Though there had been notorious scandals in the 1990s involving Irish clergy who fathered children, there was little reliable information on the larger subject of priests and their offspring, Doyle found. So he came up with his own solution: He built a website he called Coping International and invited anyone who was the daughter or son of a priest to contact him.
Soon, he was hearing from dozens of people living in countries throughout the world, many of whom had suffered psychologically, or financially, while growing up without a caring father. And as they spoke to one another through a private Facebook forum, a community began to emerge, a community that may number in the thousands.
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