Irish abuse report demands decisive action

It is my understanding the abuse took place from the 1930's to the early 70's. I couldn't agree more with your comments. I was in the novicate for a short period around 1970. During that time I discovered there were people in the religous life from their teens and their parents pressured into that way of life or entered because it offered a sense of security. Chances are many of the religious in Ireland were poorly educated and took on responsibilites that were way beyond their capabilites. Another factor to consider is where were the government standards against abuse, quality of care etc. Chances are there weren't any government imposed standards. This was probably true in Norh America as well as any other country. Any time you have "secrecy" church or no church involevment you are asking for trouble.
Here in Canada there have been sexual abuse charges made against a secular private school..again secrecy and no accountability to outside standards..

Ronan, I appriecate your insight. It's depressing every time a new scandal surfaces, but your historical perspective sheds some light as to what can be done to prevent tragedies such as this in the future. My heart and prayers go out to all those children (now grown adults) involved.

I'm sure that those harboring distain and resentment towards Church authority will use this as self-destructive opportunity to bash our Pope and our mother Church. BUT my hope is that Catholics will be wise to look to the future and take what can be learned from an event such as this and use it to protect children in the future. Please pray for healing.

You describe conditions that largely correspond with the situation in many developing countries where the Church is rapidly growing and is "blessed" with numerous "vocations". In such cases entering a religious order or going to the seminary is the easiest and fastet way of improving one's lot and, more often than not, being able to transfer to a richer, developed country.
American bishops who are trying to resolve the problem of a shortage of vocations to the priesthood and religious life in their dioceses by importing personnel from third-world countries are surely laying the foundations for an eventual catastrophe in the American Church that will make the Irish situation look comparatively insignificant.

Ronan Coghlan tries to put things into context which is certainly lacking in Doyle's article. Doyle's is an emotional diatribe that does not use any sociological data from other institutions to help us to explain the context and mindset of scores of generations. The basic institution that no one wants to touch and which is still taboo is the family. Coghlan touches upon this within a time period that is not that distant. Just what happened in homes in terms of discipline and yes, sexual abuse? The factors that led many who were not qualified to become priests must be considered too. I suspect there were no screening processes. How did the culture in general deal with delinquents. I suspect if you go to any Juvenile detention center in America, right now, let alone back to the 1920's, you will be shocked. Doyle needs some context and if he is to be an international spokesman for these sorts of things, you would think he would research is subject broader than the institutional Catholic Church to include Protestants, Jews, and secular institutions.

You identified a multitude of reasons that led to the church acquiring individuals that were not "up to the standards". My conclusions are that there must be a lot of sexual abuse going on in homes in Ireland as I do not believe everyone who was brought up in an abusive home became priests or sisters. Did you ever consider peer pressure as another excuse? What I really want to know is why the church hierarchy continues to cover up the abuse? We need to evaluate the church and their hiring and ongoing evaluation methods (we need to consider that religious are employees of the church).

You are probably right about how many of these people ended up in the clergy, but what kind of human beings (Catholic or not) could commit these horrific acts and then allow them to be covered up? It is just sickening.

So where was Rome? These are excuses, not valid reasons for the behavior!

I suspect these insights are pretty much on target. The blind capitulation to authority of The Church is a double-edge sword. It does suport the structure and brings organizagtion to many lives and to community. Yet, there is a dark side to this and it is overwhelming in the evil that it produces.

Ronan Coghlan attributes "...some of what occurred in Ireland..." to several "historical insights". These "insights" are reminiscent of the auto industry up to the time of Nader's "Unsafe at Any Speed", which successfully blamed the consumers rather than the product, the auto. These insights depict an unsophisticated, rural, poverty ridden, "rustic", even medieval society, causally attributed to British rule. Just a bit short on the "fullness of truth".

Let's not forget that "historically" the Roman Catholic Church essentially formed not only the religious, but also the spiritual and intellectual culture of Ireland over the centuries. The Irish resisted the British but slavishly "adored" and followed the church before during and after the British.

