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I was asked to write this article as a Catholic: as a Catholic the reality that a pope has to summon bishops from any part of the world to discuss child abuse in which Catholic clergy have been involved is distressing. As a European citizen the fact that the horrors that have been uncovered in Ireland are so significant in number, so long term in nature, and so shocking in their depravity means that one can only be aware that words do not do justice to the plight of those whose lives will have been so gravely harmed. In such circumstances only prosecution where prosecution is due is an appropriate response.…  Seguir leyendo »

Irlanda logró la independencia en 1922, pero ello no comportó demasiadas mejoras para el país. Habiendo quedado al margen de la industrialización, era una sociedad totalmente agrícola y con una población en constante huida de la pobreza hacia Inglaterra, paradójicamente la antigua colonizadora, o Norteamérica. El historiador Joe Lee ha llegado a afirmar que después de la independencia la situación económica empeoró más si cabe. No existía una burguesía que invirtiera en industria y había poco sentido de innovación cultural o social. En cambio, lo que se daba era un peligroso fanatismo católico que fue a peor, y quien presidió el país durante décadas, Eamon de Valera, representaba una de sus máximas expresiones.…  Seguir leyendo »

Understandably distracted by our own little crisis of trust, we have perhaps not taken in the apocalyptic import of a bigger one across the Irish Sea.

Perhaps it is a vague sense that we knew it all; perhaps reluctance to engage with the horrid details of the Ryan report into child abuse by Irish clerics. Perhaps some think it is old history, a 1950s horror. Maybe there is even a decorous sense that — as a new Archbishop of Westminster is enthroned here — it is tasteless to dwell on the wickedness deliberately concealed by his Church right into the 1990s.…  Seguir leyendo »

Everyone knew. When the Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse issued its report this week, after nine years of investigation, the Irish collectively threw up their hands in horror, asking that question we have heard so often, from so many parts of the world, throughout the past century: How could it happen?

Surely the systematic cruelty visited upon hundreds of thousands of children incarcerated in state institutions in this country from 1914 to 2000, the period covered by the inquiry, but particularly from 1930 until 1990, would have been prevented if enough right-thinking people had been aware of what was going on?…  Seguir leyendo »