Brendan O’ReganIt’s all about The Narrative – you know, the version of a story carefully spun to suit somebody’s agenda, gleefully swallowed by the unthinking and enhanced by a trip to Outrage Factory.
And so it was with the symphysiotomy controversy. For the last few years this child birth intervention was seen as ‘barbaric’, ‘torture’ and a weapon of choice for the Catholic patriarchy.
I remember people getting quite passionate about it in Dáil Éireann and in TV debates. And yes the procedure sounds awful and I don’t doubt that some women suffered lifelong complications as a result.
But then, Tuesday of last week, the Report of Judge Maureen Harding Clark was published and the established narrative was devastatingly unspun.
On Newstalk’s Breakfast Show the next morning presenter Shane Coleman raised questions about the media having lessons to learn for the way they reported it to date.
This was in an interview with Paul Cullen, Medical Correspondent with The Irish Times. Cullen agreed that on this issue there had been too much emphasis on the role of Catholic teaching, and in trying to explain why there hadn’t been a more reasoned debate up to now Cullen suggested that ‘right thinking people’ may have held back for fear of the vitriol they would have been subjected to.
Good faith
On the same day’s Pat Kenny Show (Newstalk), Kenny interviewed Dr Sam Coulter-Smith of the Rotunda maternity hospital. He said that this operation was done ‘in good faith’ and aimed at saving the lives of babies and mothers at a time when anaesthetics were dangerous and Caesarean Sections weren’t safe, and that the procedure was still appropriate today, mainly, for life saving reasons, in Third World countries, where it is ‘still recognised as a life-saving procedure’.
Shortly after that Dr Peter Boylan made similar points on Today With Sean O’Rourke (RTÉ Radio 1). He dismissed as “outrageous” the idea that the operation was carried out by barbaric doctors or religious zealots.
He said the “real scandal” was women being led to believe that all their post-pregnancy complications were attributable to symphysiotomy. More worrying he said that some doctors write supportive reports not backed up by the facts, becoming advocates rather than independent experts.
So now there’s a new narrative, and it seems a lot more nuanced, balanced and convincing. But a watching brief is necessary as who knows what the next development will be.
Back on the Pat Kenny Show, Friday’s edition looked at the state of religion in Ireland. Richard Chambers spoke to some Mass goers who were enthusiastic about their faith.
Some students from the Newman Society in UCD were even more impressive. One had a memorable phrase – nowadays you had to “swim upstream for Jesus”.
This segment was followed later by a useful studio discussion with Fr Alan Hilliard, Chaplain at DIT, theologian Gina Menzies, and Brian Whiteside of the Humanist Association.
Fr Hilliard enjoyed his pastoral work and said he had got only one adverse comment in six years. He thought that when people came to get married in church they weren’t just looking for a nice backdrop.
Gina Menzies said she was never let down by St Anthony and thought people would stay with faith communities if they found meaning and connection. She said there were lots of issues Jesus didn’t speak about, but he did ‘suggest’ values, though she might have added that he also established a teaching authority to guide us through thorny issues yet to come. Whiteside thought these were just broad human values – but can’t they be both?
Menzies had been at a graduation in the Royal College of Surgeons and the new doctors did not take the Hippocratic Oath, but instead took one they wrote themselves! Worrying implications there for medical ethics.
Finally, I really enjoyed Mick Peelo’s marvellous Would You Believe programme on Sr Consilio last Sunday night (RTÉ 1).
It was such a warm profile of the founder of Cuan Mhuire, a centre for dealing with addictions. It was a programme that would move you to laughter and tears – Sr Consilio has a great sense of humour, but a deep spirituality (‘Our Lady will provide’) and love of people.
Also I had great admiration for contributors who spoke about turning their lives around because Sr. Consilio convinced them of their value.
As one speaker put it during a service acknowledging her work – ‘We are exceptionally blessed’.
Pick of the week
THE ADMIRERS
EWTN Saturday, December 3, 8pm
Young European Catholics share their testimonies of love and appreciation for St John Paul II the Great.
Would You Believe?
RTÉ 1 Sunday, December 4, 10.30pm
The compelling story of courage and compassion during the world’s first televised famine, and the role played by Irish missionaries in relieving it.
New: Vienna: Empire, Dynasty and Dream
BBC 4 Thursday, Decemer 8, 9pm
How Vienna marked Europe’s front line in the struggle to defend Christendom from the Ottomans and the Catholic Church from Protestant revolutionaries.