PATSY McGARRY
21st February 2011
YESTERDAY’S LITURGY of lament and repentance in Dublin’s Pro-Cathedral had its origin in a letter to The Irish Times on June 19th, 2009, following publication of the Ryan report the previous month.
Signed by 22 Catholics of the Dublin archdiocese, including three priests, its sentiments were repeated in a letter published in this newspaper on December 1st, 2009, following publication of the Murphy report in November. It was signed by the same 22 people.
The Ryan report dealt with the abuse and neglect of children in institutions from the 1930s to the 1970s, while the Murphy report concerned the handling of child sexual abuse cases involving priests of the Dublin archdiocese.
Among the signatories to both letters were abuse survivor Fr Paddy McCafferty and Catholic activist Paddy Monaghan who, along with survivor Marie Collins, set about preparing a liturgy in consultation with survivor groups. The liturgy content was agreed with the archdiocese in February 2010 which suggested excerpts from the two reports be included.
After the service yesterday, Ms Collins said church authorities had asked for forgiveness for covering up the abuse of children. This was “something that has not happened before”, she said.
Among a small group of protesters outside as the service took place was well-known survivor Paddy Doyle who described the liturgy as “a stunt”. It was “getting to the stage where apologies are becoming cliches”, he said. Survivor Mary Smith said she “cannot forgive them”. She recalled how a parish priest put her mother in a Magdalen home while pregnant with her and how her own life had been a series of industrial schools and a Magdalen home.
Michael O’Brien of the Right to Peace group said the Catholic bishops, who had met him and other members of a committee of survivors three times, had been refusing to do so recently.
Continued pressure must be kept on Arch Bishop Diarmuid Martin.He spoke of ‘strong forces’ keeping the truth from coming out ..yet he has refused to name those strong forces (May 2010).He has constistently refused to call for the arrest of Cardinal Brady.He has NOT informed his congregation of the crimes of Fr PJ Mc Cabe (curate Pro cathedral 1971-83) currently awaiting extradition from the USA to Ireland.We continue to have a protest every Sunday at the Pro Cathedral 11.15 am to highlight these issues ……its time people got away from the keyboards and took this to their chapel doors on a Sunday to educate their brainwashed congregation that keeps them in power in Ireland.
@pauline Jackson 03/03/2011. @ 21:43
Pauline, thanks for your interest.
I was unable to post my response at this thread due to some unknown ‘duplicity’ problem.
However if you go to”Bishops wash feet of abuse victims in bid for forgiveness” you’ll see that I’ve addressed part of your comment.
@pauline jackson 03/03/2011 at 20:03
“Marie I have read the link and thanks very much for answering my question”.
Thanks very much for interacting with me regarding the Regina Ceoli Mother and baby unit.
I was horrified by the fact that a small child be in a room with an open fire.”
Yeah, I was also at the mercy of young mothers, some as young as sixteen and maybe even younger to look after me as my mother was in hospital with TB.
“As for a heavy wooden high chair to fall over it would have taken strength.”
The negligence on the part of the mother and baby unit management indeed sounds so very bizarre.
“Even in those days everyone one knew of the danger.”
Yeah, there were notification posters placed in all Irish garda stations warning of the dangers of not using fire-guards.
It was covered by the 1908 Act
“It’s a very good example of how the child care system worked.”
I know some people who were in Goldenbridge whose mother fled from the Regina Ceoli mother and baby unit because of the diabolical unhygienic conditions.
The mother and baby unit fulfilled all the criteria needed for it to be placed on the redress schedule list.
The one and only time I ever got angry in all my campaigning stint outside the Dail was with Mary Hanafin.
I told her that she would one day get her comeuppance.
Well, that day has finally arrived – she was not re-elected to the 31st Dail.
I have nothing personal against MH, excepting that of the obstinate stance she took towards the mother and baby home in her capacity as minister of education.
However in her capacity as Minister of Education she had clout and could have done something for me and others if she had tried hard enough.
As too with some prominent survivor groups who never ever mentioned my campaign, or others, at government meetings.
But made themselves highly visible when they tried very cleverly to hijack a conference (Xmas 2005) that was set up for the Regina Ceoli Mother & Baby unit and Bethany House.
(I must note that the groups were justifiably fighting for others).
It’s just the sudden manner with which it took place, is what I take umbrage.
The same was applicable with Mary Harney, who as Minister for Health could have sorted out the matter.
