What the Irish People andState could do now to enable healing and restitution

Introduction

I was born in1955 and was brought up in a psychologically and emotionally abusiveenvironment – my father was a bullying, dominating, angry anduncaring alcoholic who had the ‘benefit’ of a Christian Brotherseducation. Luckily we were not poor and my father was not physicallyviolent, but, nevertheless four of my five other siblings have had,and still have, serious lifelong psychological problems (four havespent various periods in Psychiatric hospitals). I was lucky toattend a ‘better class’ of single-sex Catholic school but,nevertheless, have spent the first 50 years of my life trying to copewith the damaging effects of childhood fear, uncertainty, guilt,self-doubt and loathing and feelings of being unlovable. Havinggrappled with the very deceptive, but soothing, effects on thetortured psyche of that all-pervasive drug in our society – alcohol, I can only now, with healing, leave it behind and begin to relaxand trust life again (having found a really loving partnership).

So, like many inour tortured land, I am very distressed and angry to think that whilemany of us kids were suffering our own various hells in Catholic dayschools and abusive home environments, many other, less fortunate,kids were suffering a nightmarish hell of tortures, incarcerated inreligious-run gulags. Now I am feeling guilty at a lifetime of‘whinging’ about my upbringing when other kids suffered far worsefates.

CatholicChurch control of the State’s education system

Worse still isthe dread realisation that the organisation which laid the foundationfor the ethical and moral ‘standards’ which pervaded Irishsociety for at least the last century (and much further back thanthat) 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 ahuge proportion of Irish children, of very young and tender age, arebeing taught that they carry ‘original sin’ and are forced to goto confession to celibate priests who have had, all their lives, tosuppress their natural, God-given, sexual desires. It is my firmbelief that we do a grave injustice to the Nation’s children if weallow men, who are suppressing their own sex drives, to teach (orcause other young teachers to teach) these same children preceptsthat are almost certainly not true (original sin, purgatory, hell,heaven etc..) and that will most certainly cause them guilt, fear andconfusion about sin, sex, and their own bodies.

Onlytruth should be taught in our schools – is this not abasic, moral standard on which we should insist in our educationsystem? I would concede that some (patently invented) myths – SantaClaus, Sinbad the Sailor, The Fairies, etc are harmless and shouldcontinue to be taught, but the stories inculcated in children by themajor religions are mainly about worship, judgementalism, fear anddifferentiation from others. Children are taught that these storiesare very, very serious and are vastly more important than anythingelse they will learn from their teachers, their parents or theirfamilies. How can Irish parents allow this to happen to theirchildren? The answer is: because, in most cases, they have nochoice but to allow this to be done to their children. Theonly alternative is to have their children ostracised and singled outat school as ‘different’, if they don’t undergo the samestrange and unsettling process as their peers.

It angers me tohear people say that we should be thankful to the Catholic Church for‘giving’ us an education. The suggestion is that we would havehad no education system if the Church hadn’t set it all up andcontrolled it. Of course, this is nonsense! Every country in theworld has an education system and all in Europe (many being muchpoorer than Ireland) have had very comprehensive systems – many toa far superior standard to ours. The Catholic Church wrested controlof the education system from the British government in the 19thcentury and has jealously guarded it ever since. The system was paidfor in toto by the Irish people, either through their taxes,subsequently handed over to the Church, or directly, by contributionsto Church coffers. The Vatican, where the ultimate responsibility forall this lies, did not contribute, but was a net beneficiary ofdonations to the Church.

The only way forus, as a society, to heal these wounds to our individual andcollective psyche, and to show respect to the memory of generationsof child victims, is to sweep away all the secrecy,open all the Vatican and Church archives, stop the teaching ofreligion in all State schools and cut all ties between Church andState – no more religious control of any hospital, school or careinstitution which is wholly or partially funded by the taxpayer. Ofcourse, religious people will continue to work in all theseinstitutions but they should not control them or form their ethicaland moral ethos.

The moralposition is, surely, that the bishops, priests, nuns and brothers donot own all these institutions; they hold them in trust for the Irishpeople who paid for them. The State must now wrest ownership andcontrol of all Schools from the Catholic Church. If this requires aconstitutional amendment, then so be it. No-one would suggest thatthe religious should be left homeless or destitute – they should befurnished with decent living accommodation, chapels, halls etc,sufficient to their reasonable needs. In fact some orders ofreligious (mostly nuns) have voluntarily taken these steps bydivesting themselves of their large holdings of land and buildings,and giving them to worthy causes and communities.

