Ciaran’s Peculier [sic] Blog

A view of the world from an Irish hole

Category: Christianity

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Fallout from Clerical sexual abuse

Dr Donal Murray has been forced to resign from the bishopric of Limerick. It is true that he was guilty of sins of omission, rather

Donal Murray - fall guy?

than commission. Donal Murray was not the worst member of the Catholic hierarchy – he was a saint compared to his boozy, Opus Dei-loving predecessor Jerry Newman. I can’t help feeling that he is being made a sacrificial lam, a fall guy if you will, for others in the body of the church and the laity.  far more deeply stained with guilt.

 The Murphy report was a very courageous and candid document that uncovered the horrors of a dishonest culture of silence and deceit. But people were shocked by the degree of what had gone on, not by the revelation that clerical abuse had occurred and been hushed up. The proverbial dogs in the street knew that.

 So the report was issued to general, and to an extent quite correct condemnation of the Catholic Church in Ireland. This occurred only weeks before the most dishonest, cruel and vicious budgets in the State. Ordinarily it might have been expected that some members of the hierarchy, as well as ordinary religious, would have spoken out against a measure that deliberately targeted already disadvantaged sections of Irish society such as the blind. However, with the Murphy report on the table, all bishops were cowed into silence; had they spoken out against the budget I could well have imagined some government minister telling them to get their own house in order first or words to that effect.

 Those who were the victims of abuse are still hurting. It’s possible the hurt will never heal. Alas, I sense that some of those in the government who have set themselves up as guardians of the rights of victims, or who have proclaimed themselves citizens of a republic, are the very people who knew full well that such abuse was rampant and systematic, but did or said nothing because they viewed the Catholic Church as too powerful and influential. It is only when they sense they can kick a dead horse with impunity that they do so with alacrity.

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Living in a republic

The Murphy commission report pointed to an inappropriate relationship between the Catholic archdiocese of Dublin and senior

Up the Republic Dermot?

members of the Irish police force. The report should have been more candid. These senior figures in the Gardai were often members of Catholic lay groups such as the Knights of Saint Columbanus, and often owed their positions and promotions to such membership. And when the church wanted something hushed up they could be relied upon to do it,  You had a situation – in some places you still have a situation – where the legal system was infected. The colonisation of areas such as the judiciary and the police force essentially meant that the clergy as well as other members of these lay groups, were beyond the legal pale and could do what they liked. Such a form of infection is invidious and has nothing to do with Christianity.

 As someone who belongs to the Catholic branch of Christianity I am appalled by the actions of some of its bishops in league with well-placed members of the laity, but my horror is not recent. Oh no, I have observed the hypocrisy, the double standards, for years. I have kept silent because to do otherwise would be to invite victimisation, and sadly the victimisation has come anyway.

 I have nothing in common with these people in the Knights or Opus Dei or any of the plethora of Catholic Masonic groups. They have no part in the version of Christianity I subscribe to. In fact, I see them as fifth columnists, people who have infiltrated the Christian religion and who clothe themselves in a selection of its rituals and who pervert its doctrines in order to conceal their own baseness and evil.

 Irish Justice Minister Dermot Ahern, in presenting the Murphy report, attempted to come over all radical, as a child of Rousseua and Voltaire. Instead of demanding the crushing of infamy he stated that we live in a republic where none are beyond the law. But yet how is it that his colleague Dr Michael Woods made such a nice deal with the religious orders so that they escaped having to pay out too much in redress to their victims. There wasn’t much sign of a republic there. Let us recall during the shameful referendum debates of the 1980s when Archbishop McNamara’s de facto political spokesman was that wonderful politician from the west Padraig Flynn who brought his children up so well, inculcating one of them with the belief that tax evasion was a worthwhile endeavour. Then there was senator Don Lydon who regaled the Irish senate with his homosexual fantasies, not to mention the late Jim Tunny. Former deputy for Dublin North West Michael Barrett who took part in the picket objecting to the screening of the boring Je Vous Salue Mariez, which, because it was denounced by the Vatican, acquired a notoriety it never deserved. I could go on, and on and on, but it would be boring. So, before Dermot Ahern starts trying to fly the flag of enlightened republicanism, he must dwell on how many members of his party, at all levels, are members of right-wing Catholic lay groups whose unspoken policy is to subborn the state to the Catholic church. No wonder Protestant bigots in Northern Ireland are able to snidely remark that Home Rule still means Rome Rule, while forgetting the nefarious influence of their Orange Order.