The government ministers and the prominent survivors, bar a few, preferred to see me rot outside Dail Eireann.
Go Away!
Go Away!
Go Away was written all over their faces.
Bertie Ahern said that I would be dealt with through the auspices of another institution.
Which was a whole load of baloney.
Pens never refuse ink when he told it to the Irish Times.
Bertie Ahern was speaking out of the side of his mouth.
He had no influence whatsoever over the RIRB.
Yeah, I was greatly acknowledged by opposition politicians when I was actively campaigning to get the institution on the redress list.
“You know Marie, nuns lied to many of us about our families. it was done to try and destroy any character in us.”
Pauline, when they weren’t lying, they were keeping their mouths shut about our backgrounds.
I knew nothing about myself in all my childhood in Goldenbridge.
I could have come from outer space as far as I was concerned as I not only felt alienated – but like an alien from another planet.
We didn’t even know how old we were, or what birthdays were, or what mothers and fathers were for indeed.
It was also the same with lots of other children who never had visitors.
I used to look on in amazement at other children with siblings and see that they had an extra added burden of protecting them.
But they were lucky in that they had some semblance of a notion as to who they were.
They were grounded in that they had some kind of identity.
The reflection of their siblings mirrored that connection with other human beings.
Exactly!
Not only did they try to destroy our characters, they also tried to destroy our identities.
“When I think about the way XS spoke of our normal working class parents it makes my blood boil. ”
Yeah, denigrating children who came from working class families was the norm in Goldenbridge.
‘Keogh Square’ to name but one area, was synonymous with being the epitome of the lowest of the lowest.
I still have very strong images in my mind regarding Keogh Square and the sneering, snobbish way it was used to get at children whose families happened to have come from there.
We never ventured outside the industrial school and discovered only as young people that KQ was right across the street from GB.
However, we already knew of its existence because of the negative connotations piled on to us as children by the nuns.
I was recently looking at photos of people who grew up in KS and the pride and joy on their faces made me feel so sad.
I thought so much about the venom that was thrown at children who stemmed from there by the nuns in Goldenbridge.
I was making comparisons to the vitriol that was implanted in my child’s brain concerning same and it just did not add up at all.
The nuns in the convent were mostly not allowed to mix with Goldenbridge industrial school children because we were classed as mere unwashed child criminals of parents who had no standing in society.
The latter were fallen people.
To be frowned upon.
To be torn away from by children.
————
“The lament and repentance service in Dublin’s Pro-Cathedral had its origin in a letter to The Irish Times on June 19th, 2009, following publication of the Ryan report the previous month.”
That may be so – but the Ryan Report had its origins in stories such as the ones Pauline and I discuss above.
Even the Irish Times was notified about the service whilst most survivors who are the very essence of its origins are once again frozen out.
I think it is very undignified of the team behind the Lament & Repent scene.
They ought to be lamenting and repenting for their failure to notify all survivors and not just those from the higher echelons.
The snobbery and put-downs still continue.
The institutions and the church taught them well.
Old habits die hard.
Reflection: St Catherine of Siena/Marie-Thérèse O’Loughlin (14th Century – 21st Century)
“When one is in charge, one often fails in true justice.”
Precisely!
Especially towards those of who should be to the forefront of true justice.
For example when survivor groups/church dioceses organised a secret event over a period of 18 months they failed miserably in accountability, openness and equality – which equals ‘true justice’ towards most of their fellow survivors.
To name the high profile recent event I’m alluding to here.
The Lament and Repentance Ceremony, which was held at the Pro-Cathedral on February 20, 2011.
True justice in this instance should have meant ‘all inclusiveness’ — not alienation of those considered to be on the lower ranks of the church and the institutional child abuse ladder.
Yet again a golden opportunity of probable healing for most or many of the aforementioned was thus (once again) cast to the wind.
Instead of grasping a more than likely gargantuan opportune healing moment of the prelates visit combined with the ceremony and the reporting back to the Vatican) and the lifetime chance of perhaps innumerable survivors being nurtured by the church – the church/prominent survivors moreover chose to concentrate on themselves and extended families.
It reeks of utter incestuousness.
Survivors have endlessly harped on about this kind of inequality that is rampant with survivors.
Nobody seems to give a hoot and that goes for the church who should have foreseen that this sort of in-house cosy cartel arrangement was going to be wholeheartedly displeasing to those who were left out of the ceremonial equation.
