The God Squad

By Fergus Finlay

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

THE people who abused children in our industrial schools were “the dregs of society in a certain sense”.

They weren’t people who had real vocations, or accepted the sanctity of their vows. Instead it was the case (way back then, apparently) that “having a priest, Christian brother or a nun in the family was a status symbol and would ensure they were cared for to the end of their days”. What’s more, “Many of those had no real vocations and in that sense they were frustrated sexually… It was not in that sense a choice, it was almost a condition they accepted reluctantly.”

These aren’t my views. They’re the views of Fr Vincent Twomey, who holds both a PhD in Theology and is Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology at the Pontifical University of St Patrick’s College in Maynooth. He is also a friend of the current Pope, and someone who has given several interviews about the extraordinary merit of his friend Pope Benedict.

In one of the interviews I came across, he described the Pope, or Ratzinger as he referred to him, as “one of the great original thinkers of the 20th century” with the ability to “speak to all levels of society and to inspire all”.

On that basis, it may be too much to infer that the views of Fr Twomey are close to those of the Pope. But still, what would we be saying, I wonder, if the remarks above had come directly from the Vatican? People who argue that the brothers and nuns who abused children over decades, in institutions run by religious orders, are “the dregs of society” have, I think, a few questions to answer. Who ran the institutions? Who supervised these dregs? Who moved them around from place to place, rather than handing them over to the gardaí? Who made use of the profits they made every year by starving children? Who continued to challenge the truth of what survivors said right up to a few weeks ago? We know it wasn’t individual members who did all these things – it was the orders themselves, directed from the top.

Put it another way. How is it possible still to try to sustain the argument, in the light of everything we know, that the abuse of decades was the work of a few misplaced rotten apples? Fr Twomey wasn’t the only brilliant mind at work last week. One of the most articulate and dedicated journalists around, David Quinn, wrote a lengthy piece that employed a careful use of statistics to suggest that actually there were only a few bad institutions. Of course he said on radio later that they were all bad, but if you looked at the figures only a few of them were really bad. In his article he suggested that the Commission of Inquiry, if it wanted to be really fair, would have included this statistical analysis in its executive summary. His article ended with the line “Some were much less abusive than others”. The inference there, if course, is that the commission wasn’t being entirely fair when it said that abuse was endemic in a variety of forms throughout the system, and that it resulted from a culture, not from the sins of a few bad brothers and nuns.

Articles and utterances like these are part of the backlash. They are the proof that the church and its defenders are still not willing to face the fact that it established a corrupt and cruel system, where abuse was used and tolerated for decades in the interests of power, control, and profit.

And the backlash goes on all the time, in the use of all sorts of loaded language. Have you noticed, for example, that spokespeople for the orders still can’t bring themselves to use the word “survivors”, or even “victims”? Even when they’re apologising, even when they’re expressing their shame, they insist on always referring to the survivors as “former residents” – as if they were hotel guests who hadn’t got good service. They were prisoners, and the abuse was part of their sentence. Remember that whenever you hear the careful language and the artful use of statistics.

The religious orders have now indicated to the government that they are prepared to allow an audit of their wealth. Will it be transparent? Well, according to the spokesperson I heard on the news “it will be as transparent as possible”. What I’m guessing that means is that whatever the result of this audit, it will be shown to the government, but not to the rest of us.

And the production of the audit will be the start of a long and painful process designed to convince the powers-that-be that if the orders are forced to contribute more than a few bob, their national mission of education and healing will be fatally compromised.

Probably it should be. Surely there is now an unanswerable case for removing the churches from control of our education system, and from the dominant place it occupies in our health system. There is no reason why some of the major teaching hospitals, and some of the prestigious schools – shouldn’t be handed over to the ownership and control of the community. And there is no reason why the disproportionate influence of the church on, for example, our education curriculum shouldn’t be ended. It would be healthier all round – and healthier too for those who believe they have a vocation to serve, rather than a vocation to control. And here’s a modest suggestion to cut through some of the weeks of negotiation that lie ahead where the money is concerned.

The committee that designed the redress scheme for survivors made the point in their original report to the government that there should be scope for what they called “aggravated damages” of up to 20% on top of awards. Aggravated damages, they said, should apply in cases where children “were abused in circumstances which caused added hurt, fear and humiliation as a result of the general manner or context in which the abuse occurred”.

As it turned out, the redress board itself awarded aggravated damages in very few cases. The commission report, however, has surely established beyond reasonable doubt that a general context of abuse existed. There is an overwhelming moral and legal case for the religious orders to immediately stump up an amount – and it would be around €300 million – equivalent to what would be required if aggravated damages were paid in every case. That would create the beginnings of a fund that could be used for the benefit of survivors and their families.

And the religious orders should be required to add the same again – bringing their contribution to around €600 million – to help to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. The Government urgently needs to build a family support and child protection fund – based on extra resources, not replacement of existing services – to put children at the heart of public policy in the future. If the religious orders are serious about their remorse, they will see a major contribution to the future well-being of children as part of their promise of atonement. I hope.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Tuesday, June 09, 2009