Comments on: Panel’s report on Ryan submitted

By: Hanora Brennan

Hanora Brennan — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 13:32:13 +0000

Why treat the Group Leaders to a special reading of the assets? They’ve done bugger all for survivors in the past. ‘Course if you’re a shadow Director of one of these groups I can understand why the question would be asked! Out with it and lets have no more of your fork tongued hypocrisy – how about it Jumbo?

By: Charles O'Rourke

Charles O'Rourke — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:41:21 +0000

Well Anne, if we have learnt anything from the investigations of the Roman Church then it is that God is definitly not with that organisation. They seem to know this and to judge by their actions and stonewalling they have accepted this reality. Their behaviour at the Ryan commission in all it,s sordity confirmed that.With that acceptence follows a phase of nihilism where nothing really matters except wealth.It is a paradox that the moral stature of survivors is superior to that of a church that has prided itself on having monoply of just that. With truth on you side Anne you have an imeasurable wealth.With truth comes hope, something mainly absent in the Irish Roman Catholic Church.

By: anne

anne — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:58:41 +0000

That is so true Charles. Well, Hope and faith is all we have left, it’s got us this far and it will take us some more…

I am so proud of each and every one of us for the strength within our spirit.

I believe God is with us and all will be okay.

Anne.

By: Charles O'Rourke

Charles O'Rourke — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:47:45 +0000

Ann , these religious are lacking in vital emotional functions, Brought up at an early age in their seminariums where their human feelings were amputated they now wander into an eerie zone and are unable to relate to the real world or to the feelings of others.Their god is a well filled bank vault and the suffering of surviviors is of no relevance to them. They can,t look into themselves for what would they find, “Emptieness”?.

By: Charles O'Rourke

Charles O'Rourke — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:52:48 +0000

I’m sure Brother Garvey would have no difficulty in aquiring a loan from the Vatican Bank. After all they have been customers there since the founding of the Irish State and with a steady inflow of cash from the industrial schools to that bank are creditable customers.Then there is the question of real estate in Rome where they have their head quarters.A global assessment of their resources will give a true picture of the economic status of that order, their dealings in high finance on the international market will show their moral status.”No admission of guilt ever” is their creed as tellingly described by Justice Ryan.

By: Anne

Anne — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:26:24 +0000

It honestly cuts me to the bone. I just cannot fathom why, in this day and age, these “Religious Orders” would try to deny all survivors a chance to heal, move on e.c.t, but they have done nothing more than persecute us again and again,as if they are angry with us for what they are going through!??!…

How could the Religious not look at themselves deep within and find the truth? How? and yet profess to be so close to God, who is the truth.
Shameful, and so so wrong. God help them.
Anne.

By: Charles O'Rourke

Charles O'Rourke — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:21:35 +0000

A suitable memorial would be the removal of the religious from the fields of health and education. Thus denying them access to children both corporal and spiritual. This was done in France at the beginning of the century. They were given three weeks to pack up and leave. Secular societies do not come about by themselves rather by political decisions made by a government who demand full control of its own departments. Now that would be a memorial. In the mean time there is the question of the ill gotten gains the orders are now asked to put on the table. So far their behaviour has been less than admirable and at times sordid. Shall we witness further deference to the religious?.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:26:59 +0000

Br. Edmund Garvey insisted the trust was designed to defend the long-term viability of the order’s schools, not protect the order from lawsuits. He said the order was ready to surrender Irish assets but was struggling financially to care for its 250 largely elderly brothers in Ireland. Garvey said his order would try to find more funds to compensate victims, but wasn’t sure that was realistic. “At this point in time, I don’t believe we can,” he said.

Stephen Rubino, a New Jersey-based lawyer who specializes in class-action lawsuits against Catholic authorities in the United States, said the Christian Brothers often sought “to disassociate themselves from particularly pregnant assets that could be given over to, or awarded, in a judgment. It’s what corporations do when they feel like they’re in trouble. The question is whether it’s lawful,” Rubino said.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:20:36 +0000

THE Christian Brothers have over the past year(2008 and up to May 20 2009) transferred ownership of their primary and secondary schools in the Republic to a new trust named after the order’s founder. The value of the property transferred was estimated to be in the region of €400 million at the time of the transfer, according to a spokesman for the order.

The chief executive of the trust is Gerry Bennett. The other members of the trust are: Danny O’Hare, the founding president of DCU; Pat Cox, the former president of the European Parliament; Dr Fiachra Long, philosophy lecturer in UCC; Prof Eunice McCarthy, psychology professor at UCD; Patricia McCrossan, former principal of the Central Remedial Clinic School: Br Michael Murray, former province leader of St Helen’s Province in Ireland; Carmel Naughton, a former chairwoman of the National Gallery; and Pat O’Neill, former group managing director of Glanbia.

The directors of the trust are Pat Higgins, former director of education at Drumcondra, Helen Ó Murchú, a member of the Governing body of the Marino Institute of Education, William Hallahan, a former principal at Christian Brothers schools, Catherine McDonagh, a post-primary teacher, Br Mark McDonnell, recently returned from the congregation leadership team in Rome, and Gerard Rowley, head of administration with the Refugee Appeals Tribunal.

The Christian Brothers remain as owners of such property as the Marino Institute on Griffith Avenue, Dublin, the Emmaus retreat centre in Swords, Co Dublin, and various residential properties, according to a spokesman for the congregation.

Over recent years, they have sold many valuable sites including the St Helen’s site in Stillorgan, Co Dublin, now the Radisson Hotel.

By: Charles O'Rourke

Charles O'Rourke — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:13:24 +0000

Paddy, we are about to see a clinical exercise in ecclesiastical money laundering.