No wonder cries of ‘nothing but a PR stunt’ was shouted from the rooftops.
I’m not talking here about survivors who would ordinarily have objected to attending the service or getting their feet washed, which is their constitutional right, but about those on the periphery, who were not even informed of this Lament and Repentance affair.
True healing justice should not have been meant only for those in charge.
It appears that they went all out publicly on an ‘individual’ limb to get ‘individua’l healing for themselves, at the expense of the aforementioned vulnerable survivors.
True justice somehow would have prevailed, I surmIse, at the Lament and Repentance Ceremony, had the select cheery-picked survivors up on the altar getting their feet washed, acted *symbolically* for all those survivors who would have wished them to have acted as proxy healing agents.
Instead, we are told that it was a *personal* healing and that the recipient(s) were not basically responsible for the healing of other survivors – or something resembling it.
Sounds lauded for all to hear.
“I Represented myself?”
‘For me it was meaningful?”
“Terribly important for her children?”
“Some closure” (personal)
“Each one making their own journey in healing”… etc.
—
I sincerely beg to differ.
From where I’m standing – irrespective of free speech, on their part – this should not have been the kind of sound-bites coming out of the mouth(s) of non-institutional abuse survivor(s) in the aftermath of the so-called ‘sham’ service.
I respect that the survivor(s) in question have done trojan work for clerical abuse over the years.
And one is in admiration for all they’ve done and the fact that they’ve got the wherewithal to express so eloquently the wrongdoings of the church.
Even if we suspect that the government deemed fit to support them to no end in order to camouflage its own cover-up of institutional child abuse.
Playing one off against the other is just typical.
Divide and Conquer, the methodology employed and of which never fails to succeed.
I know that if institutional abuse survivors weren’t as damaged, they too would have been in the same position to stand up for those who suffered abuse all their childhoods.
This is my two cents for all its worth on behalf of those who cannot read or write or articulately express their concerns.
The nuns in Goldenbridge did not choose to favour us with the luxury education.
One is not talking here about individual litigious cases, who have not been dealt with by the government/church.
Whereby one could say openly that they are not acting on behalf of others, as they obviously can’t because each person’s case is just that – individual.
We are talking here about a ‘public’ survivor healing service.
The liturgy was hardly only talking about the ones who were up on the altar and the attendees at the church who were abused by the religious and clergy.
“If we listen carefully in the stillness and silence of this day we may hear the cries of those who suffer as a result of abuse of any kind.
They are crying out with relief because they have been heard at last.
They are crying out because of a hurt inflicted some time ago but still aching as if it was done today.
They are crying out for justice and restoration, for dignity and peace.”
All very moving.
If innumerable survivors were told about the ceremony who knows miracles could have taken place.
From what I gather institutional abuse survivors were really only an afterthought in the whole washing of the feet ceremony.
True justice does not mean giving certain chosen survivors opportunities of healing only whilst locking out other most-deserving vulnerable survivors.
“And this is the reason: one is afraid of losing one’s status, so in order not to displease others, one keeps covering and hiding their wrong-doing, smearing ointment on a wound which at the time needs to be cauterised”
One’s status is of the utmost, even to the detriment of what other survivors might think of us.
Displeasing the clergy must not be an issue now that they’ve given us the red carpet and the Jesus pedicure treatment.
The bigger picture fades into the background in pursuit of the insatiable need to please the clergy, visiting prelates, themselves and their own families.
Losing one’s status must not occur at all costs.
The ointment to smear on the wounds is only for them and no-one else of non-status.
“Alas, how sad I feel when those who should use the flame of divine charity to burn out crime by holy punishment and correction, administered in true justice, flatter others and pretend not to see their wrong-doing.”
Yes, indeed so very sad that those who should have used the flame of divine charity on all survivors of institutional and clerical sex abuse saw fit to only inform those who are on the inside of the ring of fire.
They flatter not the survivors who were not even informed of the service of which they knew about for approximately 18 months.
They behave in this way towards those whom they think may harm their position.
But towards the poor who seem insignificant and whom they do not fear, they display tremendous enthusiasm for ‘justice’ and, showing neither mercy nor compassion, they exact harsh punishments for small faults.
“Clear unambiguous admissions of guilt???”
Will, I wonder, true justice follow suit from all the unambiguous admissions of guilt?