Truecontrition and remorse would see changes in Church rules
TheBishops and priests of the Catholic Church have expressed remorse forpast horrors but, so far, have not changed their own internal ruleswhich brought about this perversion on the part of many celibatepriests, nuns and brothers. The Catholic Church in Ireland mustchange all rules which require celibacy and a male-only priesthood.This is the only valid way in which they can express true remorse andcontrition and ensure that it doesn’t happen again. If thisrequires a split with the Vatican, then that is what must be done. Amoral organisation (or an organisation containing moral people)cannot endanger or abrogate the rights of children in order topreserve the requirements of bureaucracy. There is little doubt thatthe Vatican will change these rules anyway, and soon too, so why notstart the revolution in Ireland? All that is required is a few bravesouls to say “No!” and to rebel, and the system will be forced tochange (if many bishops and priests rebel together, the Vaticancannot sack them all!)

If thisrebellion does not happen we must assume that the Bishops and priestsacquiesce in the continuation of this anti-natural and perversesystem of rules (and thus we cannot take their expressions of remorseand willingness to make reparations as genuine)

Historyas taught in our schools must be revised
Our teaching ofhistory requires quite a lot of revision. In the first 60 years ofthe state’s existence we were taught that the survival and‘victory’ of the Catholic Church was a superb, beneficial andwonderful outcome for Ireland. Somehow, Protestantism was cruel andflawed and unpatriotic. Now, that view of history is shown to bedeeply flawed.

The Anglicanchurches have not been implicated in all this child abuse, except fora small number of individual cases often handled in a serious andethical manner. The Anglican church is far less discriminatory (ithas women priests, married priests and openly gay priests and usesopen, democratic systems to elect leaders and formulate its rules)than the Catholic church and far more likely to espouse modernstandards of human rights and environmental responsibility.

The CatholicChurch has always supported monarchy, autocracy, dictatorship andfascism (until a late conversion to support for democracy and somehuman rights in the latter half of the 20th Century). The struggleagainst fascism in Europe from 1936 (Spain) to 1945 was carried outmostly by states coming from the Protestant religious tradition(Britain, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, United States) or secularism(Soviet Union), whereas those who lined up with the Nazis (Austria,Italy, Hungary, Croatia), or were fascist supporters (Spain andPortugal), were mostly Catholic countries (although Germany is halfProtestant, the Nazis birthplace and breeding ground was Bavaria andAustria – almost exclusively Catholic). Poland is the onlyexception to this Catholic/Protestant divide – but, one could say,they hadn’t much choice in the matter.

Our embracing ofCatholicism has been an unmitigated disaster for us. Only when thegrip of the Catholic Church on our ethical and moral formationloosened did Ireland begin to enshrine in law the human rights ofwomen, gay people, disabled people, children, minorities and the lesswell off, and to sweep away the curse of emigration and ourinward-looking, mean and judgemental society.

These strugglesfor women’s rights, gay rights, children’s rights and the rightsof disabled people and other minorities were fought and won firstlyin Protestant countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Holland, Denmark,the US, Britain, New Zealand, Canada). In no casehas a Catholic majority country led the human struggle for the rightsof worldwide oppressed minorities – we are always the latefollowers. In 1992 the Pope got together a coalition of Catholic andMuslim countries (led by President Carlos Menem of Argentina) tosabotage the Cairo UN conference on the Rights of Women and managedto set back plans and funding for women’s rights in developingcountries by decades.

Our historybooks must be rewritten to reflect the truth of the effect on Irishsociety of our wholehearted embracing of the Catholic Church.

Freedom/rehabilitationfor Priests, Nuns and Brothers

Many of thepriests, nuns and brothers in these religious communities are trappedin a system from which they fear to escape (and into which many wereled by false promises and/or family poverty). The state should set uporganisations for helping religious professionals who may wish toexperiment with a life in lay society outside their orders ordiocesan framework. This must include financial support, retraining,therapy, educational opportunities and accommodation support. Thesereligious professionals are also victims of the Catholic Churchsystem of child education and lifelong control.

