Jun
28
Speech by President McAleese at a reception for Survivors of Institutional Abuse
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Áras an Uachtaráin, 28th June 2009
Dia dhíbh go léir, agus céad míle fáilte romhaibh chuig Áras an Uachtaráin.
Good afternoon everyone, and on behalf of Martin and myself, let me offer each one of you a warm, heartfelt welcome to Áras an Uachtaráin.
There are moments in a life when words simply fail as a means of expression. No amount of them, no matter how heartfelt, can seem adequate to the moment. The publication of the Ryan Report was one such moment in the life of this nation. The horrible lives endured by thousands of our children, over so many years, as a result of abuse inflicted by those who cared for them in the name of the State and often in the name of the Christian gospel, were laid out graphically in that Report. It calls for responses at many levels official and unofficial and I know that many of you are actively involved in discussions on those responses. There is an important human response to overwhelming grief and that is to gather as community, to rally around one another and simply be together in solidarity.
The invitation to Aras an Uachtaráin today is an expression of the massive public wish to let you know how deeply your stories have struck a chord. For so long your suffering seemed to make strangers of you in your own land. Today, we simply seek to be family to each other, to assert our common care for one another and to acknowledge that what was done to those of you who are survivors of abuse in institutional care, not only damaged your precious lives but diminished our society. Those who switched off the light of love and hope in your lives, plunged our country into a terrible darkness. I know that one day in the Phoenix Park cannot hope to restore to your lives all the things that were taken from you. There is no magic potion to put right the things that were made so deliberately to go wrong. Nor is it possible in one event to reach out to everyone affected. I hope this day, though, does send a message that your lives and the lives of all those damaged by such abuse are our care and that most important of all we stand together in our determination to ensure that our country will honour the ambition set out in the Proclamation in 1916 to be a Republic which cherishes its children equally. Your experiences are monuments to our failure to cherish our children. Our most precious monument to you has to be our determination to be that Republic where children are cherished equally not just in lofty words but in everyday deeds.
The people of Ireland are desperately sorry for the many ways in which you were not cherished, in the abuse itself, in the silence, in the failure to act, in the failure to listen, hear and believe in time. In their name I offer every one here and all those whose little lives were robbed of the joys of childhood our heartfelt sorrow.
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Jun
28
Re: The Report of the The Commission To Inquire Into Child Abuse
Filed Under Personal Stories/Opinions | 13 Comments
What the Irish People and State could do now to enable healing and restitution
Introduction
I was born in 1955 and was brought up in a psychologically and emotionally abusive environment – my father was a bullying, dominating, angry and uncaring alcoholic who had the ‘benefit’ of a Christian Brothers education. Luckily we were not poor and my father was not physically violent, but, nevertheless four of my five other siblings have had, and still have, serious lifelong psychological problems (four have spent various periods in Psychiatric hospitals). I was lucky to attend a ‘better class’ of single-sex Catholic school but, nevertheless, have spent the first 50 years of my life trying to cope with the damaging effects of childhood fear, uncertainty, guilt, self-doubt and loathing and feelings of being unlovable. Having grappled with the very deceptive, but soothing, effects on the tortured psyche of that all-pervasive drug in our society – alcohol , I can only now, with healing, leave it behind and begin to relax and trust life again (having found a really loving partnership).
So, like many in our tortured land, I am very distressed and angry to think that while many of us kids were suffering our own various hells in Catholic day schools and abusive home environments, many other, less fortunate, kids were suffering a nightmarish hell of tortures, incarcerated in religious-run gulags. Now I am feeling guilty at a lifetime of ‘whinging’ about my upbringing when other kids suffered far worse fates.
Catholic Church control of the State’s education system
Worse still is the dread realisation that the organisation which laid the foundation for the ethical and moral ‘standards’ which pervaded Irish society for at least the last century (and much further back than that) is still in control of the ethical and moral formation of 95% of the nation’s children. How can we allow this to continue?
To this day a huge proportion of Irish children, of very young and tender age, are being taught that they carry ‘original sin’ and are forced to go to confession to celibate priests who have had, all their lives, to suppress their natural, God-given, sexual desires. It is my firm belief that we do a grave injustice to the Nation’s children if we allow men, who are suppressing their own sex drives, to teach (or cause other young teachers to teach) these same children precepts that are almost certainly not true (original sin, purgatory, hell, heaven etc..) and that will most certainly cause them guilt, fear and confusion about sin, sex, and their own bodies.
