Madam, – Watching Questions and Answers (May 26th) was harrowing. I would like to applaud the gentleman from Clonmel (Michael O’Brien) who outlined his experiences with the “Christian Brothers” for his bravery and humanity. His only “crime” appears to have been poverty.
He was tortured all through his captivity and continues to suffer even now. Although he is angry and hurt his main wish is that no child ever suffers again. He has displayed his compassion for others and his humanity. It is people like him that should be in high office in this country.
I call on the Minister (Noel Dempsey) who rightly was left speechless in the face of such pain to do the right thing. Put the victims first for once. There is no law that cannot be changed if we want to change it. Too many people have suffered for too long. These are exceptional times. Respond with an exceptional action and the people of the country will stand with you in solidarity with every child who was tortured and deprived of the love of their own kin. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Having seen the end of Questions and Answerslast night (May 26th) I haven't been able to sleep.
The ongoing suffering of those victims of the unfolding horrors was palpable across the airwaves, but what disturbed me most was the closing comments from one of those brave souls, as he waved a piece of paper at the audience. Are we to believe – and I have no reason to disbelieve – that this matter of “criminalisation” of “detainees” of these institutions has not yet been addressed and redressed? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – It is still happening. The culture of cover-up and denial of accountability by the State does indeed tend towards evil as John Waters rightly points out (Opinion, May 22nd).
As recently as last year the High Court found that a young soldier had been systematically abused over a period years by a sergeant major of the Army whose Commander in Chief is our President. Yet the Government, through the Minister of Defence, contested the case through several days of hearing and on appeal to the Supreme Court. The High Court found that it occurred as a matter of fact, and that the soldier suffered severe post-traumatic injuries as a result. Yet the court went on to find that neither the State nor the Minister was legally responsible and our Supreme Court refused to interfere with those findings.
One can find no more inhuman and degrading treatment than that sustained by the soldier in question yet he went unrecompensed without an apology, an acknowledgment or monetary compensation. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – According to the Revenue’s last annual report, there are some 2.5 million taxpayers on PAYE and nearly 600,000 on self-assessment.
I hope that all these taxpayers, whether church-goers or not, will be aware that each of them will now have to pay an average of nearly €400 for what has happened. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – In environmental protection law there is the principle that “the polluter pays”.
We must adopt the same principle in all forms of abuse, particularly in child abuse – “The abuser pays”. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The pure, raw evil described in the abuse report demonstrates the sad reality of the myth of the “island of saints and scholars”. We have been taken in, treated with destain and left feeling powerless and angry.
We are a nation famous for our commemoration of poignant historical events and for displaying empathy with those who suffer worldwide. We honour heroes, recognising their achievements by awarding freedom of cities, honorary doctorates and presidential recognition.
The least we can do now is organise a national day of mourning for the horrendous loss of life and spirit, physical and emotional, of the thousands of victims of this abuse.
Each of those heroic figures who have campaigned and tirelessly sought justice must be given the highest possible honours of recognition by the State and uppermost educational institutions.
Along with a national memorial these measures would go some way towards acknowledgment.
Justice, too, needs to be seen to be done and we must never forget. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Lest we forget, spare a thought for the countless number of non-abusing religious men and women, who worked tirelessly for the good of innocent children in State institutions. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Is it not finally time for the Government – and Ireland as a society – to reconsider the policy of funding religious-controlled institutions such as schools and hospitals?
The United States government’s policy of refusing funding for schools or hospitals with a religious ethos has drawn criticism for being excessively “politically correct”; but it has, at least, protected the US taxpayer from potentially massive liabilities arising from child sex abuse cases there – many of which were perpetrated by religious of Irish descent. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I am struck by the universal silence about the elephant in the clerical living room. A residential organisation such as a religious order that forbids its members access to normal sexual behaviour will inevitably lead to a far higher number of its members, than in the general public, being involved in child abuse. This is because sexuality is not at all eliminated in the clerical members, it is merely repressed, disguised and furtive. It is irrational to believe that a cleric has renounced thinking about exactly the same things the rest of the population think about in matters sexual.
Is it not time to review whether forbidding sexuality, marriage, family, by a religious organisation on its members is in fact a practice that should be banned by the State? If such an organisation’s rules lead to its members breaking the laws of civil society, abusing children and leading lives of deep sexual frustration, should we, the State, not forbid such a bizarre and inhumane prohibition regardless of the clerical traditions or Papal fiats? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – A brutal letter from Art Kavanagh surfaced in your columns on Saturday (May 23rd).
He wrote: “I do know, and I’m sure many other people know, that the majority of the boys who were sent to these institutions were the thugs of their era”.