Marie i have read the link and thanks very much for answering my question. I was horrified by the fact that a small child be in a room with an open fire. Even in those days everyone one knew of the danger. As for a heavy wooden high chair to fall over it would have taken strenght. its a very good example of how the child care system worked. you know Marie nuns lied to many of us about our familys. it was done to try and destroy any character in us . when i think about the way XS spoke of our normal working class perents it makes my blood boil. But the people in the government dont as yet understand that we all have our own honour. Before saint patrick came into the picture hunger stricks lasted a day. the person who had a complaint against someone spent the day in front of thier house. it was conciderd very embarresing as it showed the lack of honour. But the church in the person of patrick himself encouraged long hunger strikes. And i dont think that the government who have kept the compensation have an honour to defend. the church is still very powerful in ireland and the members of the government are very well paid. In such a small country the rulers have always obayed rome because if not women could buy the pill in the chemist shop like everywhere else . its as if thay were the owners of the whole island.
pauline jackson 24/02/2011 at 22:59
“Hello Marie ‘ in your comments you have mentioned a mother and baby home. but I don’t know the story and I might not be alone in this ‘so could you please tell us more about it”
Hello, Pauline,
Here is information pertaining to the aforementioned mother and baby home.
“Aged 18 months, Marie Therese O’Loughlin fell into a blazing fire at a Legion of Mary mother-and-baby unit.
Now she is seeking compensation under the Residential Institutions Redress Board. Emma Browne reports’
http://tinyurl.com/6l2j8m6
A papal visit is planned for Ireland in 2012.
Frank Duff, founder of the Legion of Mary, and resident at the mother and baby home, mentioned in the link, could possibly be on the canonisation list.
I shall be out in full force with my placard if my case is not dealt with – if I happen to be still alive.
It never fails to me amaze me the constant non-acknowledgement I have come up against, with respect of other high profile survivors.
Not only me – but also other lone voices who have been crying out in the wilderness.
They appear not to give a damn about individual cases.
We are seen, I suppose, as possibly, just as a bunch of mentally unstable cranks.
That is purely speculation on my part.
Perhaps they do care – but feel helpless to do anything, because they are so locked into their own government agendas.
Who knows?
They are obviously so damaged themselves that they can’t see beyond their own noses.
They want to box people and have things running according to their ways.
They literally stifle so many survivors.
They jump to chastise those who do not fit into their closed mindset circles.
It’s almost like they are behaving in the way they did in their respective institutions
Bertie Ahern is to be blamed for cozying up to them whilst ignoring the rest of us.
We have to keep hammering home our plights – as that is the only way we can fight for justice.
We have to keep drip feeding our righteous concerns lest they forget or think we have disappeared off the radar.
The survivor groups should not be the ones with all the clout.
We have to keep digging till we have some too.
Equality for all survivors.
This letter was published in the Examiner and The Irish Independent during the last two weeks.
To the Editor,
Regarding the THE CATHOLIC Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin and the Cardinal Archbishop of Boston Seán O’Malley, who washed the feet of a carefully selected group Survivors of clerical child sex abuse in “an act of humble service” at Dublin’s Pro-Cathedral, this Sunday February 20th.
This is nothing less than a Roman Catholic Version of ‘green-washing’; only direct action by the Church to hand over to the Public Prosecutor all abuser priests, all files relating to allegations made by Survivors, all files related to the Churches private canonical ‘investigations’ (redacted as required to protect the interests of Survivors, subject to their approval), all files related to various private agreements between the Church Officials and State, Health and Welfare Officials, and Police Officials, and to offer up their wealth and resources to help Survivors, and finally and importantly to let Survivors speak out, as freely as required, that and nothing else.
Action is required, not symbolism. Once the action has been complete, let the symbols of that action be created to inspire a future where the rights of the child, as enshrined in the United Nations Convention on The Rights of The Child, are, in material terms, at the very heart of our Society.
Kindest regards
Corneilius Crowley
Mary smith was also the only person who cared about her brother Christy. for years and years she went to see him and she really did her best to try and have him released from the places he was put in . but above all mary gave him the only love he ever recieved.
Mary Smith never had a mother, father, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, mother in law, father in law, daughter, son or husband, to turn to for love in her entire life.
She has lived alone all her teenage/adult life and suffers emotionally, mentally and psychologically because of the damage that life has inflicted on her by Irish society.
She is the epitome of the face of hordes of the most vulnerable of survivors of institutional abuse.
