The case for religious orders

The world is better for their presence over the years, writes David Quinn

The record of the nuns is under attack again. The latest accusation is one of racism against children of ‘mixed race’ who found themselves in Mother and Baby homes and other Church-run institutions.

The last Mother and Baby home closed down several decades ago and it is entirely believable that racist attitudes were to be found in them, and in society at large.

A report from the Collaborative Forum of Former Residents of Mother and Baby Homes was leaked to the Sunday Independent last weekend. It has not yet been published because it makes serious allegations against people who have not been given a fair chance to defend themselves (and may never be in a position to do so).

The report instances individual examples of racism in some Mother and Baby homes and also notes how difficult it was to place children of mixed race with adoptive families.

It quotes a memo sent to the then Minister for Education, Donogh O’Malley, in 1966, which said that the chances of mixed-race children in Ireland at the time ever getting married was “practically nil and their future happiness can only be assured in a country with a fair multi-racial population, since they are not received by either black or white”.

This tallies with the experience of mixed-race children in countries such as Australia at the time. Children with an Aboriginal mother (say) and a white father were often not accepted by either race, and grew up in institutions, often run by one of the Churches. Attempts, later heavily criticised, were made to raise the children as ‘whites’ so they could integrate into the wider society.

Indeed, even today it is often hard to place children from minority ethnic groups who are in the care system with families.

Study

A recent British study showed that the average white British child waits 919 days for adoption but boys of black African descent face the longest wait – 1,302 days, a year longer, which can make a very big difference in the lives of small children.

The results of the investigation into the country’s Mother and Baby homes, and other similar institutions is to be published in the coming months.

When that happens, we can expect another wholesale assault on the reputation of women religious. Who will speak up for the great good they have done down the centuries, to the present time?

When we weigh the good that women religious orders have done compared with the bad, the scales come down very heavily on the side 
of the good”

Ireland over the past few decades is like a country that has heard only the case for the prosecution against the Catholic Church, but almost never the case for the defence. What system of justice would provide a jury only with the case for the prosecution and then expect it to decide innocence or guilt on that basis?

On balance, when we weigh the good that women religious orders have done compared with the bad, the scales come down very heavily on the side of the good.

We take it for granted that so many schools, hospitals and other charitable outreaches were run by women religious (and male too, of course), but for a long time , many of these places would not have existed at all without the religious congregations.

It took someone to found a teaching order say, or a nursing order, and then, over time, build up a network of schools and hospitals that were often vast and global in scale and run incredibly cost-effectively because the religious provided their services for next to nothing and were available for far more hours each week than lay-people with families.

Education

Here in Ireland, the amount of money the State saved thanks to the religious orders is enormous. In its early days, the Irish State could simply not have afforded the education and healthcare system that was provided by the religious congregations.

Replacing all the religious who once worked in our schools and hospitals has come at huge expense and the recent election was fought partly on the basis of the inadequacies of our healthcare system, little of which is in Catholic hands anymore.

On the other hand, our schools are still mostly Church-run and we hear few complaints about them.

Down the centuries, countless numbers of Irish people, especially those from extremely disadvantaged backgrounds, have had their lives transformed for the better thanks to the schools, hospitals and other charitable outreaches run by the religious.

These volunteer men and women religious also went overseas, at a time before antibiotics and vaccinations and risked their lives in tropical climates, to bring the Gospel of Jesus Chris to the four corners of the world, and to extend the networks of schools and hospitals they had already founded at home.

Any clear-headed, objective person would have to respond that the world is far better off because of the Catholic religious orders…that have carried out so much good work on behalf of so many people”

To this day, the Catholic Church is responsible for the education and healthcare of millions of people worldwide every single year. No other voluntary organisation comes close. They provide what very poor countries often could not hope to provide on their own.

Around the world, the Catholic Church, very often led by male and female religious, runs 140,000 schools, 5,500 hospitals, 18,000 health clinics, 16,000 homes for the elderly and handicapped, 10,000 orphanages, 12,000 nurseries and 37,000 centres of informal education. Two-thirds of these are found in developing countries (see Earthly Mission by Robert Calderisi).

Imagine if all these disappeared or had never existed? Do we imagine for one second that the world would be better off for that?

Any clear-headed, objective person would have to respond that the world is far better off because of the Catholic religious orders, male and female, that have carried out so much good work on behalf of so many people for so long.

Yes, the crimes of religious most be noted, but any fair account must also list the tremendous good they have done.