Only truth should be taught in our schools – is this not a basic, moral standard on which we should insist in our education system? I would concede that some (patently invented) myths – Santa Claus, Sinbad the Sailor, The Fairies, etc are harmless and should continue to be taught, but the stories inculcated in children by the major religions are mainly about worship, judgementalism, fear and differentiation from others. Children are taught that these stories are very, very serious and are vastly more important than anything else they will learn from their teachers, their parents or their families. How can Irish parents allow this to happen to their children? The answer is: because, in most cases, they have no choice but to allow this to be done to their children. The only alternative is to have their children ostracised and singled out at school as ‘different’, if they don’t undergo the same strange and unsettling process as their peers.
It angers me to hear people say that we should be thankful to the Catholic Church for ‘giving’ us an education. The suggestion is that we would have had no education system if the Church hadn’t set it all up and controlled it. Of course, this is nonsense! Every country in the world has an education system and all in Europe (many being much poorer than Ireland) have had very comprehensive systems – many to a far superior standard to ours. The Catholic Church wrested control of the education system from the British government in the 19th century and has jealously guarded it ever since. The system was paid for in toto by the Irish people, either through their taxes, subsequently handed over to the Church, or directly, by contributions to Church coffers. The Vatican, where the ultimate responsibility for all this lies, did not contribute, but was a net beneficiary of donations to the Church.
The only way for us, as a society, to heal these wounds to our individual and collective psyche, and to show respect to the memory of generations of child victims, is to sweep away all the secrecy, open all the Vatican and Church archives, stop the teaching of religion in all State schools and cut all ties between Church and State – no more religious control of any hospital, school or care institution which is wholly or partially funded by the taxpayer. Of course, religious people will continue to work in all these institutions but they should not control them or form their ethical and moral ethos.
The moral position is, surely, that the bishops, priests, nuns and brothers do not own all these institutions; they hold them in trust for the Irish people who paid for them. The State must now wrest ownership and control of all Schools from the Catholic Church. If this requires a constitutional amendment, then so be it. No-one would suggest that the religious should be left homeless or destitute – they should be furnished with decent living accommodation, chapels, halls etc, sufficient to their reasonable needs. In fact some orders of religious (mostly nuns) have voluntarily taken these steps by divesting themselves of their large holdings of land and buildings, and giving them to worthy causes and communities.
Jun
26
By Senan Molony Deputy Political Editor
THE head of one of 18 religious orders accused of institutional abuse of children was dramatically served with a High Court subpoena last night.
Fr Joe O’Reilly, of the Rosminian order, was served with court papers by Robert Dempsey (46), who alleges he was beaten and raped while in care as a boy.
The intervention came after a meeting between the religious and the Government, at which the Taoiseach said a three-person panel would be appointed next month to assess the financial worth of the orders involved
Brian Cowen said the panel would assess the financial positions submitted by the congregations “and report to Government as to the adequacy of these statements”.
Jun
26
Findings demand focus on children – McAleese
Filed Under Newspaper Articles on Child Abuse | 1 Comment
PATSY McGARRY Irish Times 26/06/09
THE ABUSIVE conduct of priests, nuns and brothers in residential institutions for children, as disclosed in the Ryan report, “is a matter which demands forensic probing and explanation,” President Mary McAleese has said. It also demanded “a fresh focus from all of us as a civic society on what we need to do to truly cherish the children of this nation equally”.
Speaking in Trinity College Dublin last night at an event to mark the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture today, she said “it is only a few weeks since the Ryan report exposed the extent to which vulnerable children in institutional care were subjected to sexual and physical abuse which was cruel, inhuman and degrading.
“Much of the abuse took place in the professional care of men and women committed to Christianity.
“Their systemic betrayal of the great Christian commandment to love one another is a matter which demands forensic probing and explanation.”
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Jun
26
PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent
THE CATHOLIC primate Cardinal Seán Brady, the Archbishop of Dublin Most Rev Diarmuid Martin and other bishops have been severely criticised for their actions and statements, where religious congregations were concerned, following publication of the Ryan report.
It has also been claimed that at least three victims of abuse have died by suicide since publication of the report.
