Madam, – I ran my own demons to earth a few short years ago and dealt with the fallout from the actions of a Christian Brother in a northside Dublin day school in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
The physical nature of the abuse was mild in comparison to that suffered by the children in the institutions but the psychological damage blighted my life for nearly 40 years.
I’ve done a thorough job of “cleaning house” and accepted that I wasn’t at fault (the question “Why did he pick on me?” is no longer relevant). However, I was shocked at my reaction to the published details of the report.
Here I am in my office on a construction site in Saudi Arabia, 70km north of the border with Yemen and it felt as if the cold, dead hand of Brother Kiely reached out from the grave and tapped me on the shoulder as I read the papers (“I haven’t gone away, you know”, he seemed to be saying).
Later, on the phone to home as I tried to describe my feelings, I cried, because that man made me afraid to go home and tell my parents what he was doing to me (and to others).
At 10 years of age I was afraid to go home.
What a legacy. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Why are members of the Government insisting the assets of the religious orders cannot be seized?
We should follow President Mary McAleese’s words of wisdom to the letter and force the clergy to stand trial. Then, surely when they are found guilty and shown to be the criminals they are, the Criminal Assets Bureau could step in? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I agree fully with Dr Bernadette Brady (May 22nd) who demands that every victim of “such horrific crimes should be given the opportunity to which they are legally entitled, to tell their own individual victim impact statement in a court of law”.
I belong to an institute which has membership of the Conference of Religious of Ireland (Cori), but not one of the accused 18. I publicly dissociate myself from the methodology employed by Cori and the State to address this issue. I abhor the use of pseudonyms in the report which gives no clarity to who is guilty or not. At best, with the avoidance of pseudonyms the report is a first stage which is useful in that it makes public the existence and extent of a culture of institutional abuse. The second stage must be the right of the accuser and the accused to the courts.
I refer to the notion of institutions being part of a totalitarian mindset as referred to recently by Patsy McGarry. For example, I have never been consulted or informed individually or in a group about the methodology agreed to by Cori and the State on my behalf. I have never received a briefing or committee report over the years. I do not even know the names of the Cori members on the committee and had no part in selecting them to act on my behalf or to use the money of our institutes in a compensation package designed with the State.
The totalitarian mindset is alive and well in the State too, where no one asks what the victims want. Instead, money rather than justice is dangled by the very political parties which claim to be shocked and yet are ready at very short notice in past days to start “playing political football” with victim compensation.
The proper use and administration of justice will lead to compensation won fairly and not thrown as a sop to the abused. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I have been avidly reading all about the Ryan report and every line, every comment, every detail, makes me cry. But, like a drug, I can’t stop.
I’ve been scanning the Letters page since May 25th to see if anyone echoed what Louis Power said in his letter of that date. I tried, but didn’t have the courage to put my name to it. No one else has, so I add my voice now.
He is right. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of us living with the ongoing effects of child abuse. But because it happened in the “family home” it supposedly didn’t happen. Who were we to tell? Parent(s)? Perpetrator or related, would deny. Teachers? Part of the system. Priests? Abusers themselves. Gardaí? Go home or you’ll be arrested. To tell was to risk being put into one of “those” schools. We all knew the hidden threat. Respectability was all that mattered. One in four may well be an underestimate of the total tally.
Now I feel guilty that, although my abuse was so much less than theirs, they have what it takes to move on but I’m stuck in the past. Not being believed is bad enough but ostracisation by the family because you dare to “rock the boat” is almost worse. We really are still the silent and repressed. No representatives, no pressure groups, no prosecutions, no redress, no apologies. We stay silently alone.
Well written, Louis Power, and thank you. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – A recent correspondent suggested the residents of the institutions run by the Christian Brothers were the “thugs of their day”. My late father who was born profoundly deaf was placed in the school for the deaf, in Cabra run by the Brothers, at the age of six and remained there for 11 years (1911-1922). His abiding memory of the place and the experience was of constant hunger and a bleak and loveless atmosphere. I am aware that this was a common experience for orphans at the time, even more so if they had the additional stigma of poverty. To further punish these helpless children by suggesting that they were thugs is disgraceful. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I am a student at Maynooth College. It is a beautiful campus and I have hugely enjoyed my first year as a student. On the way to the library last Friday I walked past two old priests. One said to the other, “Bad week for the church”. “Aye”, said the second, with a nod.
They still don’t get it. Every week is a bad week for the victims. This is a good week for the church because they can now start to do something. We should rejoice when our sin is outed, because it leaves us free to leave it behind. But you have to be willing to own it first.
Art Kavanagh wrote in the Letters page (May 23rd) that it was “most appalling” to have to watch a good nun apologise on television for the sins of the Sisters of Mercy.
