Sir, - Fr McGillicuddy PP (March 29th) says "It's sad to see the media highlighting the defects in the work of religious orders." What kind of media could ignore stories like these? They would have to be indifferent or shackled. It wouldn't do us any credit at all if we ignored the stories of victims and turned our backs on them we'd be just another generation of people who said "you don't matter."
All the books written about this subject, all the interviews given, and the powerful television programme with Christine Buckley are testimony to the fact that being a child in care was a pretty harrowing place in which to be. The fact that the child victims of that era are the adults of today, makes it possible for us to hear first hand, and who better to tell us what happened than the victims themselves. They are writing the detailed history of that era of child care and how articulate they are, every one of them.
Not highlighting ft is like saying to a rape victim forget the past to a battered spouse your cuts will heal or to an incest victim he didn't mean it. The effects of their maltreatment lives on in the victims today, the least we can do is listen to them, the very least. The media have acted as facilitator in this, they have behaved impeccably.
The fact that it doesn't give the church a good press is a side issue. Nobody believes that all priests, brothers, or nuns were or are abusers of children. No more than they believe that all men who father children are guilty of incest.
We only have to wince, cringe, and cry when we hear the hideous stories recounted. Most of us don't have to live with the nightmares and the realisation that some of the people with squeaky clean reputations had feet of clay and children weren't safe in their company.
As my granny used to say "Father, the truth shall set you free but first it will make you miserable" Yours, etc., Calderwood Road, Dublin 9.