Church must respect State law ahead of its own rules
Bruce Arnold
We have reached a point of surfeit over abuse. The story spreads worldwide, now involving Germany, South America, the United States again, with the Milwaukee revelations. There are constant fresh episodes here We can always trump what happens elsewhere with worse here. If it is deaf children, we had worse in Ireland where boys were sexually abused over decades, and the girls suffered mindless cruelty.
Disabled children? The same. We allowed a massive culture of abuse to develop, the Church part of it, but by no means the whole, since the people, together with their guardians – the State, the Law and the Police – simply allowed it to happen. Even today, politicians, including party leaders, are ignoring their role in putting right deeply flawed social structures that have failed.
The public appetite has become choked with stories from the abuse saga. With notable exceptions it is largely relegated to ‘inside pages’. The media is running out of language.
Abuse is history. Material facts continue to be unearthed but from the past and shrouded in perpetually dishonest excuses by the Church, claiming it was not clear about what abuse meant and why it happened.
As a child at school in the 1940s I read about abuse in The People and the News of the World. I was advised by my father to avoid men with beards! The predatory nature of adult sexual desire for children was recognised and warned against. Prison sentences were published. Even in Ireland the crime was known. Dermot Ferriter, in his 2009 History of Ireland, writes: ‘cases [of child abuse] were reported in newspapers, though the language used was often circumspect and barristers had a tendency to announce they would not ‘go into the gruesome details’.
What is exceptional to this is the law. It is part of the present. It is reality and not just history; it is the duty of the lawmakers to ensure that it remains up to date. It is their duty to address it, reform it and change it. It must accommodate what it failed to accommodate throughout the State’s history.
On abuse, the law has been a shy handmaiden to the Church, fobbed off with the idea that an alternative law, the one administered and shaped by the Vatican, was a suitable protection for children. It has proved the opposite. Rather than protect children it has been their insidious enemy. In Ireland the extent is infinitely greater than in other countries because the lawmakers and those who implement the law have accepted the Church’s rule in the State and have largely failed to use civil and criminal law as it was made to be used, against grievous and sustained criminal behaviour by generation after generation of priests and others.
This issue, of there being two laws operating in the State, one managed and applied by the Church, the other by our courts and the police, requires to be digested and its elements fundamentally reformed. And to do this we need to separate it from the abuse saga, isolate it as an ongoing problem, debate it and bring in a new charter for change and reform.
Unless we do so, Canon Law will remain in operation as the Church’s first resort, impeding total transparency and immediate reporting of the abuse that has so riveted attention, yet has done so in a singularly distorted way.
In a speech last Saturday Alan Shatter put this situation in the context of the Children’s Rights Amendment to the Constitution, really only a starting point. People are not easily governed by the Constitution; they need laws to underpin its principles. And this is emphatically so over the state of the law in respect of child abuse.
Shatter comments: ‘there has been an eerie and deafening silence from government’. He goes on: ‘To date the government has neither expressed support for the proposed amendment nor specified a date for the holding of the required referendum.’
‘Leave it to the Church to sort itself out’ is the approach of politicians.
We are dealing, as this notably outspoken public representative has repeatedly told us, with ‘saga-length’ scandal, with lip-service and with failure, both by the State and the Roman Catholic Church. The reforms needed are crucial and go beyond constitutional amendment. They affect the law in detail and in substance, yet no Cabinet Minister from the Taoiseach down contributed to the recent Dail debate on the proposed constitutional change, and this included the Minister for Justice, who was a member of the Children’s Rights Committee, and has been vocal about not allowing the clerical collar to be a defence of abusers. Notably absent also was Paul Gogarty of the Green Party, paid €20,000 year to chair the Joint Oireachtas Education Committee yet present for four meetings out of 62 of the Children’s rights committee, according to Shatter.
What we need is a Commission of Inquiry, with this brief: To look into the broken and ignored relationship between the pre-eminence of State law and the confusion in State law created by the widespread respect for Canon Law. Such a commission would need a short timetable and its remit confined. It should consist of a small group group drawn from Northern Ireland and the Republic.
Nuala O’Loan comes to mind as well as Maurice Hayes. The S.D.L.P. politician, Declan O’Loan is another sensible candidate. In recent criticism of the Pope’s letter he expressed disappointment it did not address or analyse ‘what went wrong and why it went wrong’. He repudiates ‘the very unhealthy culture of centralised clerical power within the Church and the attendant secrecy. If that is not even admitted, what hope is there of correcting it thoroughly?’ He invokes the need, in the light of the Pope’s proposed ‘visitation’, to define whether or not this should be backed by State intervention.
Not many politicians in the South have come anywhere near saying this.
‘I find it embarrassing that, in many historical instances, the lead in developing human rights has come from secular society rather than from the Church. Indeed it has often been achieved against opposition by the Church. Once again in this area of responding to child abuse, despite the strongest imperative, the Church appears to be slow to move in a necessary direction.’ We need a Commission to define this in brave, forthright and unequivocal terms.
Irish Independent 27th March 2010
barnold@independent.ie
HEAR HEAR HEAR CHRISTY…..!
