'And the greatest of these is love...'

It has been a hard day for me listening to and watching the terrible news from Ireland. Once again, victims of child abuse at the hands of the Church are left feeling devoid of justice as the crime is recognised and acknowledged but the perpetrators are not brought to book.

It brings back memories of the overpowering anger that I felt when the revelations about similar abuse by priests in the diocese where I grew up hit the press some seven years ago. Our glorious Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor failed to take responsibility then for the abject failure of the Catholic Church to protect children from child abuse at the hands of a member of the clergy when it had happened on his own watch as bishop of Arundel & Brighton. If only he had pursued the cause of children in his diocese with half the zeal of his pursuit of the dead end of ecumenicalism, then some children might have been spared the unimaginable pain and suffering caused by the ultimate betrayal of trust at the hands of an adult who you are obliged by society to respect. What a great legacy this would have been compared to his utter failure to bring about unity amongst the various christian churches in the UK. He didn't even have the courtesy to respond to the letter I sent him explaining from my own experience how terrible these crimes are.

Now, seven years on, I can bearly bring myself to watch as victims in Ireland are denied any semblance of justice following a catastrophic failure of both church and state to protect them and ensure that they had that very simple but essential thing - a happy and safe childhood. To suggest that a report that brings the reality of the abuse into the open, but without enabling any of the criminals to be brought to justice, is in some way a good thing for the victims shows the utter lack of understanding of the horror of child abuse.

Alice Miller's excellent tome cries out that 'The truth will set you free', but truth without justice is a terrible price to pay for children, now adults, who have already paid a price too dreadful to express.