Madam, – It is reported that the Vatican’s Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, and the papal nuncio in Dublin declined to co-operate with the Commission of Investigation into clerical child abuse in Dublin (Front page, November 27th) .
I trust that our Departments of Justice and of Foreign Affairs will be taking a very dim view of their respective responses – or lack thereof. I, the Irish people and our Government can only conclude that the Vatican, a sovereign state, has refused to co-operate with the investigation into a criminal conspiracy against children in this country. I consider this to be unacceptable and believe that we should immediately break off diplomatic relations with the Vatican and expel the papal nuncio. It is only with such steps that we can give a clear message that even if the Catholic Church is still willing to obstruct justice in Ireland, we will not tolerate this. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Following the shocking revelations into child sexual abuse as documented in the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation Report and the Ryan report, I remain less than reassured by Cardinal Seán Brady’s apologies. It would seem that Cardinal Brady’s and the church’s apology to “all those who have been hurt and their families ” is solely confined to the 26 southern counties.
As far as I understand the jurisdiction, procedures, policies and hierarchy of the Catholic church extends throughout the island of Ireland, including the six Northern counties. If the church is as truly repentant as it maintains, perhaps it could actively demonstrate this by offering a similar apology and access to due process in terms of a public, independent inquiry into clerical and institutional abuse in the North of Ireland. Often it was the same abusive priests who were transferred to Northern parishes and religious institution who continued to blight the lives of so many children and young people.
An apology would carry more weight and credibility if the church acknowledged the wrongs endured on both sides of the Border and gave its active support to the current campaigns for redress in the North. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – To say, as Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern says, that we are a Republic, is naive. That we passed an Act to call ourselves a republic does not make us one. That the State in all its manifestations, Garda Síochána, judiciary, civil servants and politicians — including the presidency — have colluded and shown partisan deference to the institutional Roman Catholic Church shows us what we really are: a Christian democracy, where the adjective takes precedence. Old fogies like me will know that the government of the day sent the drafts of Bunreacht na hÉireann to Rome – to the head of a foreign state – for his approval before putting it to the people, and that a republic we are not. Young folk will not forget that it was Bertie Ahern and Michael Woods who decided that we, citizens, and not merely those 38 per cent or so who are practising Roman Catholics, should pick up the tab for some €1.3 billion in damages to abused children – instead of the church.
There is no mystery to the cover-up of Catholic bishops to known sexual abuse: it is all running through the Code of Canon Law — which puts loyalty, the avoidance of scandal to the church, and law of the Pope above that of civil law. The bishops were doing their duty by that code.
Heaven help the church’s foot-soldiers who enjoy almost no personal freedom, particularly freedom of expression. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Let’s all convert to Protestantism – one step away from the Roman Catholicism, one step closer to a united Ireland. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The principal question arising from the Murphy report is will the Pope, who has total responsibility for what all his clergy of all ranks do and do not do, take action to dismiss from all forms of ministry those clerics who have known about the crimes, both civil and canonical, perpetrated by their clerics on innocent children and behaved in the ways shown in the Murphy report?
In this context no cleric, either cardinal or lowly priest, should be exempt from sanction, and if the Pope himself was a player in any part of this sorry saga he also should go. The time has come to stop hiding or pretending they are on a “learning curve”. Leadership and humility are the order of the day. Nothing less will be necessary to commence the restoration of some validity to the Roman Catholic Church.
The words of Christ himself ring out loud and clear today “He who exalts himself shall be humbled”. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – In 1823, William Shaw, the headmaster of Bowes Academy in Northern England stood trial. His cruelty towards children in his care caused an outcry and was the inspiration behind Charles Dickens’s character of Wackford Squeers in Nicholas Nickleby which led to subsequent child protection reforms. Charles Dickens would spin in his grave if he knew that the injustices he fought against in pre-Victorian England were still being inflicted upon Irish children in the 1990s. Following the Ryan report in May, this further damning report shows a culture of cover-up. Where is your anger Ireland? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I teach a course at the University of Wuppertal in Germany called: Ireland – politics and society.
My most important task is to present information about Irish society and to help students interpret and understand this information. I am dreading this week’s class. How am I supposed to answer the question: “How could this happen?” – Yours, etc,
Madam, – To constitute depraved indifference, the defendant’s conduct must be “so wanton, so deficient in a moral sense of concern, so lacking in regard for the life or lives of others, and so blameworthy as to warrant the same criminal liability as that which the law imposes upon a person who intentionally causes a crime”. Depraved indifference focuses on the risk created by the defendant’s conduct, not the injuries actually resulting.
This is the law in the United States of America. Is it here? If not, politicians should rush and push it through the Dáil now, if not for those who were abused, then to protect those who may be in the future. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – In the early 1960s, aged 12, while attending a Catholic secondary school in Dublin, I was invited to join an educational day-trip organised by a priest who taught at the school. To us students these trips were a prized opportunity to avoid class and I enthusiastically informed my late parents. But they were immediately cautious. I don’t remember their precise words, but they made clear their concerns were based on fear of sexual abuse.
This surprised me at the time, given their usual reluctance to discuss sexual matters and their ingrained respect for clerical authority. However, in retrospect, it seems clear to me now that like many people of their generation, they knew that in the Irish Republic the laws that governed ordinary citizens did not apply to the Catholic church or its functionaries. Almost half a century later, until I see bishops being charged in the courts for their failure to report criminal acts, I will remain unconvinced that things have changed. – Yours, etc,