_WORLD WATCH______________________________
________________Ireland_______________
School abuse investigation heats up
Boy’s death examined anew
The body of a teenage boy who died over 30 years ago was exhumed by police in April after new questions arose about how he had died.
Officials said they would examine the remains of William Delaney, who died in 1970 at the age of 13 while he was a student at a school run by the Christian Brothers order. The decision to exhume the body was made after allegations by fellow students at the school alleged that Delaney had been beaten shortly before leaving the reform school on vacation.
Delaney, who had been sent to the school at the age of 9 on a court order, complained of a headache on arrival at his parents’ home in July 1970, collapsing and dying shortly thereafter. His family originally assumed that meningitis was the cause of death.
Police have been investigating allegations of abuse of boys at the Letterfrack reformatory since 1996, and have taken statements from dozens of former inmates. The school closed in the mid-1970s. The Christian Brothers order in Ireland has been rocked in recent years as a number of cases of priests and brothers sexually and physically abusing boys have come to light.
Surge in Mass attendance
A long trend reversed?
Mass attendance in Ireland is on the increase for the first time in almost 40 years, reports the Irish edition of the Sunday Times.
Priests across Dublin have noted an increase in the size of Sunday congregations, while collections in the city have increased for the third year in a row. “We have had a low attendance [in the past], but people are coming back now,” said Father Eugene Taafe of Dublin, who reported that his own regular Sunday congregation has doubled in size over the past six months.
In the early 1960s, 90 percent of Ireland’s population attended Sunday Mass. But by the 1990s that had fallen to just over 60 percent. “You don’t hear the talk about decreasing attendance that there would have been a few years ago,” said Father Martin Clarke, director of the Catholic communications office. “We don’t have definitive figures, but in some places there is now an increase.”
College students also appear to be finding God: 6,000 attended Mass at the Belfield campus of University College Dublin on Ash Wednesday this year; that figure is about one-third of the total student population.
In another bit of evidence that Mass attendance really is rising, the nuns who bake altar breads say they are struggling to satisfy orders for thousands of extra hosts each week. “We’re flat out trying to keep up the orders,” said Sister Gabrielle, of the Redemptorist order. “It’s up more than 20 percent.” The Carmelite sisters in Roebuck have seen a similar increase in demand; they usually make 300,000 altar breads a week, but had to increase it to 400,000 during Lent this year.
Income from the collections for the Archdiocese of Dublin increased last year for the third year in a row to more than $5.5 million. The total collection, including the family offerings and donations for priests, came to $35 million, up from $34.1 million the previous year.