MORE DETAILS

Deeply Catholic Ireland has had one of the world’s worst records of clergy sex abuse, crimes that were revealed to its 4.8 million people over the past decade by a series of government-mandated inquiries.

The reviews concluded that thousands of children were raped and molested by priests or physically abused in church-run schools and bishops worked for years to hide those crimes.

After the Irish church atoned for its past and enacted tough new norms to fight abuse, it had been looking to the first visit by a pope in 40 years to show a difffffferent, more caring church that understands the problems of ordinary Catholic families.

More than 37,000 people — most of them young Catholics — signed up to attend a Vatican-sponsored World Meeting of Families that ends today in Dublin, more than twice the number as a previous family rally in Philadelphia three years ago.