If one reads the executive summary of the report it seems to be a straight-forward and non-malicious but chilling description of a microcosm of the institution of the Catholic Church, unfettered:

a) "The reformatory and industrial schools (read Church) depended on rigid control by means of severe corporal punishment (read "dis-memberment" - literal historically and latterly still - excommunication) and fear of such punishment (read threat of "hell" and "dis-memberment)."
b) "It also found that government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation (read colluded)."
c) "Excesses of punishment generated the fear that school officials believed to be essential for the maintenance of order" (This one should be read over and over again).
d) "It was systemic and not the result of individual breaches by persons who operated outside lawful and acceptable boundaries". Again, "The harshness of the regime was inculcated into the culture of the schools by successive generations of prothers, priests and nuns."

Conclusion: these were children, under the protection of the state entrusted to the church of Jesus Christ, the "authority" founded upon the rock of Peter. "The five-volume study concluded that Irish church officials... consistently shielded their orders' paedophiles from arrest amid a "culture of self-serving secrecy". Not just individual but systemic, institutional, pervasive. Familiar?

Thank you Ronan for giving some reasons for this horror. The article is rather superficial in its explanation for the events described. Being Irish and still having family in Ireland, I must agree with your observation that the "appalling poverty" of the past caused much of this. However inferring that it resulted from "unsuitable people" in the religious life is only partly right. The fact is, sorrowfully, that class distinctions and enmities are still very much entrenched in the Irish populace (and elsewhere). Sadly just about everyone knew something about these abuses, but because they were perpetrated on the lowest elements in society, few cared, some even felt they were justified. The solution is not to have better qualified people enter the clergy, but to educate the people about the deeper sources of abuse.

"historical insights" such as these are NO excuse for decades of institutional ignorance aiding and abetting criminal activity. Cardinals knew, bishops knew, superiors knew what was going on. So please, stop the rationalizing, explaining and enabling!

Ronan, I'm sure those reasons are valid as to why so many boys "ran to the cloth." The exact same is happening in Africa and Latin America today.

But you fail to comment on why the priests were left in the Church after their actions were identified. You explains reasons for the wound, but nothing about why those in charge did nothing to heal that wound or why they didn't takes steps to avoid it.

Your insights are not unique, it is that same dynamic that happened in the 19th and large part of the 20th century in this country. And it is a dynamic that is occurring to this day around the world. Look at all the African priests who are openly carrying on relationships with women. No respect for the vows, just a way to get 3 squares and a roof over their heads.

Read Nuala O'Faolain's "Are you somebody?" (and "Nearly There") to get an idea of the Ireland of the fifties and sixties my generation knew : the generally dysfunctional awkward bullying and jealous Irish (not all - far from it, but enough). We all have memories of the priest coming into the home (if he bothered to make parish visits) once or twice a year and the embarrassed deference our parents paid them and we children fuming because the television had to be switched off and the (not always) forced bonhomie of the black-suited stranger standing in our living room being offered a cup of tea or a whisky maybe. Once my father expressed his genuine horror at the admission made by a visiting curate just gone out the door (quite a nice man as it happened) that he "didn't read". "Imagine a priest that doesn't read! Doesn't read!!"( By which, he meant read literature - Hah!). My father was a cultivated, professional man, but very trusting and naïve, and most of the clergy (not all) went out of their way to blacklist him since he (my father) was known to criticise their ways (their power over primary schools etc.) I could go on. My mother was more switched on and identified that vicious sneering streak in a lot of the Irish clergy in our diocese, love of the good life, snobbish and fawning ver Protestants. Happily, I was to know very sincere and good clergy fromthe seventies on (luck really). But many of whom secretly profoundly lonely, and some alcoholics.

There is some truth to what you say, but it has always been the catholic church's way to swell their ranks by convincing people that a priest or nun in the family was a blessing to the whole family. Several centuries ago, they tricked young boys into becoming Eunuchs so they could continue to sing in the choir. How many people have sacrificed their lives, because they were promised a reward in heaven. And yes, Im sure there have been a lot of lazy evil people who have seen the church as a meal ticket or a way to gain power. Thats not new, its been going on for thousands of years. The catholic church has 'nothing' whatsoever to do with Christs teaching. Never has..Christ was a poor man who walked from place to place helping the poor and the infirm. not a man in a big hat, with a gold scepter, and purple robes, riding in a popemobile surrounded by swiss guards on horses (which by the way, looks like a gay pride parade. Christ said 'you will know them by their actions' so we know the priests and nuns are what Christ described as wolves in sheeps clothing.