I’d support that too.
Raymond
Paddy
The bill for HEP C, HIV, compensation by the state for 914 people is 952 million Euro,
The bill for compensation for children raped, buggered and starved and all manner of abuse is 1.2 billion Euro FOR 14,820 survivors of the church/state RUN child brothels of Ireland called INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS
WE NEED A CLASS ACTION CASE TAKEN OUT NOW, ITS PUT UP OR SHUT UP, EVERYTHING HAS BEEN SAID WE NEED TO GO TO THE EUROPEAN COURT NOW
Christy
Martha,
with due respect
That decision, 28 years ago, wasn’t worth a blind fuck, if you look at it in the context of what’s happening today in Ireland, AND FOR THE LAST 28 YEARS FOR THAT MATTER. Or 38, or 48, or even 58 !
Dr. Cyril Daly (Independent.ie, June 21, 2009) – who was a key instrument in passing that law in 1982 – was very quick to claim the high moral ground as recently as last June, hot on the heels of the Ryan Report, telling all what a wonderful people the Irish are…. See where we are today !!!
This IS my passion (and of course Child Abuse is the BIGGEST CRIME of all), so I’d only be too happy to forward more information if required. Just don’t get me going! I am also learning to save my strength for better healing, educative and constructive work and not only to be jumping on my soap box.
Once again, with due and absolute respect.
One for All
All for One
Raymond
raymondlambert@eircom.net
There should also be a passport removal of all Paedophiles and other child abusers. Not allowed outside of their originating boarders. Also International Paedophiles should be prosecutable in all Jurisdictions. If at home and offended abroad then they can be charged with the offences abroad. Too many of those Beasts travel overseas like I think his name Clarney is in the Canaries. Today’s BBC. Extradition should be Simple and expedited. Minimum Sentence no more non custodial.
Church could not use Powerful Church Lawyers which seems to be the whole of the Legal Profession to Evict Clarney they paid him $30,000 compensation to leave church property instead when he refused to leave after defrocking.
Portia I like your Thinking. Have you an E-mail address. I can send a copy of a document I will hopefully be publishing. Covers many areas except I call it Reverse Stockholm Syndrome. Those not involved in abuse form the Syndrome with the perpetrators. Most people in Ireland are in a State of Denial. The sad fact is Faith in Religion is not in Jesus or God etc but in the Priest, Rabbi’s, Immans etc. They place themselves as God and Jesus forgiving our Sins. They Place themselves as Jesus when getting the Children of God to cannibalise Jesus. They remove themselves as followers of Peter. They are the pure, they are not evil they battle against evil. Makes it easy to use their favourite Sorcerers trick the Evil Eye when charged. The priest that abused me wrote the Artane Report in the Sixties, he placed a shield in the report to defend against allegations, he condemned unnatural acts. I am wondering if he had abused in Artane from 1960 to 1967. Children there even more vulnerable can not complain to cruel Anti-Christian Brothers and Popular with other children for doing nothing but supporting better conditions. The Priest changed his name and was called Henry Moore at Artane I believe. Say references to him and support from ex-prisoner on other page. Thanks Paddy for having it on your Site.
It is Criminal in many countries even for Parents to hit their children. I get upset if my Thai Wife even threatens a hand on my Son now 9 months. she looked as if she was going to on a number of Occasions. Sometime he bits her nipple hard. She told me once her father beat her mother and show violent tendencies I was not aware of after. But I can take a kick or Punch but Children especially in anger. The Rights of Children are tantamount and should be strict and simple. I sadly shouted at my first Son once and made him cry, but I was in crisis, my Inner Child Syndrome, but a stranger intervened though the shouting was once not barrage. So there are those who do stand in even if unjustified.
Children Rights are simple, Right to be free from all forms of violence. The Right to Education, The Right to be free of Labour, The right to be Food and proper diet, The right to play and sports and hobbies, the Right to there Tir Na Nog a time of growth where no misery lay and our children no cry. Childhood is a protected period of staged development of our children to Adulthood. The Romans when they murdered Jesus blocked the true Teaching by Labelling him the Son of God only when it was we are all Gods Children and Shrines. Religion leads belief to be the God and Jesus comes from the Clergy.
“I have a dream” Martin Luther King Junior. He made that dream come through before he was killed because of his belief and because of his ability to motivate people. Nothing with dreaming Martha. Paddy.
@ Raymond (re the corporal punishment of children):-
The corporal punishment of children in Irish schools was banned 25+ years ago. But that law didn’t change the mentality of those who still have control of our schools, hospitals, etc.
Just because a paedophile is deprived of access to children, it doesn’t mean he ceases to be a paedophile. It takes several generations to change a deeply-ingrained mentality…
Look, who runs this country? Is it The Vatican, or the Irish themselves?
Seems to me (and I’m Irish myself, though not so proud of the fact) that Rome still runs this country. Its about time we have a REAL government of our own. Maybe I’m a dreamer…
“Abuse is history”.
Firstly, the term “abuse” has become a euphemism for the systematic TORTURE of children in this “Christian” country of ours (Ireland).
