For clergy abuse survivors, Sinead O'Connor's protest that offended so many was brave and prophetic

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. “That's what made her words so very powerful.” THE RIPPLES IT CAUSED The SNL performance appalled Thomas Plante, a Catholic psychology professor at California’s Santa Clara University, and his wife who is Jewish. “Many people feel free to ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater’ when it comes to criticism of the Catholic Church.” He also noted the prevalence of anti-Catholic hate, especially following the Boston Globe’s 2002 report revealing widespread abuse and cover-up by the church. “Sinéad saw predator priests not as a ‘couple bad apples’ but as signs and proof of a deeply corrupt and almost untouchable clerical system,” Anderson said. “Ultimately,” he said, “she relieved the pain for tens of thousands of victims with rebellion.” The quarter-century legacy of John Paul II — then pope, now a saint — has been badly tarnished by evidence he turned a blind eye to abuse even when the Vatican had copiously well-documented cases and even when bishops in the U.S., facing mounting legal liability, begged the Vatican for fast-track ways to defrock abusers in the 1980s.