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, reflected
that “the individual stories in the report are unbearable to read, and the
scale is dizzying. There is no hierarchy of horror, but the most appalling
figure may be the 590 allegations involving alleged abusers in 17 special needs
schools.”
A total of 185
allegations of abuse are recorded in the inquiry at Spiritan-run (previously
known as the Holy Ghost Fathers) junior and senior schools in Blackrock, County
Dublin.
A table from
the report provides devastating reading for the Spiritans. Their school in Willow
Park, a stepping stone academy for the famous Blackrock College, came out on
top of the corruption listing, with 130 allegations against 24 alleged abusers.
Lota, a
special school run by the Brothers of Charity in Glanmire, County Cork saw 166
allegations of abuse against 50 abusers. The Carmelite Fathers in their
prestigious Primary and Secondary Schools in Terenure College were found to
have 89 allegations, and 11 staff members were accused of seriously damaging their
students.
There were 63 allegations against 44 abusers
at St. Mary’s School for Deaf Girls in Cabra in Dublin, while no less than 144 claims
were disclosed against 36 accused abusers across all St. John of God Hospitaller
Ministries schools.
The report
highlights the systemic culture of silence that permeated these supposed places
of learning. Survivors describe how authority figures turned a blind eye to the
abuse taking place. The age-old idea that teachers acted in loco parentis,
caring for the children, was missing completely.
One of the
149 interviewees in the Scoping Inquiry
described how the school principal was aware of his colleagues’ malfeasance. He
would open the classroom door, see the abuse taking place, including various
stages of rape, and just head back for his office. Another former student related
that a quiet kid was beaten and abused so badly that he died. Gardai
investigated this case but no action was taken. Such behavior is reminiscent of
Stalin’s Gulags.
The
Government is committed to setting up a formal commission of inquiry that will
somehow deal with the fact that, up to the 1980’s, Irish schools were places of
simmering violence where children were not regarded as sentient beings with
rights but as receptacles for whatever adults wished to inflict on them.
They want to set a time limit for the report
from this body because they fear that otherwise, it will drag on and on. The
routine nature of physical violence meted out to children makes the task too
vast to expect a detailed review of all cases of cruelty and sexual perversion,
especially as it seems likely that the investigation remit will be extended to include
schools outside the control of religious orders.
There is a
broad consensus that redress payments should be made to the people who were
sexually abused. One estimate sets the likely cost of this investigation,
including significant legal fees, at around five billion euros – a hefty bill for
a relatively small economy.
Looking
ahead to this aspect of the proceedings, Irish taoiseach, Simon Harris, opined
that the cost should be shared between the church and state. He said that he hoped the religious orders
would change their approach on payouts after the Ryan Report when they were
notably tight-fisted and ungenerous.
How did
ordained representatives of the Catholic Church get involved in such abhorrent
behavior with children in their care? Fr. Tony Flannery, a Redemptorist priest
who was silenced by the church about fifteen years ago because he wrote
articles in favor of ordaining women to the priesthood, spoke out last week
against the system that facilitated such awful behavior in church-run
institutions.
According to
him, “there is something seriously dysfunctional in the clerical world for
these things to happen in a widespread way.” He claims that traditional
Catholic social teaching, especially the church’s fixation with suppressing
natural romantic feelings, thoughts, and desires, damages mature human
development.
He urged the
authorities in his church to accept the crying need to review its teachings on
sexuality, starting with its mandate that compels celibacy for the clergy. He
derides the tendency of bishops and other church leaders to issue jaded
statements of sympathy for those who were abused while doing nothing to
alleviate the wider causes of the problem.
Fr. Flannery
is entirely correct. Silencing him for advocating for women’s ordination and
other related matters is symptomatic of a wider problem. It highlights the need
for major rethinking in the church on attitudes to ethical standards in the
area of sexual behavior.
Gerry
OShea blogs at wemustbetalking.com
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