Perhaps there is a parallel universe where the Irish churches were filled with disciples of Jesus instead of just Catholics, Protestants, Presbyterians and so on. There we would see that the greatest moment of that nun’s whole life-long ministry would have come on Thursday evening. She had a chance to speak truth and grace and words of healing and repentance. This is the hope of all church leaders. And we are so broken as a church that we think that confession is a disgrace and consider out-sourcing it to a solicitor.
I am training to be a Presbyterian minister. When I consider the pain of the victims of this abuse, I wonder this week why anyone would ever listen to an Irish church again. But I hope once a church has been humbled, it can start to speak the truth. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I did voluntary work in a boys’ home in Belgium during the early 1970s. The ill-treatment I saw there haunts me to this day. Staff tormented the boys. The older boys tormented the younger ones. Even the few little pet animals kept there were not exempted from ill-treatment. When I reported the situation subsequently, I was ignored. This was not a religious-run institution. There was not a priest, nun or brother in sight.
So it’s not just Ireland. It’s not just the Catholic Church. The media here is on a witch hunt at present with the Catholic Church being made the scapegoat of every societal failing. The talk is about compensation to survivors. What about using the money to help children in care today who may not survive? We read harrowing stories of young people being found dead from drug overdoses.
I salute the religious – nuns, priests, brothers and lay people who are trying to help young people and remember with affection dear Sr Eugene who looked after me and many other children when there was little help from any other quarter. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – While Eilish Byrne (May 26th) is as deeply shocked and scandalised, as are all decent right-minded people, at the horrendous abuse of defenceless children in Catholic-run industrial schools and orphanages, she seems to be “cutting off her nose to spite her face” in her extremist reaction to the revelations of the report. Would she eschew attending all doctors, simply because a few were less than professional? Rejecting the church and her religion because of the appalling crimes of a few, is not the answer. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I attended Catholic schools, both in Ireland and South Africa, from 1997 to 2004.
Many letters in recent days have called for the complete removal of religion from the educational sphere. This might be termed an understandable product of legitimate public anger at the mystifying abuses perpetrated in the past. However, I do not believe that the execrable scale of what can only be called an organic culture of abuse in Ireland of that era reflects the present status quo. On the contrary, most decent and calm-headed people, among whom I count myself, recognise that Catholic schools are now excellent centres of learning.
From a personal viewpoint, my Catholic schools were wonderful communities of faith, where the school authorities combined delivery of a State-approved curriculum with enriching ethical instruction. Moreover, in 2009 we live in a society where the primary disciplinary duty is squarely devolved to the home and to parents. In extremis, the State has the duty of care. We do not live in the past and Catholic education today should not be put on trial.
Finally, what is more bewildering is that these calls invoke the separation of church and State as an ideological buttress. This is absurd. Even in the French Republic, which has a century-long framework of separation enshrined both in law and public conscience, nobody would challenge the right of all independent confessional authorities to operate schools, including the church. What these calls are supporting – if they are serious – is a secular dictatorship. Respectfully, I suggest these people review previous historical attempts to strip religion from society. The results were just as brutal as many of the instances of abuse in some institutions. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Just to put the record straight, I unreservedly condemn the abuse suffered by children in the many institutions where they were housed in this country from the time of their foundation.
I mistakenly stated that the majority of the boys so incarcerated were the thugs of their era (May 23rd). I apologise to anyone who took offence from my statement. According to the commission document the majority of the children were there because of destitution, poverty, broken families and neglect.
With regard to compensation, I wholly endorse the concept of monetary compensation being made to the surviving victims of abuse by the religious institutions involved. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Could the religious institutions implicated in the Ryan report publish their most recent accounts of income and expenditure, so we can see the state of their finances? I think we are owed this at least, as the Government is supposedly representing the Irish people in dealing with these institutions. Then there would be transparency about the ability of the institutions to increase their compensation payments. It would also be interesting to know where their income comes from. In future all Catholic Church institutions, parishes, dioceses, etc, should publish annual accounts for scrutiny by interested parties, in the hope of rebuilding confidence and credibility in the institution of the Catholic Church. – Yours, etc,
Madam,– Rod Large expresses the view (May 27th) that a residential organisation “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”. The implication is that men who are denied normal sexual expression are highly likely to turn into abusing paedophiles – which is deeply insulting to men. I suggest we are mixing up cause and effect.
Is it not far more likely that socially inept people, or those with poor self-esteem may actively pursue the power and influence that accompany a role of perceived authority? In other words it is not that enforced celibacy turns someone into an abuser, but rather that those prone to abuse chase the positions that allow them access to potential victims? If I am right it only reinforces the case for adequate supervision and inspection of all those charged with the care of the vulnerable. – Yours, etc,