Victims urge wider Irish sex abuse probe

The call came as one Irish newspaper branded the abuse of children in Catholic Church's care, which was covered up for more than 30 years by senior clergy, as "satanic," blasting the "rampant evil".

"We are looking at this commission's report as the end of its work," said Marie Collins, a campaigner and survivor of abuse by a serial deviant priest named as Father Edmondus in the report.

"What I would call for, straight away, is for the remit (of the commission) to be extended to all of the dioceses in the country," she told the RTE state broadcaster.

Following a three-year investigation in the Dublin Archdiocese, the country's largest, a report Thursday concluded that four archbishops routinely protected abusers and failed to inform police of the allegations.

Ireland's most senior Catholic, Cardinal Sean Brady, and Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin responded by public apologies to all the victims of abuse, and promises that it would not happen again.

But newspaper commentators voiced anger at the report, which come just six months after a landmark report of widespread sexual, physical and emotional abuse of children in Catholic-run institutions dating back to the 1930s.

The Examiner, describing the abuse as "satanic", said Thursday's report uncovered a "litany of horror" that could "only be described as an active evil, a pervading darkness that poisoned lives" through collusion and betrayal.

"Some years ago, the history of the sexual and physical abuse of children was described as the Irish Holocaust. At that time, that description seemed extreme. Sadly, time has justified it," it added.

The Irish Times said that the "corruption of power and the fundamentally rotten nature of relations between the Catholic Church and the state has been laid bare" in Dublin by the damning report.

A "studied silence by Vatican authorities and by the Apostolic Nuncio" (papal representative) to requests for additional information "will feed suspicion that the church remains fixated on protecting its tattered image," it said.

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