Brendan O’Regan
There are some stories you just can’t ignore, even if you want to because they are so repulsive. And so it was with the release last week of the O’Toole Report into child sexual abuse at schools run by religious orders, effectively Catholic schools.
It should be immediately clear that something is wrong here – surely the ‘scoping’ exercise should have covered all schools, regardless of management structure or patronage? The approach seemed discriminatory and sectarian. Inevitably, given the demographics, most schools will be Catholic anyway, and during the week in media coverage most if not all commentators reckoned the subsequent inquiry will have to widen its remit to cover all schools.
The results of that enquiry dominated news and current affairs throughout the week. On the News at One (RTE One, Wednesday) Niall Muldoon, Ombudsman for Children described ‘diabolical behaviour’ against children, and it was hard to disagree. On the same programme Deirdre Kenny, CEO of One in Four, a group that seeks to help adult survivors of child sexual abuse, argued that the subsequent enquiry should include all schools, otherwise certain victims would be isolated. That other schools should, or are likely to be, included was a point made also by Patsy McGarry on The Irish Times, on Today with Claire Byrne (RTE Rado 1 Tuesday) and by Ailbhe Conneely, RTE’s Religious and Social Affairs Correspondent in her various reports for RTE News.
Unsurprisingly, Liveline (RTE Radio 1) was full of it for the week. The stories of survivors or victims were heart breaking. It was so hard to take stories of children not feeling able to tell parents and then not being believed when they did pluck up enough courage or even vocabulary. Some had positive things to say about the value of the Spiritans’ restorative justice initiative – separately this was well explained by one survivor John Coulter, on Morning Ireland (RTE Radio 1) last Monday. Others on Liveline were not so keen, and others weaponised the suffering to take a broad swipe at the Catholic Church – one caller on the Tuesday wanted the Catholic Church removed from education altogether.
As the dust began to settle a little there was an interesting interview with former Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin on Today with Claire Byrne (RTE radio 1, Thursday). ‘This is worse’, he said, comparing the new report to his earlier experiences with abuse cases – the numbers were ‘frightening’. He was especially shocked by abuse of children in special schools – ‘very hard to stomach’. Child abusers, he said, were not ‘sexually starved’ but were interested only in small children. As with sports bodies and the like, in the Church they found privileged access to children, and, even, damningly, in some cases, protection. When safeguarding was properly working, they would move elsewhere – the incidence of paedophilia does not change in society. Now that was concerning and effectively a huge call for vigilance.
He was critical of some church authorities for not listening in particular to working class parents with serious concerns and also critical of religious orders being too concerned with protecting the order from damage, when, in fact, their actions did much more damage.
By Friday Liveline seemed to have run out of steam and the horror stories mainly concerned corporal punishment in schools. In a way that’s the low hanging fruit – people of a certain age all have stories of school cruelties of all sorts. Unlike sexual abuse, corporal punishment largely had societal and even parental approval, though I was glad to hear presenter Joe Duffy drawing attention to early campaigners against corporal punishment. At least in its moderate and controlled manifestations it was seen as good discipline. Unfortunately, many of the accounts on that show were of extreme, uncontrolled and even, one might suspect, psychotic punishments. The stories of sexual abuse from earlier in the week were of a different order, more devastating for later life and usually done in a secrecy enforced by menace and threat. I was hugely impressed by those few who gave accounts of abuse but who were still practising their Catholic faith. As one caller said, he wasn’t going to let the abusers come between him and his relationship with God.
The chief victims were the unfortunate children subjected to these cruelties, but I still feel I have to speak up for some marvellous and idealistic Christian Brothers that taught and inspired me.
Pick of the week
Forgotten Heritage
EWTN Saturday September 14, 7am
Fr Owen Gorman and Fr John Hogan relate the history of Frank Duff in Dublin, founding the Legion of Mary, which currently has missions worldwide.
Documentary on One: Nastiness
RTE Radio 1 Saturday September 14, 2pm
A Crisis in Irish politics? – There’s more personal abuse in Irish politics. Could this discourage new candidates? If so, are there solutions?
Film: Evan Almighty
RTE 2 Sunday September 15, 9pm
God recruits a politician to build an ark and save the world’s animals from an impending cataclysm. Comedy sequel.