Fr Tony Flannery, a Redemptorist priest, has revealed that many members of the congregations feel “terrified”, “ashamed”, “hurt” and “betrayed”, not only because of the actions of the guilty among their own colleagues, but also because of the actions and public statements of the archbishop and other members of the hierarchy who, he said, have led the public criticism of members of Ireland’s religious congregations.
Speaking on Joe Duffy’s Spirit Level programme, to be broadcast on RTÉ television at 11.15am next Sunday, Fr Flannery has said that “there is enormous anger among religious [members of the congregations]. They feel that they have been scapegoated, particularly by one member of the hierarchy, the Archbishop of Dublin”.
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Jun
26
Dr Michael Corry looks at how sexual abuse leads to self-loathing
The emerging self, with its inherent potential, needs to be protected and, like a seedling, nurtured in fertile ground.
Sexual abuse, like no other trauma, eclipses this natural unfolding with an impact of such magnitude that is rarely appreciated. Upwards of 150,000 adult women and men in Ireland have experienced statutory rape in childhood. Five times that figure experienced other forms of sexual abuse, ranging from inappropriate touching to the forced witnessing of exposure.
Picture an infant, whose window on the world is the rim of their cot, whose cry or smile elicits the unqualified, unconditional attention of her mother and father, their watchful eyes holding her gaze completely, making her feel, for those moments, the absolute centre of the world. In the infant’s tiny mind an inner knowing is forming – “I have made this happen.”
Now put yourself in her tiny shoes and fast forward to a time when the same apparently loving father is gradually beginning to express his ‘love’ in a sexual manner involving you in sex games, which evolve over time into full sexual intimacy such as that shared by consenting adults. Your protestations are mollified, your co-operation validated and your secrecy rewarded. Variations of this premature sexualisation occur. Not for some fathers the process of seduction, but rather sadistic brutal intercourse instilling terror and pain, where every orifice is violated. You have no escape.
Drunk or sober, day or night, he has access to you. Your reason for living has been reduced to being a sexual object, a sex slave. Once again, and in both examples of fathers, the belief holds – “I have made this happen.” The same interpretation will be formed if the attentions are those of a grandfather, uncle, sibling, neighbour or babysitter.
Fast forward again. You are now a teenager, perhaps at this stage no longer being actively abused, you now live a secret life besieged by guilt, shame, depression and self-loathing. School life becomes meaningless. Recreational drugs and alcohol bring anaesthesia. Suicide – the ultimate escape – is always on the agenda.
Jun
25
PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent
THE 18 religious congregations whose management of residential institutions for children gave rise to the Ryan report have agreed to present detailed reports on their financial position to Government by the middle of next month. The agreement was reached at a meeting with Taoiseach Brian Cowen and Cabinet Ministers in Government Buildings yesterday.
The reports, which must be signed off by each congregation’s financial adviser, will then be assessed “by a panel of three eminent independent persons”, according to a Government statement issued after the meeting.
The panel will “assess the material submitted by the congregations and report to Government as to the adequacy of these statements as a basis for assessing the resources of the congregations”.
There will then be further contact with the congregations to discuss the extent of their contributions to a trust proposed by the Taoiseach so that further financial and other supports can be provided to people who were in the institutions as children.
Representatives of all 18 religious congregations attended the meeting yesterday along with Mr Cowen, Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe, Minister for Health Mary Harney, Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern, and Minister of State at the Department of Children Barry Andrews.
It is understood that some of the larger congregations had hoped to be given until September to prepare their financial reports.
Speaking to the media after the meeting, Fr Joe O’Reilly, Irish provincial of the Rosminian congregation, said the three-person panel which would assess financial reports submitted by the congregations would be of the Government’s choosing and “be recognised by the public as independent”.
Speaking on behalf of all 18 congregations, he said it was expected that all would make full disclosure of their financial position, including assets abroad.
At a meeting with the Taoiseach and the same Ministers on June 5th, representatives of the 18 congregations agreed to an independent audit of their assets. They also agreed to contribute to the trust proposed by the Taoiseach and committed themselves to identifying resources, “both financial and other, within a transparent process with a view to delivering upon commitments”.
After the meeting Christine Buckley of the Aislinn Centre told Fr O’Reilly that in her view the Christian Brothers, the Sisters of Mercy and the Sisters of Charity, who she said had been responsible for “the most barbaric acts” in residential institutions, were hiding behind him as spokesman for the congregations. It was her “huge concern” and “hope that the Government has copped on to the behaviour of most of the 18 congregations, not all”.