InternationalChildren-In-Care Rights Organisation

The bestmemorial we could set up in honour of the victims of this system isan (Ireland-based) international inspection and educationalorganisation to examine residential child-care institutionsworldwide. We could become a centre of excellence and expertise onthe subject of prevention of child abuse in institutional settings.We already have a UN peacekeeping school, Norway has manypeacekeeping institutes, as has Switzerland – why can we not set upan International Children-in-Care Rights Organisation whose aim wouldbe to investigate and report on conditions in child-care institutionsworldwide. It is unlikely, in the climate now pertaining in Irelandthat such wide-scale abuse would ever take place again in thiscountry, but it does happen in many other countries worldwide – wecan help to save these children from suffering as ours did. Some ofthe monies going to the forthcoming Victims Trust Fund could be usedto set up and run this organisation (with matching funding from theState). The victims’ organisations should be consulted in thismatter.

MemorialMuseum and Monument

Manynations/states which have committed crimes or atrocities suffered aperiod of national shame (Germany, France, Japan, Croatia, Serbia,Bosnia, Italy, United States, Australia, Belgium, Britain, Portugal,Spain, Rwanda, South Africa, and many others) which often manifesteditself in a period of silence and/or denial followed by a catharticand healing period of investigation, admission of wrongdoing,self-criticism, remorse and, ultimately, an apology to the victimsand an undertaking to learn lessons, rewrite the history books andnot to forget. We, the Irish Nation, must now undertake the lattersteps to expunge (but not to forget) our shame.

A permanentMemorial Museum must be set up which would archive the informationcollected on the whole web of religious-run child ‘care’institutions, to include the names of all those responsible for abuseand neglect and those who oversaw the system and ‘stood idly by’.It should include the photographs and names of all the Popes,Cardinals, Bishops, Papal Nuncios, Taoisigh, Ministers for Education,Ministers for Justice and departmental inspectors who presided overthe system from 1922 to 1994. This museum should incorporate aremembrance courtyard or garden containing a suitable sculpture whichshould be a mandatory visiting/pilgrimage/wreath-laying site for allvisiting Popes, Apostolic Nuncios, Cardinals and Bishops, and advisedvisiting for foreign Heads of State (like the Holocaust Memorial inIsrael).

Poets ofIreland, come to our aid!

I would suggestthat we need a word to encapsulate the suffering and horror which hastaken place – Holocaust is not a suitable word as it has its ownspecial meaning for the Jewish people. We should ask a group of Poetsto join together and come up with a suitable meaningful word for usto use in our remembrance of these acts of shame for the Nation.Maybe Poetry Ireland or Aosdana would organise this?

InConclusion
So, let us begin this work of TruthTelling so that future generations of Irish children may saythat we did them proud and learned from the horrendous errors of ourpast ways.
To summarise again:

1. The leadersand members of the Catholic Church in Ireland must ensure that therules on celibacy and all-male priesthood are changed if theirexpressions of remorse are to be believed. If this requires a breakwith the Vatican then this will show their true contrition andremorse. Any lesser action must be construed as a lack of contritionand an unwillingness to ensure no repeat of this shame.

2. The Irishpeople have paid for all the lands and buildings now under thecontrol of the Catholic Church and must regain possession of allschools, hospitals and care institutions into State ownership andcontrol – even if this requires a constitutional amendment.However, Churches and reasonable living and administrativeaccommodation must remain in religious hands (but no more bishops’palaces!).

3. All whoabused their positions of trust and power over children for the last60 years must be named and, if possible, tried before the courts forcrimes committed.

4. Any moniesremaining after victims have been compensated should be used to setup an International Children-In-Care Rights Organisation whose remitwould be to inspect childcare institutions and their regulation,audit and inspection regimes worldwide, and to report on theseannually. This organisation could also be a font of expertise andstudy for best practice in running, regulating and inspectingchildcare homes worldwide.

5. A MemorialMuseum must be set up containing details of all the abuses detailedin the Ryan report and the names and photographs of all the victims.It must give details of all the religious orders, the names andphotographs of the leaders of these organisations, all the Popes,Archbishops, Cardinals and Papal Nuncios who presided over thistorture regime and the names of all Taoisigh and Ministers forEducation, and Justice, and departmental inspectors who also presidedover these institutions. This museum should be the place visitingHeads of State and ambassadors and visiting religious leaders visitand lay wreaths on official/state visits to Ireland (like Yad Vashemin Israel).