The certitude of this perhaps practising Christian who presumes to mug a generation is symptomatic of a moral blindness and effrontery that have given rise to these problems in the first instance. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – It is time that the senior members of the hierarchy organised a national day of atonement dedicated to making amends for such appalling ill-treatment of these poor people in industrial schools and by religious orders.
How many of these people were denied the right to life or a proper education through no fault of their own? They were entitled to be treated with respect. Where were the beatitudes? Where was the compassion and charity in these so-called religious people? There simply is no excuse for such vile unchristian behaviour.
The hierarchy should establish in each diocese a day of reparation dedicated to helping these victims; a collection could be set up to provide funds for their welfare, educational opportunities etc.
I am certain the bishops will be willing to prove their Christian credentials publicly. Failure to do so would, in the words of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, be truly “stomach-churning”. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – A small butterfly got trapped in my house, bashing its self on a very high window. I could not reach it, or save it, even though it was trying to get out.
Just like the children in the care of the State.
I don’t think that butterflies remember – but children do. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Why all the moral outrage as though humanitarian concern was “invented” in 2009 as sex was supposedly invented in the 1960s? I cannot accept that many of those wringing their hands now knew nothing of what was happening.
Many people knew what was going on in children’s institutitions and did nothing about it because they did not disagree with how the children were treated.They may not have been aware of the gruesome details that are now emerging, but they were fully aware of the beatings and the fact that the children were not treated like “ordinary children”.
Round about 1961/62, there was a report and photograph in an English tabloid newspaper showing three shaven-headed teenage girls. They had left without permission from an institution run by the Order of St Louis in Co Donegal.They had gone to a local dance one night and their punishment on return, or on being returned, was that all their hair was shaved off. The report in the newspaper was outraged by this.
A girl from our school, St Louis Convent Secondary School, Dundalk, brought the paper in and it was passed around the girls in the usual clandestine fashion.
When our headmistress, Sr Giovanni Cowen, became aware of this, she called an assembly of the older girls, 5th and 6th year, of which I was one.
She began by telling us that this was a heathen paper and that we should be ashamed of ourselves for looking at it at all.
She swiftly moved on to say that this was the only way to treat the girls pictured because they were not normal; that they were born with a “want” (her exact word). They were born in sin and would remain sinners and that we should pray for them. They could not be treated as ordinary girls like us. This was the end of it, it wasn’t to be mentioned again in the school.
She beckoned us to rise and pray. A hastily said prayer and she moved to leave the room.
Before she got to the door, I put up my hand and asked for a further explanation and said that I felt sorry for the girls.
She went berserk and ordered me out of the room and to her office. I can’t remember if it was in the classroom, or later in her office, I asked her if we were all not equal in the eyes of God. She screamed at me that only communists thought like that and that I was in danger of becoming one. She did tell me that their “sin” was that the girls were born out of wedlock.
I was duly punished but that is not the point here.
I was 17 or 18 years old and the horror of that photograph, and the injustice I felt for those poor girls, still lives with me because I felt party to it being a St Louis girl.
It appears that it was accepted in the Catholic Church and in other churches, that these children were not fully human, that in fact they were “walking sins”, and could be treated as such.
In their minds, these priests and nuns were not beating and raping a child, they were beating and raping a personification of sin. This is how they justified this heinous behaviour. Devout lay Catholics stood by and did nothing because they too shared the view that these children were born with “a want”. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – For six years I was educated at a secondary school run by a religious order. In later life when I was ill, I was cared for at a hospital run by a religious order. At all times I received from them exceptional professional service and respectful care.
At this point in time I would like to express my thanks to them and I hope that they will continue their service for the next generation. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Journalists, reporters and letter writers are really getting their money’s worth out of the Ryan report. It is open season on the Catholic Church.
What should be realised is that the Catholic Church in Ireland is not some foreign church or sect imposed upon the poor ignorant people of Ireland. The clergy are our brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles and aunts. In other words they are bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. If the Irish church is rotten then we are all rotten.
The many dedicated priests, brothers and nuns who ministered unselfishly over the years to the Irish people should not be forgotten. The people who perpetrated the foul deeds mentioned in the report were the exception rather than the rule. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Writing about his country in exile, James Joyce says “Ireland my one my only love, where Christ and Caesar are hand in glove”. How awfully right he was. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The Government suggests that it would be legally impossible to review the agreed compensation scheme with the religious orders. It is a pity the same attitude was not taken with regard to elderly people requiring residential care who had to rely on the Supreme Court to retain their entitlements. In contrast, there seems to have been no legal difficulty in arranging tax amnesties – a boon to the privileged.
Furthermore, expediency allowed the Government to create legislation which allowed people who committed murder, (randomly or deliberately), to celebrate their actions, albeit in the name of peace.