When Fr O’Reilly came out of the meeting he was also confronted by Robert Dempsey, who spent time at St Joseph’s industrial school, near Clonmel, Co Tipperary, in the 1970s. It was run by the Rosminians. Fr O’Reilly said he had met Mr Dempsey before and hoped to help him “in whatever way we can”.
The Irish Times 25th June 2009
Jun
23
Religious Orders Assets and the Ryan Commissions Report.
Filed Under Personal Stories/Opinions | 5 Comments
As you are aware, an Independent audit of assets of 18 religious congregations which were party to the controversial 2002 redress agreement with the State is to be presented to the Government on the 24th June 2009.
We have recently learned that the photograph above in relation to Ardagh House, Ardagh, Co. Longford – is back on the market with a 35 per cent price cut to €3.25 million.
The property, owned by the Sisters of Mercy, was sold at auction in autumn 2007 for €5.25 million but the sale fell through.
It was relaunched last September 2008 with a guide of €5 million.
Asked whether the proceeds of the sale would now go to the Government for child abuse victims, a spokesman for the Sisters of Mercy said that the issue of further contributions is still being discussed.
It is believed that no specific properties are up for negotiation.
It’s quite clear that the aforementioned is just one example of many in relation to the Religious Orders Assets so there is little wonder why thousands of victims of institutional child abuse welcome the Labour Party pressing to have this legislation in relation to the Institutional Child Abuse Bill 2009 considered by the Dáil at the earliest possible opportunity.
Albert King on behalf of Mary King. (victim of institutional child abuse).
Jun
21
Climate of fear stymies open debate on sex abuse
Filed Under Newspaper Articles on Child Abuse | 5 Comments
Are we in a situation now where speakers are being vilified for simply stating facts, asks Eilis O’Hanlon
Sunday June 21 2009
PAYOUTS to victims of the recent earthquake in Italy had to be delayed last month after the number of people claiming for money turned out to be greater than the official population of the affected area.
The mayor of the worst hit town insisted indignantly that “the people of L’Aquila are not cheats”, but he needn’t have been so touchy. The prospect of money for nothing is bound to attract a few chancers. It’s human nature.
It’s become impossible, however, to suggest that any of those who claimed to have been the victims of abuse in Church-run institutions in Ireland might have been economical with the truth in the hope of financial gain, without being accused of siding with paedophiles. Even deviating by the slightest degree from the set of approved responses has become a risky undertaking. Fr Tom Coonan found that out last week when, during mass at St Joseph’s church in Ballingar, Co Offaly, he observed that the boys sent to the nearby St Conleth’s reformatory school in Daingean were… well, the next part is disputed.
One parishioner who hurried to the media to express her disgust was adamant that Fr Coonan called them “ruffians”. He denies using the word, insisting that he merely said “not all the boys in Daingean were angels” and that they were “dumped” there by society. The anonymous complainer stands by her original claim. Stalemate. Suffice to say that some mass-goers were offended, and the national media reported on the obligatory “outrage”.
Fr Tom subsequently apologised, though why he felt the need to say anything about the nature of the boys in Daingean is a conundrum. Their characters were and are irrelevant. Perhaps he was simply irritated, as many Catholics are, by the perception that the reputation of the Church as an entity is being indiscriminately tarred by the Ryan report into physical and sexual abuse by certain clerical orders. If so, he could probably have found a better way of expressing it.
Jun
20
Madam,
John Waters writes that the Ryan report has been appropriated “by actors intent on burying Irish Christianity” (“A lone voice against the axis of State and church”, June 19th).
I have not noticed any reports of thespians with spades over their shoulders marching on the archbishop’s palace.
What I have noticed through your pages is a number of correspondents pointing out, in moderate terms, the criminal behaviour of those who enabled child abusers to continue their evil deeds, and asking why they continue to be treated with an undue deference. Perhaps Mr Waters could re-read his own article. Towards the end of it he rightly points out “the establishment will defend the indefensible to the bitter end. When Cyril Daly denounced the Irish education system on US television in 1971, he was declared ‘anti-clerical’.”
In an article that draws attention to a brave man who confronted the alliance of church and the State, it is a pity that Mr Waters declares “anti-clerical” those who continue the struggle. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL McELREE,
Letters to Irish Times 20th June 2009
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