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Common decency

John O’Donoghue has received a nice fat severance payment, plus pension, PLUS his TD’s salary, after looting the state’s coffers. Given the economic straights we are in, would it not be decent of him to give some of it back, or preferably make a donation to a charity or charities? I think it would be, but then decency is a quality in short supply among ALL our rulers, of whatever political party. The vast majority have been educated in denominational schools, whether by religious orders or their dioceses. Any attempt to limit the sphere of the religious in education is met with howls of indignation by the Catholic hierarchy. Admittedly I attended a Church of Ireland secondary school, the Royal School in Cavan, which, for reasons best known to its headmaster, is now ashamed to consider me a past pupil. Nevertheless, I still pride myself on knowing right from wrong and I can say with my hand on my heart that I have never stolen anything. 

 I don’t think though, they have much to be proud of. These schools have not produced better or more ethical people. Instead its products are greedy, nasty, narrow-minded hypocrites who however, are by and large willing to afford the Church a far wider influence than its dwindling numbers deserve.

O’Donoghue always showed what a nice Catholic boy he was when he’d start each Dail session with a prayer and a Sign of the Cross. This show reminded me of how classes were begun in the Catholic secondary school I attended for three months. There would be the recitation of the Hail Mary, with the l line “Seat of Wisdom Pray for Us” tagged on at the end;  if little Padedy or Micky wasn’t able to answer a question to the teacheer’s satisfaction he could look forward to receiving a coff on the ear – and that was from the lay teachers. But sure it made men of them - men who would think nothing of cheating on and beating their wives or abusing their children.  

More than ever I believe that I am in a kleptocracy, rules by thieves and scoundrels who are busily devising schemes of how much more they can steal from the little I have.

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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.

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A glimmer of hope

In a recent post I wrote how the dogs in the street knew that the physical, sexual and mental abuse of children by some Catholic religious orders was systematic and widespread. Perhaps it will take another commission working for ten years to “reveal” another self-evident truth: that the “sweetheart” deal arranged between the state and the religious orders on compensation of victims was drafted and composed by civil servants who were either members of or sympathetic to right-wing Catholic lay groups such as Opus Dei and the Knights of St Columbanus. Those same urban hounds are also well aware that the minister who signed off on this deal and who now seeks to defend it, was probably a member of one of these organisations. Dr Michael Woods liked to appear as the innocent, almost simple north-side politician, singing “One Day at a Time Dear Jesus” on Irish television, but he was also the minister who unleashed a vicious campaign against welfare recipients under the guise of unearthing “social welfare fraud”. I believe the agreement between Woods and the religious orders is possibly the most flagrant and biggest piece of fraud in the history of the state.

The members of these lay Catholic groups, and the vile and depraved individuals they protect, are truly evil. They masquerade as so good, often wrapping themselves up in the raiment of religiosity. But in fact this is just a confidence trick, to conceal their inner baseness and wickedness. I am convinced that if Jesus Christ were to appear in Ireland today he would be “dealt with” by these people; there wouldn’t be a trial or anything so public as a crucifixion. That would create a scandal, and the last thing the Knights or their friends can tolerate is a scandal.

But I know that anyone who speaks out about these heinous fiends faces years, decades, probably a lifetime of victimisation at their hands from which there is no reprieve.

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Sweetheart deals

In a recent post I wrote how the dogs in the street knew that the physical, sexual and mental abuse of children by some Catholic religious orders was systematic and widespread. Perhaps it will take another commission working for ten years to “reveal” another self-evident truth: that the “sweetheart” deal arranged between the state and the religious orders on compensation of victims was drafted and composed by civil servants who were either members of or sympathetic to right-wing Catholic lay groups such as Opus Dei and the Knights of St Columbanus. Those same urban hounds are also well aware that the minister who signed off on this deal and who now seeks to defend it, was probably a member of one of these organisations. Dr Michael Woods liked to appear as the innocent, almost simple north-side politician, singing “One Day at a Time Dear Jesus” on Irish television, but he was also the minister who unleashed a vicious campaign against welfare recipients under the guise of unearthing “social welfare fraud”. I believe the agreement between Woods and the religious orders is possibly the most flagrant and biggest piece of fraud in the history of the state.

The members of these lay Catholic groups, and the vile and depraved individuals they protect, are truly evil. They masquerade as so good, often wrapping themselves up in the raiment of religiosity. But in fact this is just a confidence trick, to conceal their inner baseness and wickedness. I am convinced that if Jesus Christ were to appear in Ireland today he would be “dealt with” by these people; there wouldn’t be a trial or anything so public as a crucifixion. That would create a scandal, and the last thing the Knights or their friends can tolerate is a scandal.

But I know that anyone who speaks out about these heinous fiends faces years, decades, probably a lifetime of victimisation at their hands from which there is no reprieve.

