The report into the sexual and physical abuse of children in the care of Roman Catholic-run institutions in Ireland makes appalling reading. An investigative commission took evidence from over a thousand witnesses. The malpractice it examined covered almost a century from 1914 up until 2000.
The grim details of the substantial betrayal of trust by priests and nuns who were supposed to be protecting and educating young children are bad enough. However, even now, despite the effusive apologies and regrets voiced by present-day leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, there is still a cover up going on. The investigative commission was sued successfully in the courts by one of the religious orders, the Christian Brothers, so none of its members, alive or dead can be named. Nor will any prosecutions be brought against any offender still alive.
It is, therefore, hardly surprising that many victims, some well on in years, feel they have been cheated of justice. A large number seems to have been scarred for life by the disgusting and brutal way in which they were treated, while they were trapped helplessly inside these forbidding institutions. Nor does the report mince its words in blaming successive governments for failing to look into victims’ complaints and being too ready to take the word of the Roman Catholic Church authorities either that there was no problem or, less frequently, if it admitted there was an issue that it had been dealt with. Religious leaders held such a sway over politicians and officials because of the pre-eminent position their church had long occupied in Irish life. During the centuries of bitterly resented British rule, the Roman Catholic Church had frequently been the single rallying point for Irish people who wanted to assert their personal independence. It, therefore, won for itself an honored place in Irish Free State established in 1921.
Despite a left-wing, freethinking elements within the Republican movement, the newly independent country remained a highly religious society in which the church played a trusted role. The institutions it ran often housed orphans or illegitimate children. But for some reason, for which there still seems no clear explanation, these vulnerable children became the prey of the priests and nuns charged with their care. What does seem apparent is that this nationwide scandal, which was long talked about but never until now investigated, has contributed to a remarkable decline in the number of professed Roman Catholics in the last 30 years. Ireland has gone from being one of the most religiously observant European countries to one of the least. No doubt, the now bust materialist boom of the last decade drew people away from the Christian values that once underpinned the life of almost every Irishman. But there is a strong sense that the hypocritical way in which church leaders hid the crimes of a sizeable minority of their priests and nuns also made a major contribution. In just over a generation the Irish have lost their faith in a once dominant church that betrayed them as well as the children.
Obama must shut Gitmo
Guantanamo Bay has become a symbol of the misjudgments made during America’s “war on terror” and should be closed, said The Independent in an editorial yesterday. Excerpts:
That goal is still within reach. Congress has not specifically forbidden Obama from meeting his promise of closing the facility by next January. What it claims to object to is the lack of detailed plans as to how this should be done.
For Obama the stakes could scarcely be higher. Of late he has seemed to back away from his commitment to make a clean break with the excesses of the Bush/Cheney era.
The White House has announced it will fight publication of photos of US personnel conducting “enhanced interrogation techniques” on detainees, and that it will use revamped military tribunals to try alleged terrorists, a system the current president once described as irretrievably flawed. If he were now to allow Guantanamo to remain open, Obama would be rightly portrayed as a weak president fearful of looking weak on security.
Republicans, but not only Republicans, are indulging in outrageous fearmongering: That if these men are moved to the mainland, they will constitute an intolerable risk for the public, masterminding new 9/11s from behind the fearsome reinforced concrete walls of a US maximum security prison. For America’s politicians, a Guantanamo inmate in his state or district is as toxic a prospect as a nuclear waste storage facility.Obama must put these fears to rest. Simultaneously, he must also neutralize another factor now shaping the debate: The chronic fear of Democrats of being seen as weak on national security. As both candidate and president, Obama has steadfastly maintained that it is possible to keep the country safe and yet remain faithful to America’s laws and ideals. Guantanamo Bay gives him a chance to prove that. It is one he cannot afford to miss.
