apology sent in response to decades of sexual abuse committed by the Catholic Church and Catholic orders in Ireland. The letter was released on in March of 2010, and was read to the faithful while attending mass.

The letter has attracted polarized responses. The faithful see it as a sincere apology from the Pope and the hope of proper action to be taken, while those more cynical would see it as being the Pope's attempt to extricate the Vatican from the mess by blaming the Irish church. As well as the Irish church, the Pope finds another rather odd scapegoat, but more on that later.

A PDF version of this letter can be downloaded from the Irish Times.