6. Our poetsshould be tasked with choosing a single word to represent the horrorof what happened and the national shame associated with it.

7. The Statemust set up an organisation for the rehabilitation of priests, nunsand brothers who may wish to leave their religious institutions andlive the remainder of their lives in freedom and, possibly, serviceto humanity.

8. Historycurricula in schools must be revised to reflect the true effect ofthe dominant position of the Catholic Church on human rights andhuman development in Ireland.

Yours sincerely

Vincent Bourke

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Comments

13 Responsesto “Re: The Report of the The Commission To Inquire Into ChildAbuse”

1. Accountant on June 28th, 2009 02:42

I’m a poet. Would you like a Poem?

2. Andrew on June 28th, 2009 06:07

Powerful piece of writing

3. Catherine on June 28th, 2009 10:07

Brilliant.

Guilt is the gift that keeps on giving and the Catholic Cult religionhas used it for thousands of years to keep us enslaved.

4. Portia on June 28th, 2009 10:46

I can relate to every word written here.

I am 54 and only in 2005 did I finally learn how to do inner healingon all the abuse suffered as a child in Ireland.

Perhaps the main problem is finding someone professional that we cantrust, but there are so few who understand, and those that do, do notwork for this church state system.

Those do gooders who work for this patriarchal system are notinterested in anything but money and power and having control overthe weak and abused and vulnerable.

The one word that keeps popping up in my mind is- DISPOSABLECHILDREN.

Even today 2009- I see the HSE attitude to these disposable children.I see their eugenics programming shining through as they abuse therights of children daily.

I deal with the parents and grandparents of these disposable childrenwhen HSE try to cut off all family ties and use parental alienationtechniques to destroy the loving natural bonds between children andtheir only real families.

I have been a witness to HSE agents try to break and destroy thesouls of strong children.

From this article I have learned so much- it is all of us who NNEDhealing-all who were brainwashed and conditioned through generationsby the Patriarchal system.

Thank you Paddy.

Thank you Vincent.

5. Paddy on June 28th, 2009 22:45

I agree completely Andrew.

6. Paddy on June 28th, 2009 22:46

Of course……….everything is welcome. Feel free to submit poetry.

7. Martha on June 29th, 2009 00:07

Dear Vincent,

I was so moved by your post that I copied and pasted it to mydesktop, so that I could respond to it as I carefully read it.

The following are my comments (in italics – hope that works onPaddy’s site?) on each of your paragraphs, as I read them.

“I was born in 1955 and was brought up in a psychologically andemotionally abusive environment – my father was a bullying,dominating, angry and uncaring alcoholic who had the ‘benefit’ ofa Christian Brothers education. Luckily we were not poor and myfather was not physically violent, but, nevertheless four of my fiveother siblings have had, and still have, serious lifelongpsychological problems (four have spent various periods inPsychiatric hospitals). I was lucky to attend a ‘better class’ ofsingle-sex Catholic school but, nevertheless, have spent the first 50years of my life trying to cope with the damaging effects ofchildhood fear, uncertainty, guilt, self-doubt and loathing andfeelings of being unlovable. Having grappled with the very deceptive,but soothing, effects on the tortured psyche of that all-pervasivedrug in our society – alcohol , I can only now, with healing, leaveit behind and begin to relax and trust life again (having found areally loving partnership).”

The first thing that struck me about this first paragraph/statementof yours, Vincent, was: where was your Mother in all of this? Why didshe marry (fall in love with) and have children by a bully –whether or not he was an alcoholic? One doesn’t have to be a drunkto be a tyrant: how many of those barbarian christian brothers andnuns were alcoholics, I wonder? I don’t remember smelling alcoholfrom any of the nuns or priest who savaged me as a child. No doubt,some alcoholics are extremely violent when they get drunk – butthen there are those who never touch a drop of alcohol who aresadistic in the extreme. Alcohol or drugs has little to do with one’slearned violent tendencies.
I’ve met quite a few such inherentlyviolent people in my travels (around the globe) most of whom wereraised by die-hard Irish Catholics – some of my own relatives arelike that. Note, I parted company with them a long time ago.

