Nuns told Vatican they feel like Ireland’s ‘scapegoats’

Brandon Scott and Garry O’Sullivan

Report backs up ACP protest at unfair media portrayals

The submission of Irish female religious to the Synod in Rome which concluded in October backs up the recent protest by the Association of Catholic Priests for an end to unfair portrayals of nuns in the Irish media.

Speaking to The Irish Catholic, Fr Tim Hazelwood PP of Killeagh & Inch in Cork, said that religious sisters have become the “fall-guy” for all of the ills in society during a particular period in history.  “All of us have worked in parishes where sisters have worked and know the reality and we’re upset at the way they’re being portrayed,” he said. “They are the fall-guy for the Church, society, and everybody.”

Irish sisters themselves said the same thing in their submission to Rome in 2022 referring to themselves as “scapegoats”.   Under the headline ‘Scapegoating and feelings of isolation: Media and public perceptions’ the nuns say: “Today, religious life is given a lot of bad press, with a particular focus on the past, and as women religious many of us feel hurt and challenged in a very deep way.  Most media reporting seems happy to use women religious as scapegoats for Church and society.”  They added: “There is a sense of being silenced, but silence is seen as condoning the accusations [referring to the abuse reports] and giving the impression that ‘“we’re all guilty.”’  The report adds: “What can be done? It is difficult for women religious to respond, as we believe “any religious who speaks up would be shut down.”

“If responsible historians were asked in the media about the reality of the contribution that religious sisters made, they’ll get a balanced view, but they’re never invited to speak on programmes. It’s always sensationalism we hear and one side of the equation,” added Fr Hazelwood.

Another member of the ACP’s leadership team, Fr Roy Donovan PP of Caherconlish & Inch St Laurence in Limerick, said that the lack of balance in the narrative is ensuring only one image of the legacy of nuns in the country dominates.

“The story that has gone out which is of the harsh nun and the nun that did all the damage in the various mother and baby homes has become the dominant image,” he said. “So that has become the whole story of all the nuns in Ireland really.

“We feel that’s very biased and unfair to the thousands of religious women and the work that they have done in all of the different places. I have worked in a number of Dublin parishes, I couldn’t have done the work I did there without being part of a team working with religious.

“A lot of us in ACP would feel horrified by what has happened to the nuns – the way they’ve been denigrated. We feel it’s very unfair that this lesser story about those that did damage has become the main and the only story.

“But you can understand that because some of the sisters feel that if they speak out they’ll get hit with this lesser story and it takes over.”