It is most despicable to see that the ones like Mary; who should have been right up there, being cleansed because of their life long pain, were instead, treated like lepers.
Not only by the worshippers, who did not have the humanity to acknowledge her and other protesters, upon descending the steps of the Pro-Cathedral – with one exception.
But also by the visiting prelates and who knows, maybe even the survivors with the new clean holy pedicured feet.
Maybe they’ll get big feet to match their big heads. (Irony here).
“Fr Paddy McCafferty and Catholic activist Paddy Monaghan who, along with survivor Marie Collins, set about preparing a liturgy in consultation with survivor groups”
Why did the consultation group not see fit to engage with those who are on the periphery of the elitist survivor groups equation?
Anyway, Catholic Activist reeks of something that is closely rooted to the church!
So why should we be even asking the question, as to why some elitists – of whom were once fierce opponents of child church institutional abuse of children, are now seeming, to all appearance, to be running with the hare and sitting with the hounds??
So puzzling?
One last question:
Do any of those who got their feet washed have similar pasts and future akin to that of Mary Smith?
I rather somehow doubt it.
The prelates should get their priorities right when they speak about Lament and Repent.
Jesus never ignored the lepers.
@Paddy Monaghan,
”Certainly the Irish Times, which had been courageous in standing up for Survivors over the years, did not believe the Service was a sham.”
The Irish Times, which I hasten to add, has certainly not been courageous in standing up for survivors from the lower echelons of the institutions.
As with some high profile survivors, it too, mostly shunned those of whom I suspect, it considered inconsequential institutional child abuse fodder.
So – who is the Irish Times to believe that the service was a sham – when it has in the past consistently treated innumerable vulnerable survivors with utter contempt?
Methinks this was another pure media and religious publicity stunt.
Once again with a cheery-picked elitist survivor selection.
Do they have the dirties feet or what?
Mindboggling??!
I will show you a perfect example to back my argument.
Re: Russell Shorto’s NYTimes a comment piece of mine on The Irish Affliction, 14/2/11
February 10, 2011 at 2:41 pm @ B&W
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2011/there-is-need-for-reflection/
“The Rev. Sean McDonagh, a leader of the Association of Irish Priests, which formed last year after the reports were published, suggested that to get at the root of the problem, the team of investigators “should begin by scrutinizing Rome’s own handling of sex-abuse allegations.”
Father Sean McDonagh, Society of St. Columban Fathers (SSC) should also look to some of the priests within the newly formed Irish priests association to get to the nub of the grossly biased thinking on child abuse that they hold, specifically regarding child institutional child abuse.
For example – I read in the Irish Times, Monday, September 6, 2010 that Father Flannery was part of the association. I once had a very grave reason for writing to the Irish Times.
The opening lines of letter went…
Dear Editor,
Following on from Father Tony Flannery’s article of Monday 7th August 2006.
Part of the headline stated:
“Is it not strange that we are devoting so much energy to inquiring into the abuse of children when there is so much that is unsavoury today”?
My answer, quite emphatically, to this is no, no no, it isn’t strange in the least as to why so much energy is being presently concentrated on children who were after-all incarcerated in institutions at the pleasure of – The Irish State.
The last three words being the operative words.
Children who were incarcerated into these institutions, namely, notorious Goldenbridge, Artane, and Letterfrack were systematically psychologically, emotionally, mentally, physically and sexually abused on a daily basis.
Father Tony Flannery – you are missing the point here, the State and the religious were utterly 100/% responsible for the children in their care.
To reiterate, so as to spell it out succinctly, the State acted in loco – parentis.
You also referred to Newtownforbes as being an orphanage.
I beg to differ – Goldenbridge, Newtownforbes and the above mentioned child prisons were indeed Industrial Schools not orphanages.
So stop using this euphemism.
The letter was never published in the paper, so I wrote personally to Father Tony Flannery. i never got a reply.
These are the priests who want to get to the root of the child abuse and they haven’t even got the decency to deal with someone who was habitually on the receiving end of institutional child abuse.
I certainly hope he learned his lesson from reading what the author Russell Shorto of the article called the so-called report.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/magazine/13Irish-t.html?
pagewanted=print
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/pope-to-be-told-church-here-on-edge-of-collapse-2538910.htm
Here is P.S. to letter written Irish Times in 2006.
To: Geraldine Kennedy,
Editor, you never seem to publish letters from ordinary people such as myself who were in institutions as children.