But before Irish society conveniently places its collective guilt in the lap of the Government, the time has surely come to realise that the Government is simply the washed face of our society.
In truth, a small island nation of no more than five million has, in a relatively short time, managed to marginalise, abuse, defraud and murder its poorest inhabitants. To simply rely on the Government to dissemble on behalf of us all allows us to turn our faces from the poor. We are a long way from a just society and it is time to stop pretending otherwise. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Bring back corporal punishment and horse-whip for any member of society who abuses a little child. The arguments on the media about how much compensation these abused children (now adults) should receive makes me sick. There is no price enough for a child’s innocence and these dreadful abusers must be made to feel real pain themselves. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – This shameful episode in the short history of our independent State of 80 years must never be forgotten.
One of the commission’s recommendations is the erection of a monument to all of these victims. An immediate issue is where would it be erected: should there not be one outside each of the 22 institutional buildings named?
I suggest in addition that a greater monument, in memory of all of these innocent young victims of torture, would be to introduce a far more open style of Government and loosen up the Freedom of Information rules to allow greater disclosures. If other countries can, why can’t we? Look at our neighbours in England and across Europe and US who are all far more open in the way they impart knowledge and information to their citizens.
What is so special about us? Why do we, a country with a population the size of Manchester, have this Kafkaesque style of Government? The same Government that increased the cost of applications (for information) to such a degree that it is now mainly journalists who apply.
In the name of all gods, stop this nonsense now and bring us open Government and full accountability to all citizens.
To maintain the status quo after this horrendous episode only invites further abuses of power. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I’m sick. I listen to and I read the testimony of grown men and women my own age, or more often my parents’ age, trapped forever as children being vilely abused by the very people charged with their protection.
Their private horrors are now laid bare for us to feast on, to beat our breasts, to hang our heads in shame, but the pious monsters who ripped their childhoods apart under the gaze of a silent Lord bask in glorious anonymity while our complicit State provides financial succour to their blessed orders from the teat of a dead Celtic tiger.
I’m just sick. – Yours, etc,
A chara, – “At least 400 children” and “28,000 adults with disability” are in residential centres which are not subject to standards or inspection (Carl O’Brien, May 23rd). The Minister for State for disability John Moloney announced last week that the State does not have the €10 million necessary to remedy the situation. How easy it is to shed tears on the past while turning a blind eye to our present responsibilities: Shame on us. – Is mise,
Madam, – I am ashamed to have been gullible enough to believe the Big Lie peddled in recent years to useful idiots by members of religious orders who wished to persuade us that, had it not been for their charitable endeavours, unknown numbers of Irish children would have been destitute.
I had been told quite often that religious professionals in earlier decades held “the poor” in contempt. As a child at national school in Ennis, I saw in my class the poorly-dressed children from the “orphanage” run by the Sisters of Mercy. Yes, I note the irony. I saw the tattered, scribbled-on books they had to use. I remember their pinched faces, their quietness and the impression of something “different” about them. I saw a little girl being punched repeatedly in the stomach by a nun. As far as I can recall, this child was not in the orphanage. She was simply unfortunate enough to be “poor”.
I cannot understand why so many religious professionals hated these children so much. I cannot understand how they can have so completely inverted the message of the gospels which, they told us, it was their calling to embody. The determination of the official church to protect these wolves, female and male, disguised as shepherds is a true blasphemy. – Yours,etc,
Madam – The Ryan report of will hopefully offer some relief to those who suffered at the hands of members of the religious congregations. However, in Song for a Raggy Boy, a film about the physical and sexual abuse of children in an industrial school, the credits tell us that punishment for one of the offending priests was being sent to the “Missions”.
Great work is done quietly by many members of religious orders in the poorest parts of the world, but are these orders doing enough to identify abusers and potential abusers working for them overseas and do vulnerable children have an effective complaints mechanism to report such abuse?
Save the Children UK published a report last year into the under-reporting of child sexual exploitation by aid workers. It is important that investigation and reporting of such matters extends beyond our borders. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I consider the Letters Page of The Irish Times to be in many respects a more enlightened forum for discussing the horrors of the recent Ryan report than many of the journalistic articles.
However one aspect of this forum saddens me. It is the contributor, though in the minority, who utilises the evils documented by the Ryan report and their massive emotional impact, to further their own personal ideology. Certain contributors have seized upon this report as an opportunity to stir up debate on topics as diverse as abortion, embryo research, the truth of religion, denominational education gay adoption and the separation of church and state.
What has embryo research got to do with the Ryan report? Why call for the total abolition of denominational education when the only alternative is State education – the same State which also failed so shockingly to protect children? Why espouse gay adoption in the name of children’s rights when it denies a child a right to a mother and a father? How is it possible to reconcile child welfare with the killing of unborn children?
