Madam, – President Mary McAleese has done the State a commendable service in forthrightly stating that the criminal members of the religious orders who committed such vile and shameful acts against the innocents in their care be made accountable before the courts. The Irish people will accept nothing less.
Substantial financial restitution must be made. The procrastination and legal foot-dragging of the congregations, particularly the Christian Brothers, must end now. One can only conclude that their God is Mammon and not Jesus Christ. “No one can serve two masters for either he will love one and hate the other or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon.” – Matthew 6:24.
We have reached a defining moment in the history of the Catholic Church in Ireland. Decent priests and religious have been dealt a mortal blow and one shudders to think what horrors are coming down the track when the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation into clerical sex abuse report is published.
May I suggest the proposed memorial be erected in Marlborough Street in Dublin, opposite the Pro-Cathedral and the Department of Education. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – If it is to learn from the past, it is essential that the Catholic Church immediately puts into effect measures to eliminate future opportunities for the physical and mental abuse of children by its clerics and also to protect the vast majority of good clergy from potential false accusations.
It therefore seems folly for the church to retain the medieval abomination of the sealed confessional for children. In no other part of society would it still be considered acceptable for a child to be closeted in a darkened environment with a relative stranger. Of course it is clear from past events that the collective Catholic bishops of Ireland are too lily-livered to take appropriate action. Therefore if the Government is to be considered sincere in dealing with these matters it must outlaw the sealed confessional for children forthwith. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – While not wishing to defend the religious orders involved in the scandal of abuse against children in the State, let us look at what underlies it. Whenever human beings, and particularly male human beings, get the opportunity to perpetrate acts of violence or sexual aggression, or have the power to oppress others of their kind, without fear of detection or punishment, a significant proportion will of them will do so. This is what links Abu Ghraib, Castlereagh, the Third Reich, and every other case of institutional abuse, whether in peace or in war. Sadly, it is in our nature. To blame the church or the few “bad apples” in the US army in Baghdad is to abrogate responsibility for our proclivities. We must acknowledge this fact, and make sure these opportunities are minimised by the necessary means. Whether we like it or not, we are still much nearer our primate origins than we sometimes like to admit. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Will there ever be a redress board set up for those abused physically and sexually in State-run psychiatric hospitals? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – While the publicity about the treatment of our children in industrial schools is welcome, it should be remembered that some people did comment on it years ago. In his poem A Simple Tale, Austin Clarke recounts a court order committing a boy and girl to an industrial school “for the public good.” It concludes: “We destroy/Families, bereave the unemployed./Pity and love are beyond our buoys”.
In Suffer the Little Children by Mary Raftery and Eoin O’Sullivan, they write about a fire at St Joseph’s Industrial School in Cavan in 1943, in which 35 children and one elderly woman died, commenting: “without doubt a more fitting tribute to those young lives . . . is to be found in the lines of Austin Clarke, the third poem of whose Three Poems about Children is about that fire.”
These poems date from 1963 and 1955 respectively and can be read in the recently published Austin Clarke: Collected Poems. Published, I note, with assistance from The Irish Times for which he reviewed poetry for so many years. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – To commemorate the victims of child abuse in Ireland, I propose that each diocese decide on a day or a half-day per month when, in perpetuity, members of the offending orders must emerge from their cloistered environment and make reparation on their knees in their local parish church.
This living evidence of shame might assuage the pain of the violated. It should ensure that the abuse would never be forgotten, and, above all, that it should never happen again. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Am I alone in finding my skin crawls as much from reading the overwhelming mass of letters from people baying for blood, as from reading the report on the abuse of children? All we need, surely, is a guillotine standing in front of us and a basket of knitting needles to go round.
Terrible as it certainly was, we were all part of it. As a society, we failed to challenge those who dictated their “truth” to us. Just as, today, we fail to challenge adequately those politicians, bankers and developers who have equally abused us as a people with their dogma. Do you think none of them have indulged in perversion?
I am one of many lucky people who, despite getting the strap or the stick, got whatever education they have – a good one – from the Irish Christian Brothers.
I saw no sexual abuse, neither at the Christian Brothers’ school in Greystones, where I sat alongside former minister Michael Woods, nor at Synge Street Christian Brothers School where both of us subsequently went.
All I can do for those who suffered so grievously is listen to them and believe them. Small compensation, but, maybe, better than money. Those accused of abusing should certainly be brought to trial, individual by individual; as indeed should our corrupt politicians, lawyers and bankers.
My parents believed in the Republic, believed that all the children of the State should be treated equally, should be cherished. They didn’t have to tell us. We saw it in them daily. Let’s not tear apart a dream of a just society they, and so many like them, lived their lives for. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – If you could come up with a latter-day Henry VIII we have work for him to do, urgently, and we could also add a few banks to his “dissolution” list. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Many readers have given vent in righteous anger in response to the Ryan report. Is it not timely now, for some reflection? We celebrate Pentecost this weekend, the feast of the Holy Spirit, “the love of God poured into our hearts”, as St Paul puts it.
Love of one another is the second great commandment from which none of us are exempt. Someone, Christ, at one time spoke about casting stones. Not one of us is without fault to do so.
Then please let us all try to put into practice the petition in the Lord’s Prayer – that we be forgiven to the measure that we too forgive, even those who have trespassed against us. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – In Britain, MPs fiddle their expenses and get sacked. Here Brothers rape and pulverise children – and receive pensions. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I have never forgotten an incident that occurred on my honeymoon in 1955. My wife, Eleanor, and I were married on June 11th, 1955 and spent seven days in Ashford Castle. (In case you think we were wealthy,our total income was £15 per week but Ashford then cost only £12.60 per week each, including meals and was run by the wonderful Huggart family).
We were driving through the Maam valley in heavy rain in my mother’s 1939 Standard 12 when we were stopped by gardaí and told that a nine-year old boy had escaped from Letterfrack Industrial School and was in the mountains. We watched for him and felt we would take him home if we found him – a well-meant idea, even if not possible.
Now that we know about the Brothers, I wonder about that child. Probably beaten and abused for running away. Does anyone remember this and his later history? Never forgotten. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Might it not give some indication that we have taken in recent revelations if the clergy were to find themselves preaching to empty pews? – Yours, etc,