What is your reason for our exclusion?
We never received proper education in these institutions and it took some of us a lifetime to learn literary skills.
We certainly do not need to be knocked for two, by learned people, such as yourself.
Has it possibly to do with your affiliation to the PD’S?.
—
Conclusion:
The Irish Times does not mainly, or fairly, speak for me or survivors of my ilk, who spent our whole childhoods’ in institutions.
We are the ones who have been mostly bypassed by the last government, the church, and prominent survivor groups, hence our enragement and desperate need to express ourselves in high profile situations.
If we were recognised by the church, the high profile survivors and the government, we wouldn’t have the need to have to continually hijack ‘publicity stunt’ agendas.
If indeed they were genuine there would be all inclusiveness and dialogue between church and ALL survivors not ONLY the considered crème de la crème survivors.
Initially, it was Okay to have wheelchairs with the most vulnerable survivors wheeled in them and utterly damaged survivors linked to the arms of self-appointed prominent ‘good samaritan’ survivors, stuck out in the front for all the media to see when certain survivors were looking for recognition from the government.
But now now that the whole thing is waning.
They too played their part in the setting up of CICA/RIRB albeit in their own inimitable way.
I sincerely believe that those of the latter, who are still alive, should not be ignored by the church, who should know better about moral ethics.
They should have been to the fore in the Lament and Repent ceremony, even if it was a pathetic publicity stunt scenario.
Why employ words of the latter element if the church/survivors cannot enact on them in reality.
Nonetheless some of the selfsame institutional ‘samaritan’ survivors seemingly became the ‘publicans’ who got their feet washed and thanked god they were not like all those ‘unwashed’ shameful howlers banging on the church door and pointing out unethical wrongdoings.
I do not speak here about those who were not in institutions, but rather those who claimed that we were there brothers and sisters.
Isn’t it about time that the high profile survivors passed on their brotherly/sisterly love to those who are not perched on high in government funded ivory tower seats.
Marie ,do you recall some years ago a survivor from goldenbridge turned up in dublin and Christine West told her to take herself to england that there was nothing for her in dublin,or ireland this survivor was bullied out not only from dublin but Ireland she was to frightened to stay in her own country this is the fault of the state, this survivor was called geraldine ,I wonder if she is ever remembered ,suppose not.
Christine West (Buckley) you should have a good look in the mirror you are a bully how dare you INSULT real survivors , pauline is right you do decide what memories to talk about through your friends in the media ,having heard other survivors talking about what happened to them in Industrial Schools and claim them as your own, your comments on TV3 was Wicked and shows what a Bully you are .as for the feet washing I hope all the Wicked people who walked past and turned their back on Paddy and Mary and other Real survivors who were shut out of the Cathedral with Garda guard’ing the door making sure the Real Survivors didn’t get in to the feet washing all of those allowed inside had turned their noses up the Real Survivors locked outside name’ly Mary Smith, Paddy Doyle, and a few other survivors while the personaly invited friends of the State and Bishops locked themselves inside with Guards posted outside the Huge Doors of the the cathedral to keep the Real survivors OUT, Those Groups are all about CONTROL on behalf of the State, TO CONTROL OTHER SURVIVORS THROUGH DOMINATION, and FEAR. Where is the voice of any of the other 128 children who were in BG >SILENCED ????
Many years ago when Chrissy went public some women from g b were in things with her .The ones who are still with her are there to confirm all she says . anyone who showed any sign of character were frozen out.She decides what memories to talk about and she claims them as hers.G.B. was a terrable place and we tried to survive. we were children not heros. we were too frightened to confront the nuns.
.
The blocking of Paddy from that ceremony was a cruelty, a pouring of salt onto old wounds, refreshening them. It was an act of fear.
The presence of O’ Malley and Connell makes it clear what this event was : a PR stunt….
I have written to media, and elsewhere, that when the Church has opened it’s files, handed over all criminal brutalising rapist priests, hands over all those involved in cover-ups, for public Inquiry, and criminal trials where neccessary, committs to handing all investigations to truly independent Police criminal processes, commits to fully an unresevedly supporting all survivors in their needs, then perhaps they can create symbols and ask for forgiveness.