“So, like many in our tortured land, I am very distressed andangry to think that while many of us kids were suffering our ownvarious hells in Catholic day schools and abusive home environments,many other, less fortunate, kids were suffering a nightmarish hell oftortures, incarcerated in religious-run gulags. Now I am feelingguilty at a lifetime of ‘whinging’ about my upbringing when otherkids suffered far worse fates.”

With respect Vincent, the guilt you are feeling is neurotic, to saythe least. As a child, you had NO control, whatsoever, over whathappened to you. So why do you feel guilty for what the adults aroundyou – not least your own parents – did to you as a child? You arean adult now. It is irrelevant if you were born into and raised in acastle, with sumptuous material wealth – all that matters to achild is whether he or she is loved! Your so-called “privileged”childhood was anything but a happy one. The fact is, you sufferedjust as much psychological abuse as your contemporaries in theIndustrial Schools. MOST Irish children did, who were born and raisedin Holy Catholic Ireland, regardless of whether they had materialcomforts or not. This is something that the vast majority of Irishpeople still need to come to terms with. NB. We have a very long wayto go yet, before we become a truly civilised society again!

“Catholic Church control of the State’s education system…Worse still is the dread realisation that the organisation which laidthe foundation for the ethical and moral ‘standards’ whichpervaded Irish society for at least the last century (and muchfurther back than that) is still in control of the ethical and moralformation of 95% of the nation’s children. How can we allow this tocontinue?
To this day a huge proportion of Irishchildren, of very young and tender age, are being taught that theycarry ‘original sin’ and are forced to go to confession tocelibate priests who have had, all their lives, to suppress theirnatural, God-given, sexual desires. It is my firm belief that we do agrave injustice to the Nation’s children if we allow men, who aresuppressing their own sex drives, to teach (or cause other youngteachers to teach) these same children precepts that are almostcertainly not true (original sin, purgatory, hell, heaven etc..) andthat will most certainly cause them guilt, fear and confusion aboutsin, sex, and their own bodies.”

Its true that the Vatican (RC dogma) still controls Ireland’ssocial networks, such as our schools and hospitals (Health andEducation systems) – but, let’s be honest here, they (the RCMafia-Mob) couldn’t do that without the acquiescence (tacitagreement) of the Irish people themselves. In other words, theCatholic Church cannot control the psychological /emotionaldevelopment of children, unless their OWN parents allow them to –OR – the children themselves are literally bereft of their ownparents, for whatever reason. Note, some Irish children’s mothersdied when they were young, but the fact is, many had mothers, andfathers, who just didn’t care about them – and so they were“thrown to the RC wolves” as it were, i.e., into the “care”of the “saintly” nuns and christian brothers. Not too many Irishpeople have the guts to face up to this fact of Irish history.

Like I said, it’s going to take a LONG time for Irish society toface up to its collective history.

“Only truth should be taught in our schools –is this not abasic, moral standard on which we should insist in our educationsystem? I would concede that some (patently invented) myths – SantaClaus, Sinbad the Sailor, The Fairies, etc are harmless and shouldcontinue to be taught, but the stories inculcated in children by themajor religions are mainly about worship, judgementalism, fear anddifferentiation from others. Children are taught that these storiesare very, very serious and are vastly more important than anythingelse they will learn from their teachers, their parents or theirfamilies. How can Irish parents allow this to happen to theirchildren? The answer is: because, in most cases, they have no choicebut to allow this to be done to their children. The only alternativeis to have their children ostracised and singled out at school as‘different’, if they don’t undergo the same strange andunsettling process as their peers.”

I raised my two kids in a thoroughly “catholicised” (so-calledmiddle-class) RC environment, but I was always conscious of the factthat I was their mother and therefore had the ultimate responsibilityfor their psychological development, i.e., their emotionalwell-being. I had no illusions whatsoever that their schooling wasgoing to provide them with the morality that I knew was innate inthem, i.e., I knew their RC teachers were note their substitutemother – which is the mistake most Irish parents make, in myopinion. I guess my globe-trotting experiences before I became amother helped? The Spectator sees more than the Player, eh?