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A victim of abuse

I have learned that a good friend of mine, now sadly deceased, was the victim of a serious assault from a priest during his youth. It happened when he was a boarder in a diocesan secondary school. On his fifteenth birthday he received a present of some money – quite a large sum by the standards of the time. So excited was he that he began to jump up and down on his bed. He was observed by one of the priests who decided to offer some physical chastisement. So badly did he beat my friend that he needed hospital treatment. This would constitute an assault, but did the priest suffer for his actions? No, for no policeman would arrest him, no lawyer would prosecute him, and no judge would sentence him because he was a priest. But what sort of person beats up a child? He was certainly bigger than my friend at the time. What was more this coward could act in the full knowledge that his actions wouldn’t be resisted, for no one would hit a priest. To do so was to earn eternal damnation, not only for one’s self but possibly for one’s descendants.

My friend’s choice of career therefore, appears somewhat bizarre, for he trained to be a priest himself. Once ordained he was appointed to the teaching staff of the institution where he had been assaulted and indeed brutalised. Although I always found him to be the most harmless and inoffensive of men he had the reputation among students of being a “villain” and a “demon”. I have heard that he was given to outbursts of hysteria accompanied by physical violence towards students.

In later life he was appointed to a parish where he earned a reputation as a kindly pastor. In fact he tried to do the work of three men, even though his health wasn’t up to doing the work of one.

He was a most talented historian who has not received the recognition of those who have seized control of local history. Some of these people know all about silencing even the mere whisper of clerical abuse.

I don’t seek to lessen the evil acts of my friend or to call for understanding. Hr was a victim, firstly a direct victim of physical abuse, and secondly of a system which viewed physical violence by adults against adolescents as somehow acceptable. Like so many victims of systematic abuse he became a perpetrator.

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Regrets

 

I wish I weren’t disabled. I think back to the days when I could walk for miles or strut my stuff on the dance-floors of smelly, over-heated nightclubs.. I wish I could recognise people’s faces.

 

But you know I don’t think I’ve done too badly.

 

Regrets? Sure! I’ve got a few – who hasn’t? I regret having stayed on at university to get a doctorate. I also regret coming back down to Cavan in 1995 and getting in with a bad crowd, though as they were my employers I could hardly help it. But as we haven’t mastered time travel and going back in time, regrets are stupid.

 

Some may think I’m angry – surely none but a person steeped deeply in anger could write such forceful denunciations of the bandits and thieves who think of themselves as our leaders.

 

But I’m sorry to disappoint. I’m not angry, certainly not with my disabilities. Who should I be angry with? God? I’ve never been a believer in a vengeful and wrathful deity delivering his displeasure by life-shattering thunderbolts. I see divine intervention in my life as far more benign. God could have made me less imperfect, but the reasons he didn’t have nothing to do with punishment. If anything they are challenges for me to overcome – on my terms, not on someone else’s.

 

Maybe it’s a cross to bear, but then this makes me feel immensely privileged. Maybe Jesus is giving me the opportunity to carry his cross and share in his sufferings for mankind. I think it was Edith Stein who wrote: “Sufferings endured with the Lord are his sufferings.” But listen – I’m no Jesus freak and I wouldn’t like the powerful holy joes to feel they had competition.

 

But I’m not the only one who’s privileged here. I have never believed that there is a hierarchy of illness – that I’m sicker than someone else, and therefore deserving more soup and sympathy.

 

I don’t feel angry or resentful of “able-bodied” people. We’re all members of the human race, Some people are just luckier, that’s all.

 

I do feel angry – very angry – at the responses of society and government to the disabled. They claim they want disabled people to feel included and to pursue the removal of discrimination. In fact they don’t give a damn – they never have done. What they give (or rather promise) with one hand they take back with blooded claw on the other. I am incandescent at being sidelined, looked down upon and discriminated against by shitty little people leading shitty little lives who think that their proximity to bodily perfection places them in positions of unassailable authority over me and countless others.

 

I am livid with being expected to blend into the wall-paper of society, and then being ostracised because I have never wanted to be imprisoned in the world of low (or no) expectations. Along with other disabled people I have so much to give to the world, but we have been told by many (including many of the voluntary organizations supposedly pursuing our welfare) that the highest occupations we can aspire to are telephone operators. I dare to say that not everything in the garden of disability (only partially accessible to people in wheelchairs) smells of roses, but that quite a lot stinks of human piss.

 

Amongst the most craven in our world are those who preen themselves as being friendly to the disabled, who initiate expensive schemes accompanied by lavish publicity, to investigate the needs of the disabled, but which never lead to anything except the short-term enrichment of their organisers.

 

God gave me a brain, which he expects, nay demands I use. He also gave me the means of expressing my thoughts and I am so thankful to be able still to use them.

 

I am really, really happy. I live with a beautiful woman, safe and secure in her love, in a beautiful spot. I have so many truly wonderful friends.

