On 28 July, the coroner in London said that the date of her death was still unknown.I didn't blog about her death at the time in part because it was still under investigation. I still can find no cause of death given.
I did comment on it at the time on a forum. One of the replies to me says in part:
What I respect her for is having the balls to make a political statement about Catholic child abuse when the topic was far, far outside the Overton window. That was a career sacrifice, and years later she turned out to be right.I knew she tore up a photo of the Pope on Saturday Night Live. I didn't know why.
She got famous young. After you are famous, it's a lot harder to figure out what works and what will backfire because if you take a big risk and it backfires, you may never live it down.
I have my own criticisms of church policy and of how they handled the pedophile priests scandal and I have written about it.
I think the way women get socialized inclines most women to target a person rather than a behavior or policy. It makes sense in their minds and their generally more private lives -- unless, you know, they get mega famous at a young age and can tear up a photo on a widely watched live broadcast show without understanding that when you are speaking to "the public" you need to be more careful about how you communicate and about what you can reasonably support.
I take issue with church policy. I hope it changes. I don't really care who the Pope is. I'm not Catholic and as far as I know the current Pope is not a child molester and trying to convince him that church policy is messed up is probably the best bet for fixing any of it.
So probably not a good idea to sling mud at him as an individual, no matter how legitimately angry you are and affronted you are at how children have been hurt and shouldn't have been and the aftermath and church policy generally made the problem worse, not better.
I am sad that Sinead is gone. I wish things had gone differently for her. I write in hopes of helping smooth the path for others going forward.