“It angers me to hear people say that we should be thankful tothe Catholic Church for ‘giving’ us an education. The suggestionis that we would have had no education system if the Church hadn’tset it all up and controlled it. Of course, this is nonsense! Everycountry in the world has an education system and all in Europe (manybeing much poorer than Ireland) have had very comprehensive systems –many to a far superior standard to ours. The Catholic Church wrestedcontrol of the education system from the British government in the19th century and has jealously guarded it ever since. The system waspaid for in toto by the Irish people, either through their taxes,subsequently handed over to the Church, or directly, by contributionsto Church coffers. The Vatican, where the ultimate responsibility forall this lies, did not contribute, but was a net beneficiary ofdonations to the Church.”

Ireland doesn’t have an education system, proper. We are a’schooled’ people – trained in the art of being ‘Christian’,i.e., masochists to the RC sadists who still control our country. Youwill be hard-pressed to find a truly normal Irish adult, i.e., onewho isn’t still a Slave to The System… old habits die hard! Howmany Irish people do you know who have ‘fled the nest’, i.e.,left home and felt truly confident in the world? Rarely have I metsuch people.

“The only way for us, as a society, to heal these wounds to ourindividual and collective psyche, and to show respect to the memoryof generations of child victims, is to sweep away all the secrecy,open all the Vatican and Church archives, stop the teaching ofreligion in all State schools and cut all ties between Church andState – no more religious control of any hospital, school or careinstitution which is wholly or partially funded by the taxpayer. Ofcourse, religious people will continue to work in all theseinstitutions but they should not control them or form their ethicaland moral ethos.”

And don’t forget, your own parents played an active role inmaintaining this very institution! Before we start to criticiseSociety at Large, we need to take a good close look at where We, asindividuals, are coming from. The less of an individual we are, i.e.,the less Sense of Self we have as individuals, the more we are partof the collective morass we are. And we get our Sense of Self fromthose who raised us, i.e., from those who are our Primary Caregivers– regardless of what frocks or uniforms they are wearing. It’sirrelevant what they say – it’s what they DO that matters at theend of the day.

“The moral position is, surely, that the bishops, priests, nunsand brothers do not own all these institutions; they hold them intrust for the Irish people who paid for them. The State must nowwrest ownership and control of all Schools from the Catholic Church.If this requires a constitutional amendment, then so be it. No-onewould 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 factsome orders of religious (mostly nuns) have voluntarily taken thesesteps by divesting themselves of their large holdings of land andbuildings, and giving them to worthy causes and communities.”

But they do LEGALLY own those ‘palaces’. And let them (nuns andpriests – psychotic clerics) have them! What need do NORMAL peoplehave with that shit? None!

“True contrition and remorse would see changes in Churchrules
The Bishops and priests of the CatholicChurch have expressed remorse for past horrors but, so far, have notchanged their own internal rules which brought about this perversionon the part of many celibate priests, nuns and brothers. The CatholicChurch in Ireland must change all rules which require celibacy and amale-only priesthood. This is the only valid way in which they canexpress true remorse and contrition and ensure that it doesn’thappen again. If this requires a split with the Vatican, then that iswhat must be done. A moral organisation (or an organisationcontaining moral people) cannot endanger or abrogate the rights ofchildren in order to preserve the requirements of bureaucracy. Thereis little doubt that the Vatican will change these rules anyway, andsoon too, so why not start the revolution in Ireland? All that isrequired is a few brave souls to say “No!” and to rebel, and thesystem will be forced to change (if many bishops and priests rebeltogether, the Vatican cannot sack them all!)”

I am one of those few Irish ‘brave souls’ who has said “No!”.But – I have long since realised I am a lone soul fighting againstthe normalised rot of Irish society. Time was when it made me feelvery angry, now I couldn’t give a shit about the collective destinyof the Irish people. They can all drown in the Liffey as far as I’mconcerned! The only people I care about are my kids, and theirchildren!

“If this rebellion does not happen we must assume that theBishops and priests acquiesce in the continuation of thisanti-natural and perverse system of rules (and thus we cannot taketheir expressions of remorse and willingness to make reparations asgenuine)”

What sort of ‘rebellion’ are you expecting? Another 1916 Rising?That RC-inspired fracas didn’t get us too far, did it?