I was a Protestant, and let me tell you...................... The fact is, if we don't follow Jesus as he commanded us, we're going to have problems.

If you leave they win. If you leave the abuse continues. The Church has fallen into the hands of a criminal syndicate. It is a self replicating system where the evil fill positions with other evil. This is our church and we are responsible for these actions. Republican bishops love to use war as a metaphor,this truly calls for war. The entire leadership of the Church fall in one of two camps; those who actively support evil and those who practice willful ignorance. None of these outrages has ever been corrected by the leadership without outside pressure. The implication of this is so horrible it should make you weep. It is up to the laity to wrest control away from the syndicate, demanding criminal prosecution is a first step. Leaving is a moral option only if leaving ends the abuse. This situation demands correction they want you to walk away.

Frankly,

I agree.Allow me to add another layer. SMUG. I can't even begin to understand the smugness I have encountered from these guys. As a non-clergy person teaching in a "Catholic" high school, I can't believe the smug attitude of the local bishop as he makes the lay faculty sign documents over and over again about not abusing children and taking MY fingerprints to check MY background.

Right now, I belong to a small, caring, INVOLVED, alternative RC prayer community ( part of a bigger parish) and I want to stick it and try to be sure this stuff stops in the situations which cross my personal life. Look into the many groups like mine. Perhaps they can be a source of power to change the situation. If not, go in peace my brother. Do what your heart is telling you to do.

Joe G

If you are Catholic truly Catholic you will remain Catholic. This is Christ's Church. Turning your back on Christ's Church is not the answer, although it is the probably the intended result of the reports. They win you lose. Tell me what will you be if not Catholic...You will always have human' will and human nature in any religion. Study your faith and you will find that your faith does not teach child abuse. The men in robes and the nuns who exacted these sins are not pillars of the Church and their failings should not and will not cause the Church to fold. There is an underlying pillar that holds this Church together for these some 2000 years. Find the pillar and hold it close to your heart. It will be Christ and he will share your sadness and dismay but he will not abandon you.

Organizations have faults - they're made up of people. That's why we need to remember Christ's teaching - actually a command - love one another as I have loved you.

We can't afford to lose you! You are the Church, the hierarchy are not. Read some of the good things going on in the Church to regain a little hope and see where we are reponding to Jesus' command that we love. Do a search for the Kino Border initiative and read about the love being given Mexicans abused by the US government to gain a little hope.

Please stay with us. We love you and need you.

Talk to you Sister in the Legion of Mary. Pray. Rejoice in the Ascension! Alleluia! Alleluia!

As hurtful as these remarks are felt, we might well remember that the essence of the "institution" is not the pope, the bishops, the clergy, or the laity. It is Jesus Christ, and it is to Him we believe, trust and live a relationship of love and forgiveness. He's the One that we offer our allegience and we will never fool Him through false intentions or prayer.

Don't be so swift in judgement. Though daily news has focused on abuse with in the Catholic Church, statistical dats indicates this is a societal problem across all religions/churches, and social organizations as well. A problem? Yes! Focused in the Church? No! Indeed, it is the members of the church themselves, at all levels, that need to develop a worldwide process of Jesus based response to take on and overcome the problem. Stay with and work and pray for action.

I'm packing my bags too. What a sick, sick lot. I no longer want to be associated with this pathetic group of males.

Very well said. I completely understand where you are coming from and I completely support your decision. Not only do I support you, I believe that God does as well. Your making perfect sense.

from Archangela

dear sweet earthen vessel
I think I understand. Even though we've never met in flesh, you and I have met in spirit many times. I've known you for over a year now... from your insightful and heartfelt comments left on almost every single one of my columns at NCR, comments that supported other people's lives con Espirito Santo as well as refreshingly and candidly sharing your own gifts and challenges.

I hope I am not being too forward to say that lIstening to the subtext of your comments as I have over these many months, I think I understand the depth of your feeling sick of heart, and if you would care to contact me at the email address at the bottom of any of my columns at NRC, I would like to offer to act as temporary consigliere to you about this.

