Irish Catholic Watchdog Issues Child Abuse Report

LONDON (AP) – The Irish Catholic Church’s watchdog says that only 12 of the hundreds of staff members accused of child abuse in the Christian Brothers order since the mid-1970s have been convicted. The report from the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church looked into how the Christian Brothers, a Catholic order set up to run schools, handled abuse allegations. It said although abuse claims were made against 325 of the order’s officials since 1975, only a dozen were convicted of crimes.

The Christian Brothers ran schools for boys across Ireland for two centuries, and have been plagued by a child abuse scandal in recent years. Cardinal Sean Brady, leader of Ireland’s 4 million Catholics, said Tuesday that he is “truly sorry” and that his thoughts are with abuse victims.