The never ending saga of paedophile Catholic priests took yet another turn in the spotlight this week. The Cloyne Report is the result of an judicial enquiry led by Judge Yvonne Murphy. It investigated complaints against 19 priests in Cloyne between 1996 and 2009 (1 in 10 of the priests in the diocese). It condemns Bishop Magee's second-in-command, Monsignor Denis O'Callaghan, for the way he "stymied" child abuse policy and resisted Church protection guidelines which stipulated the need to alert police to abuse allegations. The Cloyne diocese failed to refer all complaints to police, the report says. Except for one case in 1996, they did not report any complaints to the health authorities until 2008. They did not put a proper support system in place, as they were required to do by the guidelines, and they did not operate an advisory panel which was independent. Although the Catholic Church has tried to assert that all abuse cases were "historical", in Cloyne offenders were still operating three years ago.

More of the same, of course. But the real bombshell was that the local Catholic hierachy had simply been obeying papal orders that papal law took precedence over Irish law, and so child abuse allegations did not have to be reported to authorities as was stipulated.

The Roman Catholic "seal of the confessional" is now under threat in Ireland, with priests who refuse to disclose details of sex abuse crimes revealed in the confessional or elsewhere, facing prison sentences of up to five years. It is the first time this has happened anywhere.

The scandals in Ireland, USA, Belgium and Germany are going to turn out to be just the tip of the iceberg.

Nothing has been heard from either France or Italy about abusive priests in those countries. There are only two possible reasons for this. It could be that the priests there are morally far superior and manage to resist the temptation of choir boys. Or, the hierachy conspires to cover up the offending, with the co-operation of police and media who bow to the argument that the Church needs to be defended more than victims need to be protected. One could argue that the culture of Italy and France are far more tolerant of sexual hi-jinx, and more accustomed to see the priests as above criticism.

But at some stage the dam will burst. The damage to Catholic spiritual authority, and to its wealth as a result of financial settlements, is already immense. If the scale of abuse in the homelands is anything like that in America and Ireland, the revelations could bankrupt the church.

Though many would say that that is already underway.