Tea and sympathi in the Aras
Last Sunday’s meeting between President McAleese and a group of abuse survivors was a very nice and pleasant photo opportunity – and that’s all it was.
I can imagine the folksy Mary McAleese accompanied by her husband doling out solicitude.
What about ya ya were abused were ya? Ah Gawd that’s awful so it is – Gawd luvv ya – wud ya fancy a Chinese?”
But victims of abuse deserve more than pious platitudes. They want action.
The president’s words that perpetrators of abuse should face criminal charges remind me of Macbeth’s reminiscences of the tale full of strength of fury but signifying nothing. Many of the abusers are dead, others in conditions of advanced senility. As a former professor Law Mary McAleese should know how difficult it would be to launch criminal actions against such people, with an onus probandi based on proof beyond all reasonable doubt. But the president is no fool. She knows this, but it sounded like the right thing to say.
ciaran,
I enjoyed reading your insightful perspective – LOL!! – thanx for this! I suppose the key issue now remaining is:
Can the Catholic church lay the ghost of past child-abuse to rest or not?
For sure, this is another damning indictment of an institution that categorically rejects ANY form of child-abuse.
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“I don’t know a more irreligious attitude, one more utterly bankrupt of any human content, than one which permits children to be destroyed.”– Daniel Berrigan, RC priest & veteran US peace & human rights campaigner
yusuf
June 29, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Hi Yusuf, I honestly don’t think the Catholic Church can divest itself of the legacies of child abuse and the attempts to cover up these shameful practices. It can’t change this because it is a powerful institution and it cares more for its hierarchies and its structures than it does for its religious messages. Having said this I know many many members of the Catholic priesthood who are decent people and who have no truck with child abuse or abusers, but the vast majority of these are still on the church’s lowest rungs and have no desire to be promoted. I think this in itself says a lot about what’s wrong with the church.
planetparker
June 29, 2009 at 10:30 pm