We Must be Talking

  Sexual Abuse in Schools in Ireland        Gerry OShea Here where men sit and hear each other groan; Where youth grows pale and spectre-thin and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow; I thought of these depressing ruminations on life from Keats’ poem “Ode to a Nightingale” when I read that the awful crime of sexual abuse is again on top of the political agenda in Ireland. A preliminary investigation, named a Scoping   Inquiry, has led the Irish Government to announce that they will appoint a Commission of Investigation to examine and assess in more detail the information about the widespread sexual abuse of children by clerics, male and female, in the schools that they managed. Mary O’Toole, a distinguished barrister, has led the investigation so far.   The report details 2400 allegations of sexual abuse by 844 alleged abusers in 308 schools run by 42 religious orders across Ireland. After reading the 700-page report, Irish Times columnist, Jennifer O’Connell,

  Inequality in America                Gerry OShea   Gustavo Gutierrez, the famous Peruvian theologian, defines poverty as “premature and unjust death,” explaining that “the poor person is someone who is treated as a non-person, considered insignificant from an economic, political and cultural point of view.” A recent study asserts that poverty is one of the leading causes of death in the United States. This catastrophic situation for so many of our citizens results directly from refusing people access to basic needs, denying them a sense of economic security in this rich land, and thus cutting them off from a meaningful life and happiness. The other part of the theologian’s quote about insignificance is also interesting and needs explication. It is surely telling that our TV shows, our movies, and our children’s books do not represent life for the millions of families struggling at the bottom of the economic ladder. In reality, these sad and estranged people are sidelined to a d