“History as taught in our schools must be revised. Our teachingof history requires quite a lot of revision. In the first 60 years ofthe state’s existence we were taught that the survival and‘victory’ of the Catholic Church was a superb, beneficial andwonderful outcome for Ireland. Somehow, Protestantism was cruel andflawed and unpatriotic. Now, that view of history is shown to bedeeply flawed.
The Anglican churches have not beenimplicated in all this child abuse, except for a small number ofindividual cases often handled in a serious and ethical manner. TheAnglican church is far less discriminatory (it has women priests,married priests and openly gay priests and uses open, democraticsystems to elect leaders and formulate its rules) than the Catholicchurch and far more likely to espouse modern standards of humanrights and environmental responsibility.”

This is like comparing Apples with Oranges.

“The Catholic Church has always supported monarchy, autocracy,dictatorship and fascism (until a late conversion to support fordemocracy and some human rights in the latter half of the 20thCentury). The struggle against fascism in Europe from 1936 (Spain) to1945 was carried out mostly by states coming from the Protestantreligious tradition (Britain, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, UnitedStates) or secularism (Soviet Union), whereas those who lined up withthe Nazis (Austria, Italy, Hungary, Croatia), or were fascistsupporters (Spain and Portugal), were mostly Catholic countries(although Germany is half Protestant, the Nazis birthplace andbreeding ground was Bavaria and Austria – almost exclusivelyCatholic). Poland is the only exception to this Catholic/Protestantdivide – but, one could say, they hadn’t much choice in thematter.”

I’m no historian, but I can say that anyone whose psychology hasbeen formed by Roman Catholic dogma is one VERY fucked-up individual!And there is no shortage of such “lab rats” in Ireland, or in the‘prosperous ‘Irish-American ghettoes!
I’m tired now ofreplying to your post, Vincent, so I’ll just post my reply to you,thus far now. I hope you will reflect of what I’ve said.

Best wishes,
Martha

8. Sieglinde Alexander on July 1st, 2009 15:08

Dear Martha,
How true, how clear you see the connection. Very fewcan. Every believe system is control and ends in oppression. Psychohistory is clear on how domination begins and end.
Maybe you areinterested in reading:http://cigognenews.blogspot.com/2009/06/more-on-beliefs-part-13.html
Sieglinde

9. Raymond on July 1st, 2009 23:57

I welcome your great letter and your action plan, and I do NOTbelieve the Catholic Church (and its Orders, Institutions andOrganisations), or the State (its agents, parties and politicians)are able to change. Just as Healing and Progress is so slow andpainful for the Victims; what has been and is STILL completelymissing from the picture, right from the day the Ryan Report cameout, is the idea, the notion and the words : UNCONDITIONALCONDEMNATION. Mary McAlese gives a slight sense of it, but as she ispowerless to effect change – and everybody knows this – her wordscarry little weight, even if she is undoubtedly genuine.
I am gladto see the word “Revolution”. I firmly believe that the issuesarising from the Ryan Report are THE MOST IMPORTANT facing thecountry; that Bruce Arnold’s “Irish Gulag” is the mostimportant book EVER written; and that Michael O’Brien’s clip fromQuestions and Answers must be viewed a thousand times.
I believethat the causes and reasons of this unspeakable state of affairs areto be found in the work of Alice Miller, who has exposed thesedynamics through her concept of Poisonous Pedagogy for the last 30years. She has written many books, but everything can be found on herwebsite. See http://www.alice-miller.comespecially her Readers Mail. I hope you go and check it out.
Thankyou.
Raymond

10. Vincent Bourke on July 2nd, 2009 18:22

Dear Martha thanks for your kind comments. My father did not appearas a badly damaged person when my parents met and fell in love.However, years later when the anger and alcohol took over my father’smind and soul my mother had no way to escape in 1960s Ireland – nomoney, no place to go, no divorce (because of the Catholic Church).Now that I think of it, we might have ended up in the child gulags ifour mother had made a bid for freedom.
The ‘revolution’ Ispeak of is a peaceful one of simple disobedience by the IrishHierarchy to the Pope and Vatican bureaucracy – they just have tosay ‘no’ to the man-made rules about celibacy and women priests.No army will come from Rome to punish them, no police will knock ontheir doors during the night – All the Irish people will cheer themon!
Love and peace to you Martha,
Vincent

Dear Raymond – thanks for your post. I will follow up yourreferences. Thanks, Vincent

11. Accountant on July 5th, 2009 01:06

In response to the Irish Child Abuse Report

Where is our Poet Laureate?

