When the Ryan Report was published last May there was widespread disgust and anger but in less than 24 hours the denial process took hold when everybody ignored the actual events and focused almost entirely on the Church/State deal brokered by former minister Michael Woods and Bertie Ahern.
Apologists for the Catholic Church went blue in the face from issuing apology after apology before proceeding to blame everybody else. Now we have the awards: For his work as chairman of the Child Abuse Commission, Mr. Justice Sean Ryan was presented with a special award at the Humbert School Mayo at the weekend.
This is the best report we could make, he said. It is for others to do justice to those who suffered abuse in the past — and to decide what can be done to ensure that such events do not happen in the future.
Also present at the awards was the ruthless and callous defender of the abusing institutions Sr. Marianne O’Connor representing the Conference of Religious Ireland (Cori). O’Connor issued yet another worthless apology asking for forgiveness: Without forgiveness one is stuck, unable to move forward she said.
Michael O’Brien, who made that unforgettable speech on Questions and Answers, was having none of it:
I will forgive when I know that these people mean it when they say ‘we are really, really sorry’, I don’t want silly apologies. I want to see repentance.
But Michael O’Brien will not see genuine repentance; he will not see justice and nothing will be done to prevent such events happening again. John Cooney of the Irish Independent hit the nail on the head:
The unspoken hope of Maynooth and Government Buildings is that the survivors’ group will divide and fight among themselves, and that the media and the public will weary of their plight.
And then there’s the money or rather the lack of it. Three months after the report and we’re still waiting for these depraved organizations to tell us how much money they have. I doubt we will ever be told the truth, I have heard reports that they have long ago moved the bulk of their millions offshore.
If there was any justice in the country, the Criminal Assets Bureau would have been on the case a long time ago.
I was in Ireland at the end of May, and people did have a sense of outrage, which had even burst through the blinkered Catholic filter of many. Didn’t seem to last long. People still getting married in churches, and having children “Christened”, just to keep the granny happy.
James Joyce had it right… “I confess that I do not see what good it does to fulminate against the English tyranny while the Roman tyranny occupies the palace of the soul”.
Back in May and June there was a real debate about removing the RC church from the state financed schools of Ireland, and thereby ending the segregation and indoctrination of children with garbage. This seems to have faded away. As the father of two young children, this would be my primary concern if we should ever move back home again.
But then, while checking that previous quote from Joyce, I came across something else he said…
“The Irishman, finding himself in another environment, outside Ireland, very often knows how to make his worth felt. The economic and intellectual conditions of his homeland do not permit the individual to develop. The spirit of the country has been weakened by centuries of useless struggle and broken treaties. Individual initiative has been paralyzed by the influence and admonitions of the church, while the body has been shackled by peelers, duty officers and soldiers. No self-respecting person wants to stay in Ireland. Instead he will run from it, as if from a country that has been subjected to a visitation by an angry Jove.”