BishopAccountability.org
	An Unspeakable Reality That Must Now Be Faced Sunday Business Post May 24, 2009 http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=EDITORIAL-qqqs=commentandanalysis-qqqid=41934-qqqx=1.asp Why? Why did this state and this society allow the lives of tens of thousands of our citizens to be blighted over a period of decades? How did we, and they, tolerate this evil in our midst? The reasons are many, and complicated. But we must examine them, both because we owe it to the victims of the abuse and the torture, and because we need to ensure that these acts cannot take place again, in any guise. The Ryan Commission report has destroyed the two principal defences of the religious orders: that the abuse was confined to a few bad apples, and that these boys and girls were effectively put in the care of the religious orders without any subsequent provision for them. In fact, sexual abuse was "endemic" in boys' institutions, and violence and degradation were the norm in the 216 institutions scrutinised in the report. And the state generally provided adequate funds to the religious orders to care for the children in an adequate fashion. Reading through the report, it is hard to believe the scale and systematic nature of what was uncovered. Yet the work of the commission is thorough and backed up by thousands of witness statements. It is a reality which is hard to face - but face it we must. There is one overarching truth that links the strands of this awful story. It is that the state, its agents and its citizens believed themselves powerless in the face of the Catholic Church's might. To that extent, our society was complicit in the abuse. But this is not an entirely historical submission. The state's agreement with the religious orders to assume the lion's share of the cost of compensating the victims of rape, torture and abuse by priests, nuns and brothers displays the same supine approach. It was a betrayal of victims and of all citizens. It was one of the worst acts by any government in any era. The deal was agreed in circumstances of secrecy and obfuscation. It was signed in haste. And it has not been honoured in its spirit by the religious orders. Instead of the state receiving tens of millions' worth of marketable property from the religious orders, it has meekly accepted a series of schools and health facilities that it was using and paying to support anyway. There is little or no financial benefit for the state in owning many of these properties. It is merely window-dressing. Surely the ministers who agreed the deal and those representing the clerics could see that this would happen? Whatever the ministers' intentions, the taxpayers were not made aware of the huge risk being assumed by the state. Meanwhile, the intervening years have seen the religious orders sell off genuinely valuable properties in a massive liquidation of their assets. Political pontificating aside, the only thing that can prompt a re-opening of the deal now is if the religious orders decide to do so. The moral case to do so is unanswerable. Yet we are told by the Conference of Religious of Ireland (Cori),who negotiated the deal on behalf of the religious organisations, that it was not aware that any of the orders were willing to re-examine its terms. In justice, the deal must now be re-examined, even if in law there is no mechanism to achieve this. Meanwhile, the government and its agents must heed the recommendations of the report. It recognises that we have made progress as a society in introducing new rules and guidelines in relation to child abuse and neglect - but says that we have been poor and inconsistent in implementing them. Consistent and clear implementation of policies is essential in areas such as identifying and responding to cases of suspected abuse and inspecting institutions where children are resident. In the months ahead, we need to move on from the understandable shock at the report, to a commitment to learn the lessons and do what is necessary to protect our children.
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