Seamus are you there?
We need you now!

Words mixed and jumbled up.

Phones ringing
Emails flying
People crying

Paul Muldoon
Where are you?

Joe Duffy
On crutches
Clutches the phones
For Livelinelisteners.
Beads of sweat.
“We will take a break”
Ican’t take this.
Another break.
It’s too painful.

Marian
Pat
Vincent
Morning Ireland
Taking telephonecalls.
Lets go over to
Drive time-
Olivia O’Leary
MiriamO Callaghan
Questions and Answers
Michael O’Brien
BostonGlobe
Kevin Cullen
Irish Times
Mary Raferty
Nell McCafferty

Don’t mention any names.
This is a pseudonym.
We know who youare.

What about the Cavan fire?

Brendan Kennelly where are you?
We need you now!

Words mixed and jumbled up.

Joe may I come in?

The Christian brothers,
Nuns with no clothes-
That’s a badhabit

Where is Bono?
Christy Moore?
Ronnie Drew?
TheDubliners
Would know what to do.

If I should fall from
Grace with God.

Paddy Doyle
The God Squad.

Lizzie Ann
River Liffey
Alice Igeo
Who are you?

Talk to Joe.

“I’m very nervous
I’m furious”, Joe…
It’s about myfriend
Maggie Bullen.”

Broadcasting Complaints
Committee-
They will uphold
Apologizeto the Nation
Mass graves
Around Ireland.
This neverhappened.

Children then;
Wounded adults
Now
Telling their stories.

Hail Mary’s, Our fathers
Forgive me father
I havesinned
Through no fault of my own.

They believe them now
It’s in the papers,
On the airwaves.
Ittook them years
and many tears.

Paul Duncan where are you?

Talk to Joe

Helen is on the line

“Swish of that stick”

Brutalized!

Cattle in for the winter.

Children left outside.

Chilblains on feet.
Chilblains on fingers.
ChilblainsChilblains
“It was so cold, Joe,
My wee littlefingers
Covered in blisters.”

“The swish of that stick”.

“Never forgive them
I’ll never forgive them”.

Innocent little children-

Suffer,
Suffer,
Suffer,

Little children.

“I’ll never forgive them
I’ll never forgive them”.

Nuala Ni Dhomhnail are you there?

“The Mercy nuns
The Mercy Less”.

Christian brothers
And leather sticks.

“Scum of the earth-
Your Mother a tramp
Born out ofwedlock”.
Good for nothing
That’s what they called us

“Put in through the courts
Father denied me”.
I’ll neverforgive them

Judge with the gavel
In Dublin Castle.

How many do we have today?

Christian brothers:
“We will take them”
Sisters ofMercy:
“Have mercy on us
We need them”

Down with the gavel,
“Take them”

Joe may I come in?

“My childhood interrupted”.

Eileen Ni Chulainain are you there?

“I want to tell you about the
cat-o-nine-tails?
Have you thetime?
My little sister
When she was nine

Working, working
Little fingers
Making rosary beads
Anddoing Novenas.

Talk to Joe.

What is your story?

“Beaten before I went to school”
By the young nun
Myhands
My face
My legs
My whole body

“The swish of that stick”

I’ll never forget it

When I went to school
The nuns said
“Did she beat you again?”

Eavan Boland are you there?

“Smell of the food”.

“Shoved out in the cold”.

“Get out”
You’re from the side of the road.

“Ask me again in twenty years
And I will tell you the samestory”.

I’ll never forgive them.
I’ll never forgive them.
Never.

These are some of their words
All mixed and jumbled up.

Derek Mahon
Are you there?

(c) All rights reserved

12. raymond on July 10th, 2009 21:51

Well written and well done. I hear you! And many times I still hearJoe NOT being on your side. At least, you’re clear: you’ll neverforgive them, you’ll never forgive them. Never. Good for you!

13. Philip on August 1st, 2009 17:16

Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow. -James Joyce.