The video of the protest, and Christine Buckleys comments on TV3 last week, makes it clear that Christine Buckly is capable still, of abusing others, of making dehumanising comments about the suffering of others…
She is correct to reject any abuse thrown at her, to not take it on but the fact that she made those comments shows that she has yet to find the strength to CHOSE not to be offended, and to address the ISSUES, not the person.
‘Ad hominem’ attacks like hers betray all of us. It is a repetition of the cycles of abuse that crippled and harmed so many of us.
She must address this, given her public position: it’s not enough that work done in the past is rested upon, this work continues and it demands integrity at every step of the way.
As for her comments that children sent to Irish Catholic Boarding Schools were ‘lucky’ I can only say to her to make THAT comment to MY FACE, and let me explain to her the fallacy of that comment. Without attacking her as a person.
I am appaled, and I suspect that much of this is due to the known tactics of both Church and State of divide and conquer, of re-traumatising Survivors to throw us off-balance.
Hello Marie ‘ in your comments you have mentioned a mother and baby home. but I don’t know the story and I might not be alone in this ‘so could you please tell us more about it
Marie you are so right,I bet Mrs Buckley and her friends were first on the line parhaps she washed the Bishops feet in thanks for all the privilages and funding and doing a grand job for the Government and Religious in silencing the real survivors.
Dear Paddy, WE couldn’t believe it as We watched the video It was shocking even disturbing we could see that they were blocking the door from you, and Mary wouldn’t let you in, they closed the doors to the REAL survivors and left you all outside SHAME on everyone who went into the Cathedral and did nothing about it so much for those people who call themselves group leaders who I am sure put on a great show for the media and did their usual self promotion by way of verbal incontinantance to justify their huge Funding and huge privilages they recieve ,which ,That video is absolute proof that not one person who attended that Foot washing couldn’t give a hoot about SURVIVORS it’s all SELF and Funding. The Incompetent Government have permoted those greedy Groups to hide behind knowing those who call themselves group leaders are all Ex Industrial schools therefore are also Damage , SO the Government knew this but it was a great way of passing the problem on away from themselves but in doing so created another Monster ,where Bullying other survivors into silence happens ,so they could continue recieving Funding,+ Pampering from the Media ,In a word COWARDS, how many of the public in Ireland can name any survivor that was in a certain Industrial school in Dublin many were asked this question NONE could name any >EXCEPT ONE.< says a lot.we watched as people spilled out afterwards they all walked past you down the steps where Brave Mary was holding her plackard in protest at the bottom of the steps on the right side most of those coming out I'd say 98 per cent moved down the steps to the left to avoid Mary only one person walked over to her to say something she was an elderly woman looked like a NUN in normal dress to me everyone who went into That Cathedral Should be ASHAMED.The Religious always said the Church is God's House where all are welcome ,the don't pratice what they preach.Total Hypocrites. My Cousins in America have watched that Video and are totally disgusted and Angry.
Hi Paddy,
seems that you are a danger to them and the Garda had their instructions to watch you and guide you away from the stunt of the Murphy exposure, the Ryan report victims are forgotten as the Dublin Diocese cover-up comedy curtain drops. Those who place their feet in a bucket are now cured and they can walk away , pick up thy bed and walk, but not Paddy Doyle;s feet to place in this magic bucket at the cathedral, Hush him away, he will spoil the act came the whispers behind closed doors, I only speak from the desert thousands of miles away and ask nothing of these ministers of comedy, only that they undo the incorrect washing, and not the cleaning out our compensation rights from them with a Govt run statutury fund, throw the water from the bucket of the washed feet in front of the hearse’s of all our ex survivor brothers and sisters, this we did after washing the bodies of our dearly departed in the past. Bless you Paddy Doyle.
Seanie.
Mary Smith, who is holding up a protest banner, spent all her childhood in two institutions.
Her brother, of whom she discovered, only, as an adult, also spent his whole childhood and adulthood (died in one) in several institutions.
Their mother, whom Mary never knew existed, unfortunately, was also in an asylum and subsequently died in one at the tender young age of 32 years.
Cardinal O’Malley should be communicating with survivors of this ilk, who have been the most hard done-by, by Irish society.
“Michael O’Brien of the Right to Peace group said the Catholic bishops, who had met him and other members of a committee of survivors three times, had been refusing to do so recently. ”
Should it not be more in the line of visiting prelates to be entertaining survivors like Mary Smith?
After all, why should prominent survivors be always mostly the recipients when it comes to ecclesiastical/government media limelight.
It’s so typical and so utterly unfair.