Thursday July 07 2011
IN the battle between the Minister for Education and the religious orders over compensation for victims of abuse, all the morality is on the side of Ruairi Quinn. But the law may be on the side of the religious.
Clearly, this is not the way it should be. Among the many extraordinary errors made by the Roman Catholic authorities in this woeful business, perhaps the most extraordinary is the failure to recognise that a church which appears to give no thought to its moral position is conniving at its own destruction.
One has to recognise that the Irish State was guilty of gross negligence in the years of widespread abuse, and that money paid to the victims by the orders is money which will not be available for other good purposes today. The recommendation in the Ryan Report, after it had catalogued the horrific, inexcusable scale of abuse, that State and church should share the cost of damages equally, seems both fair and reasonable.
Mr Quinn now wants it implemented and the church faces another moment of decision. If the orders take cover behind the financial trusts in which much of their assets are held, or stand by the letter of the bizarre deal agreed with Bertie Ahern’s government, limiting their liability to €128m, they will lose more of the little respect they have left.
This obvious fact is well understood by many rank-and-file clergy who have to soldier on with their duties against the background of contempt into which the actions of their superiors have brought their organisation. It does not help that membership of the orders involved is now so small that those who remain are doing little more than managing a legacy.
If the religious do not respond, Mr Quinn can look to his legal options. The Attorney General will be consulted. Legal actions, or even legislation, might follow. Win or lose, it would be yet another sorry chapter in this sorriest of tales.
Can it be more clear as to what god they adore ?, Their days are numbered and they are old and debased without any moral compass. The rot has reached the brain and wealth is what they have left and nothing more . I say begone with you of that fair land and seek company with the devil .