The fate of baby Marion Howe in Goldenbridge orphanage 42 years ago will have disturbed many people in the past two days. Some of these people are members of the Sisters of Mercy order. They will wonder what happened to transform a healthy, 11month-old baby, within a few days of her arrival at Goldenbridge, to a child dying of dysentery and with an unexplained burn on her leg.
It would appear that this week's settlement by the Mercy order has done nothing to reduce the pain of the Howe family - at least in the short term. In the settlement, the order agreed to pay £20,000 to the family but without admission of liability. The order also issued a qualified apology in which it said it was sorry "if there was any lack of courtesy and compassion at that time."
It is hardly surprising that this statement has brought little relief to the Howes or to others who suffered in Goldenbridge and elsewhere. Indeed, it is quite breathtaking that what happened to baby Howe could be equated with a "lack of courtesy and compassion." It is breathtaking that the acts of cruelty and bullying recounted by many former inmates of Sisters of Mercy orphanages, here and abroad, could be explained away by a phrase - which has about it the ring of the public relations agency.
But what really hurts those who suffered at the hands of some of the Mercy nuns is the inclusion in the statement of the word `if'. Is the order saying that it does not believe what the Howes have told them? Is it saying that it does not believe the Irish women who told their stories in Louis Lentin's Dear Daughter documentary last year? Is it saying that it does not believe the men and women in Australia who have recounted similar experiences at the hands of members of the order there?
Why then has the order issued qualified apologies? Why has it paid compensation to the Howes, albeit a relatively meagre sum? Is there not a tacit admission here that what these people say happened did happen? Or are we to believe that the Sisters of Mercy have taken to paying compensation and issuing apologies for things that didn't happen at all? And what do those Sisters of Mercy who are appalled at what was done by some of their number in the past, think of this? Why should women who were, in some cases kind, in other cases fair and in other cases strict but not cruel to children in the 1950s and 1960s, have to live under the shadow of those who let down their order by indulging in violence and cruelty? Yet that is the effect of the refusal by the Sisters of Mercy to do what their former charges desperately want them to do: to say, with no ifs, buts or maybes, that members of their order did bad things to the children in their care and that they regret it.
Some former residents of Goldenbridge want a public inquiry into what happened in orphanages, reformatories and other institutions run by religious up to the 1970s. And for as long as religious orders refuse to acknowledge, in a straightforward way, what happened, the case for such an inquiry becomes irresistable.
More importantly, victims will continue to feel unheard and unacknowledged and the majority of nuns, brothers and priests who behaved decently over the decades will be overshadowed in the public mind by the minority who let them down.