The Irish (and African, and Canadian, and Mexican, and United Statesian, and more, et al,) predators and intrusions coming to light... are indeed sickening to the soul.

But sunlight thrown on these dark acts has now caused the ripping of the curtain of the temple, the 'hiding curtain' has been torn in two ... as though rent by ten-thousand knives... showing how a pre-meditated coterie over all these years, have put Christ to death over and over again, and in a whole different way than before...

as those in charge turned from His precise words, His clear-cut orthodoxy regarding cherishing children utterly: In Church, too many did not 'suffer the children to come to Me." Instead they were the progenitors of the suffering of children, and the prolongers of the children's suffering and the beside-themselves suffering of the children's mothers and fathers and any who truly loved those children. Those in charge enacted the opposite of Christ's rule about the lambs, the little ones.

... and, that ragged breech oin the curtain used to subvert just care, Earthenvessel, now gapes and flaps open wide....and will continue to. That bodes well for all loving and just people. Entropy ever comes before new conception, in the cycle of worn-out matters and institutions.

That curtain that hid so much from the sight of just souls, can never be restored, not even with two-hundred seams.

Many would agree, our ongoing awarenesses have ramped up consistently over the last decade especially, as we are given irrefutible evgvidence of hierarchical failures to protect, failure to report, failure to inquire, failure to find for the child, attempts by hierarchy in clergy to block state and local laws requiring clergy to be accountable about abuse of children they oversee and the adults who come into contact with those children... our awarenesses come late--

But it is not 'too late.' Even though the truths of these matters does not even at last come from the hands and mouths of those who were the appointed protectors-- it comes, as ever, from those most hurt, and those in service to help them mend their souls.

By those brave souls so standing up and speaking about their abuse by clergy, despite all threats of spiritual dislocation and societal opprobrium, truly earthenvessel, the time has come that we can see it all above ground, instead of as it was purposely managed to remain ...under the table and behind the curtain forever. The time has come at last. And for the people of Creator, the bell of consciousness, once rung, cannot be unrung. This would include souls like us.

Do not lose heart earthenvessel. There is much to turn over, to over-turn, and it may be yet, to start over with, as well. A new precis, different than before. There is much healing to be done, grief to be listened to, heart to be taken. Often, those most oppressed and/or distressed by abject evil, are the most passionate about justice and injustice. Creator made a certain number of souls exactly this way. It is a charism to be made this way, a spiritual Gift granted specifically to the soul by Creator. Let us see?

with kindest regards,
Dr. E
Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés
archived columns, "El Rio Debajo del Rio, The River Beneath the River," at National Catholic Reporter online

When Jesus said, "you must eat my body and drink my blood" and many disciples left him, Jesus asked those that remained, "will you go, too"? They replied, "master, to whom shall we go, you have the words of everlasting life." Please put your faith in Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, not in mere men.

dear cracked and earthen vessel,

remember always the Church is not such vile and evil institutions as these doing such great harm to our children, who Our Lord said are such as the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus said it would be better for any of these who led one of these little ones astray that he had never been born, that a millstone be tied around his neck and he cast into the sea.

These vile institutions, drunken with their violence, are not of the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ at all.

We are the Church. We are the People of God. Read Penny Lernoux, if you may still find her (try amazon). Read Father Gustavo Gutierrez and Friar Boff. Read the Reverend Father Richard P. McBrien and the Reverend Dominican Father Edward Schillebeeckx (and if you can please explain him to me, please!).

Read the holy American Jesuits, the Reverend Father John Dear and the Reverend Father Daniel Berrigan, all of him, in particular his exegesis of the Old Testament Prophets who called to heel the careerist religious of their own lost times.

These institutions of stone walls and stone hearts are not the Church.

We are.

What will Jesus say upon the Last Day as the signs of His Church?

I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat.
I was imprisoned and you did not liberate me.
Thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink.
A stranger in your land and you refused to welcome me.

This is Church.
You are Church.

Love one another.
Free yourself of that element of Church.
And pray I find a way to remain ever faithful, please, I beg you.