The only answer is that aggressive secularists are perpetuating a heinous tradition of paying lip service to children’s welfare while utilising it, covertly and contrary to public protestations, as a means to an end. Where once this end was the humiliation and violation of a child, now it is the removal tout court of the religious voice from the public sphere. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – It’s heartbreaking to learn of the thousands of innocent children who suffered at the hands of nuns and priests, when these children were brought up to respect and honour these church “leaders”.
The psychological abuse inflicted on these children probably caused scars from which they will never heal and even prevented them from living normal lives or having normal relationships. After what they endured, they probably learned to never trust anyone.
Why did this study take nine years? Think of all the children who might have been saved if this information had been made public eight years ago.
And why are the abusers being protected now, when no one stood up for the children who needed protection so much more than the priests and nuns?
It takes a village to rear and protect all the children around us. We must never turn a blind eye to someone else’s children who may be suffering or being abused.
All of society suffers when even one innocent child is made to suffer at the hands of those whom we trust to take care of our innocent ones.
It breaks my heart to think of these children and their innocence lost forever and that no one cared enough about them to protect them. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – “It takes an extraordinary perversity of nature to thwart the instinctive drive to nurture and care for the young” (Patsy McGarry, Opinion, May 21st). May I suggest that Mr McGarry put this lofty assertion in block capitals, for circulation to his colleagues, before another word is written by them on the subject of abortion? A few of your letter-writers might also be sent a copy. Not only are they outraged at the church for what happened to children in institutional care, they are outraged at the church for its opposition to abortion! The same individuals who blame the church for the ill-treatment of one group of vulnerable human beings, blame the church for protecting another vulnerable group. As the teenagers say: confused, or what? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The Ryan report found that the Department of Education failed to carry out its statutory duty to inspect religious institutions where the lives of thousands of children were destroyed.
Decades later, in a different Ireland, it has emerged that the Financial Regulator and the Central Bank failed in their statutory duty to oversee the activities of financial institutions and this is currently contributing to economic distress for thousands of people. So it’s not really a different Ireland because, although the public service is composed of very bright and capable individuals, our political and administrative leaders have not yet figured out how to harness the talent in the public service to serve the people instead of the bureaucracy. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – One twelfth of the first priests, picked by Christ himself, was corrupt. In other words eleven-twelfths were faithful. So yes, Judas had always been and will always be with us. Overwhelmingly though his fellow priests have been Christian.
Are we then to follow the tabloids which hide the truth by shouting that Judas dominates? What about St Vincent de Paul, Brother Damian, Mother Teresa? And countless unnamed others? All to be rubbished? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – One wonders whether it is customary for Archbishop Martin to address the representative body of the religious orders in Ireland indirectlyin an article in a newspaper (Opinion, May 25th).
One wonders also what is his motivation for so doing, rather than contacting that body directly. – Yours, etc,
TERENCE BOLGER,
Richmond Avenue,
Drumcondra,
Dublin 9.
Madam, – Fintan O'Toole poses the question: "What, precisely, do we do with all those religious congregations who are apparently incapable of understanding the crimes for which they are institutionally responsible?" (Opinion, May 26th).
The anti-gang legislation promised by the Minister for Justice has been prompted by the activities of Limerick gangs. Under the proposed legislation, leadership of a criminal gang could attract a life sentence while the participation in organised crime could lead to a stretch in prison of up to 15 years. In addition, the Criminal Assets Bureau could seize assets acquired by a gang in the course of its criminal activities.
The Ryan report identifies what can only be described as systematic criminal activity over a prolonged period and, as such, it now offers an array of potential targets for the application of this promised legislation. One, or all, of the religious orders involved should be closed down by the State. – Yours, etc,
PETER MOLLOY,
Haddington Park,
Glenageary,
Co Dublin.
Madam, – It's a long way from a coffee shop in Greenwich Village where I am reading the Ryan report to a remembered farm house in Killarney where I was abused by my uncle, a diocesan priest, in the 1960s. More buried memories keep cropping up with each article I read about in the Ryan report. Yet from my perspective not much has changed in (may I dare say) "holy Ireland" since then.
Commuting as it were from New York to Cork several times a year I still see an Ireland under the thrall of Catholicism and its priests. Its citizens herding together like sheep, making the Sunday morning pilgrimage in hopes to get some comfort from a "good shepherd" saying yet another dreary, very fast Mass, and never taking a stand on anything controversial.
Would not a day of national outrage rather than another soul stifling Sunday in church be more appropriate? Imagine how empowering it would be if all the Catholics on the island of Ireland would show up for Mass yet not enter the church, but rather stand outside in the pure fresh air and pray or meditate or think upon what happened to its abused, now grown up children who suffered mightily at the hands of priests and nuns.
