To discuss the scandal of child abuse in the Catholic Church without factoring in the role of the Vatican is to miss the main point. Irish Catholics had been told in advance, by Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin in his Holy Thursday homily, that the contents of the report of the commission of inquiry published yesterday would “shock us all”. But we may doubt whether all were sufficiently prepared for what’s emerged. We are set for days of discussion of the different levels of culpability of priests, bishops, diocesan authorities, the institutional Church, society at large. Pope Benedict will likely issue...