I am so weak an earthen vessel I needed to travel all of the way to the fringes of Mexico to find Church with which to pray, among the most poor and destitute and rejected, and prayerful.

Me, poorest of any, having lost all that I loved.

Here, alone in the desrt, as I am so weak.
And grateful for my Church to hold me strong and to guide me on the path.

Caminando se hace camino.

Do not despair. Do not let these things make you lose Faith.
You are Church. Be Church. And please pray for me always.

It is the "Roman" Catholic Church that must end, not the catholic church. The "Roman" Catholic Church name gathers Christ's followers under the poisonous umbrella of Roman society that existed centuries ago! The Roman Catholic Church is patterned after a long-ago society that routinely gave its prepubescent sons to be the male sexual companions of adult men before arranging their marriages to women. While Roman laws gave women some equality with men, the underbelly of Roman society treated its women as property. This was not the official Roman society; this was the traditional Roman society - and likewise, clerical sexual predators in the Catholic Church as we know it are not officially sanctioned by the church, but they are traditionally sanctioned by the hierarchy; they are the ulcered underbelly of the church that has finally ruptured. The Catholic (universal) Church is the official church of Christ, and it will never end. Because of the sexual abuse scandal, it will be healed of its ulcerated underbelly, and it will grow and prosper as long as we, the people of God, and good men like Thomas Doyle continue to insist on knowing the entire truth. The sick hierarchy doesn't want to admit that it is sick, and so it will continue to resist. But it will not prevail; it will either die of its illness or be healed by submitting to treatment. In any case, whatever the scenario, Christ, the Son of God, will prevail.

No wonder the priests, bishops, cardinal and pope no longer have any credibility. Good-bye male control.

Dear A. sinner,

Your passionate plea concludes with these suggestions:

"You want to stop pedophilia in the clergy? FINE. You are 100% right. But the quote I just pasted above is where you cross the line, Father.

Ideas:

1) Reform of Seminaries so that unworthy candidates are more effectively screened
2) the new bishops being appointed by Pope Benedict are a step in the right direction and will hopefully continue
3) no clerical secrecy

Probably a few others I can think of."

1) How do you describe "unworthy candidates?" By the same rigid and conservative political and ideological litmus test which rejected uncounted worthy candidates in the late seventies and eighties and nineties and which has given us the present generation of brimstone and hellfire priests driving people out of the Church in tears?

2) How are the "new bishops being appointed by Pope Benedict (XVI)" a step in the right direction? Is Morlino a step in the right direction? It is indeed a further step to the right, but is it really the right direction?

3) What do you mean by "no clerical secrecy?" Transparency of finances? Isn't that what you condemn the great National Catholic Reporter for having called for in Connecticut?

just wondering
your worst servant,
frere charles

In 600 AD there was an attempt to stop all of the clerical sexual abuses.

Look them up!!!!!

Then look what we got: celebacy.

Dominus Vobiscum,
RJ

I couldn't agree more. I have been reading several of the replies above yours and marvel that, even in this vile circumstance, there are those who seem to be giving only a perfunctory condemnation of the actions of the Irish abusers before once again urging us all to put this behind us and love the Church, in spite of its callous treatment of the children involved.

Getting rid of celibacy would help in so many ways. It will come because it must. There's no one left to minister to the Catholic population anymore, and the Church will eventually have to relax this rule. I hope they haven't waited too long. I would like my grandchildren to be able to practice the faith, but there won't be anyone left to administer the sacraments if the Church doesn't clean up its act regarding these past abuses and make a new start with married clergy and women sharing the ministry.

"16,000 married deacons must damn well speak up or quit," Ed writes. I write: "They don't have the courage".

While ending mandatory celibacy would surely increase the number of psychologically healthy candidates for the priesthood, it would not mean an end to the culture of secrecy.

All aspects of the problem need to be examined in order fix it. If, as Fr. Doyle claims, the church cannot fix itself, then what is the answer?

Read James Joyce, one who wrote as courageously as anyone could in those times of oppression and terror, although between the lines in a way those who knew could understand, and as a reward, who could not find a publisher or bookseller in the English speaking world in his brief lifetime.

Even now readers, more and more, do not see what he is clearly writing about. We need an explicit report such as this one to understand.