No amount of blood money or praying to plaster statues will ameliorate the pain from what happened so long ago. Yet, a massive gathering of souls standing outside the doors of Ireland's Catholic churches on a Sunday and defiantly not going in to hear yet another mealy-mouthed sermon with no relevance whatsoever on what happened in those dark days of the shilling, and what is still happening in Catholic-dominated Ireland, might. – Yours, etc,
ALICE CAREY,
West 11th Street,
New York, US.
Madam, – The vile and sadistic abuse and rape of Irish children did not stop at the Border. Yet the children who endured such horrors in Catholic orphanages and institutions in Northern Ireland during the 1950s and 1960s have not even got a helpline which they can contact for counselling – and they have no specific support group to work on their behalf.
Calling on the Government of the Republic to reopen negotiations with the religious orders, Fr Timothy Bartlett and the Bishop of Down and Connor, Dr Noel Treanor, in Belfast were courageous in speaking out to their peers for a "transparent settlement for the survivors of the horrible evil that the church allowed happen", but their demand included no recognition of the comparable experience of evil abuse of children in Northern Ireland.
Their call for "outstanding issues to be addressed" must include redress for the children abused in institutions in Northern Ireland, which were run by the same religious orders criticised in the Ryan report.
The children who survived years of horror, from nuns and priests, in Northern Ireland Catholic "care" homes and in institutions such as Termonbacca – Derry's "Artane" – have endured for too long without recognition of their abuse by either state on this island. – Yours, etc,
MAGS O'LEARY,
Dublin 11.
Madam, – The reaction of the religious congregations to the Ryan report and their refusal to revisit the compensation deal agreed with the Government gives a particular irony to the quotation from the analysis and critique of Budget 2009 on the Conference of Religious of Ireland (Cori) website: "The Budget allows many of those who created the present series of crises, particularly the banks, to escape. At the same time the vulnerable, particularly children, are targeted to pay for the misbehaviour and fraud of others. On the same website the "Thought for today" was a quotation from Socrates: "If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap, where everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be content to take their own and depart." I wonder do Cori ever read what they write? – Yours, etc,
TONY BURKE,
Abbey Park,
Baldoyle,
Dublin 13.
A chara, – I suggest a fitting memorial for the abused children of Ireland's industrial schools would be a monument opposite, or possibly in place of, the Papal Cross in the Phoenix Park. – Is mise,
JOHN ROGERS,
Main Street,
Mohill,
Co Leitrim.
Madam, – I see little point in trying to squeeze more money from religious orders to assist in the collective salving of their consciences. I see, rather, a need to carry out a root and branch cleansing of these orders to restore some sort of trust in them.
The State is in the process of moving all loans, both good and toxic, into the National Asset Management Agency so that these loans may be sifted and assessed, and hopefully equilibrium and credibility be restored to the banks.
Why not create a similar organisation, funded by the orders, called the National Cleric Management Agency, to sift and assess all members of the clergy and religious orders? Those excellent people, who are in the a majority, would be validated and those "toxic" members expunged, thus creating equilibrium and credibility to the State and the Catholic religion. – Yours, etc,
DESMOND BOYLE,
Kilbarrack Road
Dublin 5.
Madam, – If the 18 religious congregations have ruled out renegotiating the compensation deal reached with the Government in 2002 and the Government will do nothing about it; maybe it is time for the people of Ireland to act. To boycott churches, boycott Masses, boycott collection plates, boycott Mass cards, boycott their charity shops, boycott all their freebies. We used to be a proud nation. We used to stand up to bullies. – Yours, etc,
FEARGAL COURTNEY,
Killarney School of English,
Muckross Road,
Killarney, Co Kerry.
Madam, – I suggest that The Priests write a song to commemorate the abuse suffered in our institutions on the lines of the beautiful work Christy Moore did with his song Strange Ways. He wrote of the "ring around the world" using and abusing little children.
Could they have the insight and humility to explore why Christians thought what they were doing was okay? The Priests could thus make a contribution towards healing the wounds by acknowledging the pain in such a public way. – Yours, etc,
NOELLE RYAN,
Springhill Close,
Belfast.
Madam, – The Catholic Church should immediately commission one of our talented composers to engage with victims and compose a piece which will go some way to expressing their deep sadness while helping the rest of the country to understand, grieve and hopefully heal a little. All proceeds of sales and performance of the piece should go to relevant charities and action groups. Some sorrows can only be communicated through art. – Yours, etc,
SHARON MURPHY,
Sallins,
Co Kildare.