 

Sometimes I wonder what I’ve done to deserve such happiness. At other times I fear that my happiness consists of fibres of a rug which can all too easily be precipitously withdrawn. I know how fragile my happiness is and how it can so easily be destroyed by the bloody-minded actions of others. I have made many enemies among the “powerful” who are just itching to get back at me.

 

I have my dignity; this is very precious.

 

But you know life is for loving. I believe in the present and the future. The past can take care of itself.

 

But I don’t know why I’ve written this. There will be those who’ll understand. Others will just scoff, maybe seeing it as the belly-aching of an arse-hole, as I was once described by a fellow member of an online forum for the partially-sighted.

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Happy Christmas everyone?

I’m not going to say “Happy Christmas everybody”, because not everyone deserves it. I am sick and tired of the way in which Christmas in Ireland is an excuse for large sectors of employees, especially in the public service to take a fortnight’s holidays. Two years ago they only deigned to come back to work on January 8th. This year I expected that they would drag it out till the fifth, the nearest Monday, but no! I’ve heard that some aren’t going back until January 7th.

And then there is Christmas Day. Why must this be an excuse for a national shut-down? There are no busses, no taxis though how people are supposed to visit loved ones in hospital I don’t know.

And what are they celebrating? The birth of their saviour in a stable. Well the hypocrites! There is isn’t one of them who wouldn’t queue up to hammer nails into His palm if offered a few free drinks.

I’m not a killjoy. I think Christmas should be a time of celebration, but let’s not overdo it. I think of how God was made flesh and came into this world naked, born in what might be described as a disadvantaged place, his parents denied lodgings in even the most basic accommodation. If He were coming into the world now He might find that His parents were denied a roof over their heads although they were on a waiting-list.

I would have no difficulty working on Christmas Day for a decent wage. But then I have been told that I’m not entitled to any decent job on the other three-hundred-and-sixty-four days on such specious grounds as not being a driver and able to get around. So I might have a doctorate in history and be able to speak a dozen languages, I might be the author of eight or nine books (not all about history) and the job might not be for a chauffeur. But then no doubt my doctorate wasn’t good enough – it had been gained by a cripple and had probably been granted on grounds of sympathy rather than merit. None of my books have been published by Four Courts Press, and in Co. Cavan (no less than in any other county in Ireland) the only language you need to know is the one of sycophancy.

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News from nowhere

The publication of the report into clerical sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic diocese of Cloyne demonstrates once again how there are people in the hierarchy who have no intention of dealing with this horrendous activity in their midst but think they can rely on their friends in the higher civil service to hush the whole thing up.

It is disingenuous to say that an attempt was not made by the church, relying on their friends doing the work of God or riding to battle against secular humanism, to suppress the report. It was commissioned for the Minister for Children, Barry Andrews, who says he never read it. Now Barry is the son of David Andrews, a stateman of stature, and I very much doubt when he is faced with a pile of reports which he can’t be bothered to read he turns and says “fuck it” and goes home. No doubt he was told that the report was dynamite and that it should be “shelved”.
Now Bishop John Magee should do the decent thing and resign but obviously his departure would be too much of a blow for his friends. I come from a part of the world well used to having to listen to episcopal claptrap about clerical sexual abiuse and how much the hierarchy sympathises with the victims and then does nothing. And anyone who’s not prepared to wallow in these crocodile tears is ostracised and victimised. .These hollow words were mixed with a degree of help to the perpetrators of sexual abuse which might be considered conspiracy. But then the bishop at the centre of all this was such a saintly man. What’s more he was such a great historian – possibly the greatest – the world’s living authority on the O’Reillys – until he died.

No one can say that Bishop Magee has been guilty of any wrong-doing in the diocese of Cloyne. However, I knew of a priest who once served under him. This man was in many ways an archetypal Irish Catholic priest, middle-aged, and with somewhat prejudiced views about the modern world. However, when asked about Dr Magee, he said but one thing. “That man is evil.”
And then again there were rumours, only rumours, that the bishop of Cloyne liked to pay social visits to London, but not to visit the Victoria and Albert museum or take in a show.

I am angered. I see so many good, decent people in the Catholic church who are truly disgusted by the way in which important sections of the church have been kidnapped by people who are a disgrace to their calling. This goes for both laity and clergy. The Irish hierarchy contains some good men – I can mention Dr Diarmaid Martin, Bishop Willy Walsh of Killaloe and Leo O’Reilly of Kilmore, while a man whom I always had great respect for was compelled to resign for far less than has been shown to have taken place in Cloyne. The church’s head, Pope Benedict, has described these elements as filth. As a man who is able to discern the voice of God in a Mozart piano sonata I believe he too is truly appalled by these hideous betrayals of humanity, but is it a case that this filthy wolf has taken the church by the throat where it is keeping the lambs over which it should shine a guardian’s eyes as hostages?

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