Branedy  on May 23, 2009

Sounds like a good start, what then? Seems like you are letting them off lightly.

Conor O'Neill  on May 23, 2009

I like your thinking. It actually sounds like they believe a few mea-culpas, three hail-marys and two minutes in a confession box is all they need to walk away from this.

patrick  on May 23, 2009

Couldn’t agree more, Conor. Can’t believe the Church is getting off so lightly. These people — all of them — should be in jail.

Marian  on May 25, 2009

The church is nothing more than an organised paedophile ring – protected and funded by the state and adorned and bowed to by majority of the population. I think by going to mass etc you are saying ‘we know you did these terrible things and covered up, but we dont mind we will still come to your church and throw money at you.’
What I want to know is how come the good catholic people of Ireland are so silent? why are they not walking the streets in front of every church in Ireland and demanding that their church clean up their act. I guess it does not affect their pocket, but we are all guilty of turning a blind eye to injustice and sad to say nothing has changed.
The state handed over their responsibility to educate the nation to a bunch of nutters and paid them per head of each unfortunate child. So it was important for the funds of these religious orders to keep a high number of children within their walls of horror.
Dont forget that many of these kids were farmed out and worked all over the country with farmers and doing other work like cleaning out rivers and drains etc. The girls did laundry and made rosery beads etc. We are all guilty of accepting the injustice we see every day. Although I was a catholic, I turned my back around 2002 before that I was silly enough to think that I could fight for changes for equality for women and children within the church, I was very idolistic.

Michael Kane  on May 25, 2009

Very well said Conor. It’s our national shame that (a) this was ever allowed to happen, but (b) complicity in the cover-up and total inaction in making the guilty pay continues to this day.
Nothing less than the equivalent of the Nuremberg trials should be undertaken to make the guilty – individuals and institutions – accountable.

Conor O'Neill  on May 25, 2009

Of course, you can add “every civil servant and every politician” to that list too.

My guess is that this will be like the old Beef Tribunal. Lots of tut tutting but the same criminals still running the show when the dust settles.

Conor O'Neill  on May 28, 2009

Looks like you can add the president of the Catholic League, Michael Woods and John Hanafin to the list of those who will burn in hell for their attempts to excuse those involved in the cover up.

When the protection of the power/influence/reputation of your religious organisation takes precedence over its original intent, you are nothing more than an agent of evil.

He came along the following morning and put holy communion in my mouth | Joe Scanlon  on May 28, 2009

[...] in Their Own Words Rick Read This Grandad Pleased my arse Damien Catholic Church in Ireland Conor Systematic Evil Brian Catholic church in ireland Derry Catholic Church in Ireland Bock Child Abuse — Bishops [...]

Dec O'Shea  on June 7, 2009

Sorry but cannot agree with all of your comments. If all your proposals where to be undertaken it would not improve anything. The guilty people who commited these terrible crimes should recieve there sentences. But if to seize all the Catholic Churchs’ property in Ireland is your answer, I’m afraid not. This will only give the people hiding these crimes the upper hand, as now your turning it into a witch hunt against the church, not a crusade for justice. Pressure must be put on the relative parties involved, to make sure all those guilty get the punishment they desevre for their crimes, and that includes the great goverment that has commited it own crimes against the people of Ireland. And their involvment in this one.

katiemac  on June 19, 2009

Can’t believe the naievty of the comments you made Conor, have you worked in child protection! The majority of perpetrators of abuse are fathers, brothers, other close male relatives and neighbours. Disclosure with regard to abuse by mothers is also now being more fully recognised and accepted. The common denominator are ‘males’ but you can’t demonise every male with the presumption that they are abusers, can you? These institutions were run by ‘house parents’ in the UK and the same levels of systematic abuse was prevalent there too, research it before you make comments like that. In addition read the Ryan report and see the amount of ‘lay’ people who were involved. I worked in Asia for three years as a volunteer and never came across priests or nuns abusing children but I did work with children abused by ‘professionals’ – sex tourists in banking, business, medicine, the ‘caring’ professions etc.. Abusers come in many shapes and forms. Any profession which allows access to children where individuals do not have police clearance and full background checks leave children vulnerable. The parents who pimped their children in Asia were not priests or nuns. The difference in Ireland is that this is now being investigated I wonder what would happen if the same level of scrutiny were given to the professions directly working with children in the past and recent past, how would social work and social care measure up to such investigations. I understand that only last week in the UK a Nursery assistant was convicted of abusing children in her care, she is not a priest or nun. What about those boys who abused and murdered Jamie Bolger, Sarah Payne, Holly and Jessica. This type of abuse is not so easily identified and if we categorise one profession or group of people we ignore a majority including abusive parents, coaches etc. and do not do our job. Life is not that simple, and our work certainly is not.

katiemac  on June 19, 2009

Excuse spelling mistake; ‘naivety’

Conor O'Neill  on June 19, 2009

You are completely missing the point Katie. Of course the majority of the abusers are not religious, no-one is claiming they are.

The anger of most people in this country is directed at those who actively allowed and enabled it to happen – that’s where the true evil resides. The majority of those people were and are “religious”.

An old friend of mine went to boarding school in Ireland. He states categorically that every single adult in that school knew what abuse was happening every night and did nothing about it.

Those who claim they were oblivious to child abuse by their religious peers are quite simply liars.

katiemac  on June 19, 2009

Communities were complicit Conor, look at what they did to ’single’ mothers who were deemed to be ‘lesser’ by they’re neighbours and families when they became pregnant, but where were the fathers. I haven’t seen a stampede of males ringing Joe Duffy etc. to claim the chilren they fathered, the silence from these men is deafening. It suited communities when orphans and lone mothers were removed from the communities, they didn’t have to face stark realities. Communities also knew exactly what was being endured by the victims and when orphans were brought out for trips at the weekends, local children fired stones and abuse at them, they and their families knew what was being endured and they could not care less. Ireland as a society and as a people were equally to blame as they stood back while these atrocities were being visited on these children and women but they didn’t care because as far as they were concerned these were not people that deserved respect. We’re great at looking back and pontificating about what should have been done but I don’t see very much remorse being expressed by those who lived in the villages and towns where these institutions were located. How many Irish girls when to the UK ‘nursing’ when in actual fact, as one recounted to me, she went to give birth and give her child up for adoption under the guise of studying! Needless to say the father of the child married a ‘respectable’ young woman with contacts in the town and she was never to hear from him again. Similar story with many of the children that communities, villages and towns turned their backs on, they left to find solace elsewhere. This is a scenario played out in many countries and certainly I can envisage this scene word for word in the rural Filippino village I lived in where a pregnant single mother was removed from the local church (not Catholic) because she was not married and deemed ‘lesser’ than the respectable biddies that attended waving their prayer beads like banshees! We’re all responsible as are our forefathers and mothers, where were they?!!!!!

Conor O'Neill  on June 21, 2009

Katie, I think we are both in agreement that Irish society in most of the 20th century was sick, twisted, perverse and immoral as we allowed a bunch of “celibate” men to dictate what that society should be.

However, this idea that lots of bad things happened so we shouldn’t single out the religious is unacceptable.

There is no comparison between the treatment of single mothers and the daily raping of children. No comparison. None.

Those who protected rapists as a matter of policy and did everything in their power to block access to contraception so their predator friends would have a constant supply of fresh meat must be vilified and treated with the utter contempt they deserve.