Madam, – In the outpouring of justified anger at the horrendous suffering of people in Irish institutions, there are others who are suffering too, unjustifiably. These are the thousands of priests, nuns and brothers who have laboured selflessly for their entire lives in service of others and who have never abused anybody. Many are still providing shelter, support and opportunity to the most deprived people including children who were being abused. An example is the work of the Columban priests and nuns in the Far East.
These good people are suffering the backlash. They deplore as much and more than the rest of us the deeds of a small minority of their members who have brought this shame on them. But we only add evil to evil by taking out our anger on them. It is equivalent to condemning all the German people today because of the Nazis. It is irrational and unjust. – Yours, etc,
ALEX REID,
Rossylongen,
Donegal.
Madam, – Is the State now morally bankrupt as well as financially bankrupt? – Yours, etc,
JOHN STAFFORD,
Dargle Wood,
Knocklyon,
Dublin 16.
Madam, – Can anyone explain why the Christian Brothers still exist? This order was founded, from the highest of motives, by Edmund Rice, but their major contribution to Irish life seems to have been thuggery, ignorance, denial, and child rape.
Despite a well-documented history of both persistent abuse and continuing denial, the order is still permitted to run schools. Granted, our Department of Education appears to take a rather casual approach to the safety of children in schools. As examples, consider the Louise O'Keeffe case, and the bizarre situation that arose recently in the diocese of Cloyne and Ross.
Is allowing these Brothers to run schools, not an excessive risk, even for this department? Can we not just close this order down, and redeploy their assets in some less worthless cause? – Yours, etc,
ANTHONY STAINES,
Skerries Rock,
Skerries,
Co Dublin.
Madam, – There has been a huge response to the horrific abuse of children incarcerated in industrial schools and orphanages. But I have questions: what sort of parents did these priests, brothers and nuns have? What kind of homes did they come from? How were they treated as children and what turned them into feral beasts who preyed on vulnerable children, some of them no more than babies, in their care? – Yours, etc,
ETHEL GALLAGHER,
Frankfort Avenue,
Rathgar,
Dublin 6.
Madam, – Would it be too much to ask for the Criminal Assets Bureau to do their job and seize the assets of these criminals in the religious orders? – Yours, etc,
PAUL FAUGHNAN
Kiltoy,
Letterkenny,
Co Donegal.
Madam, – I write as a professional social worker with experience of working with both victims and perpetrators of sexual abuse. I am also a practising Catholic adult. I live and work in Northern Ireland.
I have to express my concern at the immunity granted to those religious alleged to have perpetrated sexual and violent abuse. The key issue is that all my experience, all my training and all the research would say that such people must be deemed to pose a risk to the whole community. That risk needs professional assessment by those qualified to carry it out and until that assessment is completed the risk can only be presumed to be high.
What the blanket immunity is doing is allowing one group of people who pose a risk to continue to do so. It should go without saying that wherever there is evidence that the law has been broken by those against whom allegations have been made, the criminal justice system must be allowed priority over any therapeutic assessment. The community must be protected.
The religious orders involved cannot be allowed to continue to have this unassessed risk in their midst. The State must challenge this situation immediately. If this group were a group of gardaí or a group of social workers this situation would never have arisen.
I salute the courage of the victims who came forward (I have seen what it can cost a person to disclose abuse) and hope others can find the help they need to to do so, too. I can only be silent before those who died without even having spoken or without having been believed. I abhor and am ashamed at the stance taken by the Roman Catholic Church on this outrage. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I have been reading the quite justified outrage among journalists in the daily and Sunday newspapers in the past few days over the horrors revealed in the Ryan report. But while blame was quite rightly attributed to all involved – the religious orders, the Roman Catholic Church, the Government, the police, the judiciary, the State and non-Governmental agencies and the public at large – there has been no reference to the media and its failure to blow any whistles.
To have had proper exposure in those days it would have needed the press and the other media to reveal the horrors. Growing up as I did in the 1940s and 1950s, in a home that took three daily papers, I cannot recall ever reading anything about these incidents, which many inquiring journalists must surely have known about.
Why? I suppose the reason must be that cowardly editors were so in fear of the church and State they were not prepared to go against these authorities. Not even your own newspaper, supposedly independent of the Roman Catholic Church, appears to have done anything about finding out and exposing the truth. It was left to the victims to speak out, as Irish society became less in thrall to the church; they had to create the awareness of the unimagined extent of the crimes perpetrated against our underprivileged children. The public has responded angrily now that they know.
Perhaps all the media need to examine their role in turning a blind eye to this scourge over the decades. It rings false and even hypocritical to point the finger at those responsible while failing to acknowledge your own professional shortcomings in not exposing these crimes at the time against so many innocent children. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The refusal by the religious congregations to pay the cost of their decades-long orgy of abuse and cruelty has shocked all decent people, but really should come as no surprise. The fact that they sought to wriggle out from under their responsibilities in the first place showed a distinct absence of the kind of compassion that would have been expected from a Christian organisation.
