he bullying of the people by some clergy played a greater role in Catholic church decline in Ireland than clerical child sexual abuse, a leading Dominican priest has said.
“They had little or no respect for individual people – and not just for minors,” said Fr Tom Jordan, editor of Spirituality magazine. Referring in the current issue
to a remark by an unnamed “acute observer of the church in Ireland,” he
said “the failure of the church in recent times was due not so much to
the abysmal behaviour by some clergy in sexually abusing minors but that
some clergy were bullies.”