Sir, – As someone who gave refuge in our home to “unmarried mothers” in the 1970s and 1980s, I agree with Brendan Hoban and Tony Flannery on the “demonisation of all religious” (Home News, August 6th).
Many of those who condemn them have neither memory nor experience of the times or of the harsh Victorian attitudes of Irish society towards those who strayed from the straight and narrow.
Caring leadership was given by those in religious life. Sisters in the social services, especially the Good Shepherds, Assumption and Little Company of Mary, guided families such as ours to offer refuge to women and girls sheltering from the social disapproval of their friends, employers, schools and, frequently, their families. In the context of the times their good work should be recognised. – Yours, etc,
STEPHANIE WALSH,
Newport, Co Tipperary.
Sir, – It seems that the litmus test for Catholics in relation to the Magdalene survivors according to Fr Brendan Hoban is where one stands in relation to the “scurrilous attacks” against women religious by the media (Home News, August 6th).
Fr Brendan states that the congregations who managed the Magdalene homes should not be held 100 per cent responsible for the wrongs done to the women involved. He is 100 per cent correct in that statement as many others were culpable in our society, including those who managed and owned the Bethany Homes.
However, one group not mentioned by Fr Hoban and who escaped all responsibility were the men involved who impregnated, often forcibly, many of the women who were subsequently condemned to these laundries.
The Magdalene women were the innocent victims of a brutalised society where Jansenistic attitudes to sexuality portrayed the women as evil temptresses who enticed men into sin .
Fr Brendan asks for the balance that equity and justice requires but that doesn’t mean that all Catholics march in line, sing to the same hymn sheet and close ranks against the evil media. Only for the media and especially for the late Mary Raftery, many of the great evils of our time including clerical sex abuse and indeed the grave injustices suffered by the Magdalene women would not have seen the light of day.
Women should not allow themselves be divided when it comes to their common experiences as second class citizens and sometimes as non-citizens. I was not present nor privy to what happened in these terrible places of forced labour but I’ve no doubt that the experiences dehumanised many of the sisters, as it equally dehumanised the so-called Magdalene women. Equity demands that we draw no line in the sand nor demonise anyone. Besides adequate compensation for the Magdalene survivors, a process of reconciliation between survivors of the congregations and the Magdalene women should now be our priority rather than putting us all on a war footing and lining us up in battle formation ready to take on these “scurrilous” attackers from the media. – Yours, etc,
BRENDAN BUTLER,
The Moorings,
Malahide, Co Dublin.