There is only one way to force these perverts to pay their dues to society. Churchgoers all over Ireland must keep their hands in their pockets when the collection baskets are passed next Sunday, and every Sunday until these people come to their senses and pay what they owe. Let us force their hands by keeping our money in our pockets until justice is done. Hit them in the pockets; it's the only thing that they understand. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – While not wishing to downplay the gravity of any kind of abuse, nevertheless a degree of proportion is required in view of much of the present hysteria.
In a report for the US department of education in 2004, entitled Educator Sexual Misconduct, Prof Carol Shakeshaft estimated that between 1991 and 2000, roughly 290,000 students were subjected to sexual abuse by teachers in state schools. The comparative figure for estimated abuse by Catholic clergy was approximately 800 per year.
It is also of interest that in the 1980s, in the London borough of Islington, the entire child care system was virtually closed down due to sexual abuse by social workers. While reiterating that one instance of abuse is one too many, it is important to realise that this is a continuing world-wide phenomenon. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I yield to no one in my admiration for your coverage of the clerical abuse scandal of the last few days, including your Editorial "The savage reality of our darkest days" (May 21st).
This is not to say, however, that much of the coverage is not long on rhetoric and short on prescription. Denials by successive ministers for education and various departments of state that no one knew what was going on are quite simply not tenable. There can only have been at best complicity, at worst obfuscation and denial, by hundreds if not thousands of State officials as well as members of the religious orders.
In 1905-1906 the then French prime minister, Émile Combes – himself an ex-seminarist – gave the Catholic Church three weeks to get out of teaching and medicine. Moreover, the French state then proceeded to make an inventory of all church possessions.
To change countries and it must be said regimes, anyone aware of the Goldhagen thesis will know that to plead ignorance is not enough. Within the limits, admittedly, of that analogy what is needed to wipe away the stain from our body politic is a second Nuremberg. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I regret to inform you and the Irish people that I am fully prepared to throw this rotten scandal right back in the face of any Irish person (the next time I am in Ireland) who attempts to get a rise out of me with regard to the rotten policies and the rotten state of affairs which exists in the world due to the rotten decisions made by my own country's rotten ex-president and his rotten cabal. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – In an effort to bring some justice and relief to the affected people of the crimes against children, could some of the unnamed just stand up and beg forgiveness in an open confession.
Hundreds of these perpetrators are retired in comfort around the country. Surely the shame they feel is now overwhelming – or are they still in denial? I ask them to stand up and speak out their names, relate the times and places of their crimes or forever face the God they purported to represent as the damned and unforgiven.
It might be the fear of the media frenzy that would be attracted to them that would prevent their confession. Or would it be their cloistered community forbidding them to speak out?
Surely there are a few who regret enough to seek forgiveness and give some morsel of dignity back to the lives they so selfishly destroyed? Some might even have it in their hearts to forgive them. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I am grateful to Ann Marie Hourihane for her thoughtful reminder (Opinion, May 25th) of the values of our society in times past. In the midst of the numerous indignant responses to the report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse from columnists and correspondents, hers is a call to mature reflection.
My own experience of that society was no doubt different from hers, yet I also hope that people will come to think more deeply about the lessons to be drawn from the report. I attended St Patrick's National School in Drumcondra from 1939 to 1948. It was a model school for the adjoining teacher training college and as such had a high reputation.
One thing that the trainee teachers would have gathered from their education, as we did from ours, was that physical punishment was an integral part of the day-to-day control of the classroom. From the day I first entered the school, the cane, the strap, or other means that might happen to hand were an ever-present menace hanging over us all. In the Dublin of those days, in the tenement areas of the city centre, and on the corporation housing estates on the city's edges, poverty and undernourishment were everywhere obvious.
We are told that the poor will always be with us. Our response is, I suspect, that they should be discreet about it and, above all, not demand too much of us. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Now that the fake denials of our fake celibates' confirm what has been common knowledge for decades, there is one last lesson to be learnt. When professionals are engaged to orchestrate denials, you've lost round one. Because the anonymity of the abusers will continue to be protected, I have devised a simple remedy to ensure that the evil which men do will live after them. Round two to the victim.
Those who have been abused should summarise a brief history of the place of abuse and name their abuser, then seal these facts in an envelope marked "personal archive" and lodge it with their solicitor, and include a mailing list for it to go out to.
This simple device costs nothing but preserves, for future generations of an abused person's family, unique evidence of a social history which so many powerful institutions tried to suppress.
