The Irish are preparing for a double-barrelled insult to their reputation for raising big, poor, but happy families. An editorial in The Irish Examiner uses words like shock and horror about the dual reports on the abuse of children that are about to be released, but concludes by asking if children are really all that important in Ireland. Being of dual nationality, I treat all of this with more than a passing interest. There are my people. My Grandparents and our more distant ancestors were part of the society in which this occurred. I have no reason to believe that any of my family was victim or victimizer, either by the priests at the Catholic Parishes or those religious figures at the state institutions where children were mistreated. But who knows? Thousands of people testified before the commissions that produced the reports. Many thousands more no doubt kept their silence to protect the "good family name", because they believed their priests more than their own children, or because they have passed on and their bones will not speak for them. It's a shame these reports are being released now, in this time of economic stress. Because it will make it easier to file them away. Later. We'll do something later. Or never.
[UPDATE: Wednesday 5/20/09 The first of the two reports has been released. NOT pretty.]
[UPDATE: Friday 5/22/09 Catholic Church in Ireland resisteing pressure to pay more toward compensation.]
[UPDATE: Read this commentary by a writer who lived in Ireland in the midst of it all.]
"It's a shame these reports are being released now, in this time of economic stress. Because it will make it easier to file them away."
ReplyDeleteThere is no wrong time to release reports like this. The somewhat meandering IRISH TIMES editorial calls for action. I would think, Tim, that you would want the same.