Secondly, for the individual adult who has been systematically “abused” as a child, his or her history is ultimately a very personal, lonely experience.
Let’s face it, the vast majority of Irish adults alive today have been too emotionally scarred by their own childhood experience (of growing up in a society dominated by Rome) to be able to empathise with their fellow Irish men and women.
“Abuse is history” This abuse is not history! Many, many victims are alive and no doubt unwell. Many perpetrators are alive and no doubt cringing but most egregious of all the enablers both church and state, admit no wrong and take no action so that the children of this blighted country are still in danger.
Elsewhere to-day I stated that Ireland set it’s self back twenty years with the visit of John Paul II. What an understatement we are back with Henry II and Thomas à Beckett. Henry lost, we can’t afford to!
Brilliant Raymond.
Now the energy of change is building.
Bruce.
Thank you.
“barristers had a tendency to announce they would not ‘go into the gruesome details’
Indeed that is so.
And what most people in Ireland do not know, is that in secret family courts the same applies today where abused children are called liars and barristers actually tell protective parents not to DARE MENTION ABUSE TO THE JUDGES- THEY ARE SICK OF IT.
Mmmmmmmmmmm so you see the similarities.
The secrecy in court, and the excuse is ” the best interests of the child”….Hitler coined that phrase and we all know what he did in their best interests.
The same secrecy in the HSE re abuse of children.
In fact they are quite sadistic, as social workers threaten children with jail unless they change their truth. And the added touch of sadism with Electric Shock Therapy for speaking about abuse.
Bruce, I invite you to look at who is behind our legal system??
Who advises the judges and various agencies?
Exactly.
Who runs the seminars re child abuse?
Who is paid to do research for the legal system.
They call it Dept of Justice, but justice has no place in our court corporations.
Lady Justice sits up there over the Four Courts with her scales ans sword, but the great Ayrish- once know all over the planet for its Justice System- has now succumbed to the might of Rome.
And by the way, Barristers swear allegience to the BAR. British Accredited Registry- which is a corporation and nothing to do with service users in Ireland.
Kathleen- why did we wait so long?
Because the people did not want to know truth.
Truth like this shatters all the old beliefs in the God system which children were brainwashed with in ireland etc from birth.
It is no different to Pattie Hearst- bonding with her kidnappers/abusers.
It is labelled Stockholm Syndrome.
The church had all this ancient knowledge and used it negatively to keep the sheeple under control.
To read about the truth now is like shattering the mirror of Tem/Truth.
Sure it hurts, but not half as much as it did for the victims who have been ostracised by the church and its followers over decades.
Think back and it is not long ago, when a child told its parents of abuse and all it go was a clip on the ear and told to wash its mouth out with soap.
Other children were well versed by their parents not to go near Fr X and Y, because they were known abusers, whom the law did not dare touch, so parents did the protection.
I remember my Dad telling me how in Mayo, the children had to jump into the ditches to make room for the men in black on the road.
Such was the conditioning.
THANK YOU BRUCE ! NOW YOU’RE TALKING…
One Caveat though, which you can take onboard now:
On the Children’s Rights Amendment to the Constitution:
Even in the face of the deafening silence and reluctance from our Policies Makers, the Proposed Wording for the Amendment will fall short; is bound to only “inadequately deal with the situation”; and will fail the Irish Children – AND the Nation, because it does not address the FUNDAMENTAL CAUSE and ROOT of the problem, namely that………
VIOLENCE is the VERY ESSENCE of our society woes today. CORPORAL PUNISHMENT MUST BE BANISHED and OUTLAWED. PHYSICAL CORRECTION – The RIGHT to SLAP, SMACK and HIT CHILDREN – MUST BE REMOVED FROM ALL OF US – PARENTS FIRST. We have proved beyond further argument, that WE do NOT KNOW what is best for our kids. And it doesn’t stop at the Physical level: all violence is VIOLENCE, wether it is SEXUAL, SILENT or EMOTIONAL.
So thanks again Bruce. I think we are on the same page now, nearly.
31 years have passed since Sweden abolished Corporal Punishment: will we have to be the LAST to give our Children this most basic RIGHT?
I am counting on your formidable skills and connections, experiences and compassion, to become our children’s most ELOQUENT AMBASSADOR. Alan Shatter is good; he’s very good indeed. But what has it achieved after all these years of being a Family Affairs specialist, apart from the welcome leaked recent report? It is a complete MIND-SET CHANGE that is required. When the “PEOPLE” have changed, then the Politicians themselves will change. We will have at last the Goverments that ALL DECENT PEOPLE DESERVE – AND THEIR CHILDREN.
Raymond
Bruce.
You write so eloquently. I so enjoy reading your articles.
However, I find myself asking the same question each time I read your letters. Why have you waited until now to present these facts, when they would have been duly productive during the period of the “Commission into Child Abuse” and the Redress Board. The horse has now bolted and Ireland being what it is will remain in a State of Limbo.
I remember meeting you at a meeting in Kensington many years ago, one can’t say you were ignorant then of what has now been exposed.
Kathleen O’Malley.