This is not an exercise in post-mortem revenge, just a Chinese whisper catching up with those who said family doesn't count. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The abuse revealed in the Ryan report last week is Ireland's national nightmare and we should ensure that such crimes and cover-ups against our children can never happen again. The country will never mature unless we deal with the demons of our past.
There is a need for a Constitutional amendment to facilitate the punishment of the perpetrators including those involved directly or indirectly in the cover-ups. We need to be able to override the 2004 deal made in favour of the Christian Brothers and the Michael Woods' indemnity agreement. A vital part of such an amendment should include a prohibition of the involvement of any organisation in health, education or any other activity which brings it into contact with vulnerable persons unless it can satisfy the State that the welfare of its clients is prior to institutional self-preservation. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – All things considered, was the passing in 1829 of the Act of Catholic Emancipation in Britain and Ireland really such a good idea? Perish the thought, or food for thought? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – What is this "Christianity" whose "Brothers" have indulged in self-indulgent buggery – there is no other word for it – of children in their care? They have undermined the faith, which they professed to serve, to such extent as calls into question its validity. – Yours, etc,
A chara, – Regarding the report on child abuse, while I am not a lawyer, it seems to me that we are talking about people who committed torture, a practice outlawed under European and UN conventions. And doesn't this then beg the question that given the facts and evidence already in the hands of the Irish State, how is it that Ireland can grant immunity to so many people who have broken international law? – Is mise,
Madam, – The French legal system seems on the point of outlawing Scientology because it allegedly defrauded two women of €20,000. What should we do to a church who robbed thousands of people of their lives? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I was the first person in Ireland on the panel of the
Late Late Show, over 40 years ago, to accuse the Irish Christian Brothers of abusing our children. On the panel with me that night were Senator Sean Brosnan, secretary of the INTO at the time, and Paddy Crosbie (School around the Corner), secondary school teacher. When I alleged that the Christian Brothers were abusing our children both Paddy Crosbie and Sean Brosnan verbally attacked me and denied that the Irish Christian Brothers were doing anything but good. Ulick O'Connor and Dr Cyril Daly were also on the panel that night and Dr Cyril Daly was the only person who supported me. When the programme finished, I was threatened with physical violence by a member of the audience who has now passed away.
The next day was Sunday and people shouted at me on the street and said I should be ashamed of myself "for biting the hand that fed me". I was no longer invited to some family gatherings, my favourite aunt cut me out of her will and my children were ostracised in school. I am glad to say that I lived long enough to be vindicated.
I was invited onto the panel that night because I was chairman of an organisation called Reform which I set up with a group of like- minded people. Our aim was to outlaw corporal punishment in schools. It took us until approximately 1982 to succeed in this task. During my time in Reform we were the first organisation to bring an Irish Christian Brother to court for excessively beating a child. It was the David Moore case in which a brother, Joseph Quinn, was found by a jury to have excessively punished the child and contemptuous damages of one shilling were awarded (I wonder where the members of that jury are now).
During the preparation of this case both the Irish Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy in Goldenbridge interfered and intimidated my witnesses. They did everything in their power to prevent the case reaching the courts. It was with thanks to RF Gallagher & Sons, Solicitors, Patrick Lindsey, Senior Counsel and Raphael Siev BL, who did the case pro bono, that we eventually did get to court. It would take a book to say what happened behind the scenes in the preparation of that case.
In response to comments made last week on television by Brother Garvey, Superior General of the Irish Christian Brothers, I would like to draw a distinction between the priests and the Irish Christian Brothers. There were good priests who were unaware that some of their colleagues were abusing our children. There were two categories of Christian Brothers, firstly, those who brutalised our children and secondly, those who stood idly by. Consequently there were no good Christian Brothers.
After my appearance on the
Late Late ShowI was warned by my then employers, the ISPCC, that I was not to interfere in schools or with the Christian Brothers and that my only concern was with home visits.
Interestingly, at that time and during the course of my duties as a social worker, I placed three children in emergency care in Goldenbridge Convent on a Friday. When I went to collect them on the Monday, to make more permanent arrangements, I was informed that one of them had been beaten over the weekend.
These were children who were already traumatised and should have been treated with love and affection. Needless to say, I remonstrated with the nun in charge but was again warned by the ISPCC not to interfere. In the circumstances I had no alternative but to set up Reform and attempt to outlaw corporal punishment in schools.
The publication of the Ryan report caused me a lot of stress and upset, as I am sure it has to countless others. I did not sleep the night the report came out as I could not help but think, had I tried hard enough.
I would now suggest that the Irish Christian Brothers show some humility and stop trying to obstruct justice and instead donate their wealth to a children's charitable organisation keeping just enough to feed their elderly brothers. They should then fold their tents and fade into the night. – Yours, etc,