Mercy, Charity Lose All Meaning Amid Deafening Silence of Nuns

Irish Independent
July 18, 2013

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/martina-devlin/mercy-charity-lose-all-meaning-amid-deafening-silence-of-nuns-29429630.html


SILENCE can build walls, not to protect but exclude. It is not always golden or calming – silence has the capacity to shatter peace and cause pain.

The four congregations who owned the Magdalene Laundries have declined either to contribute to a redress fund for survivors, or to explain why they won't. Their silence injures the mainly elderly victims of laundries, but it is also damaging to the nuns.

In this case, silence creates a vacuum – and a potential for demonisation to take shape inside it.

The sisters, with virtues such as charity and mercy name-checked in the official titles of their orders, have an ethical responsibility to pay into the compensation scheme. Unless they reconsider, their refusal means taxpayers will bear the full cost estimated at up to ˆ58m. Citizens are unimpressed.

Even today, after a stream of unedifying episodes involving the Catholic Church, it seems astonishing that religious orders should need reminding about their Christian obligations. Some load-bearing beam has surely buckled and collapsed within the Catholic Church.

The congregations have been slow to offer reasons for their dereliction of duty. All the same, we can make various guesses: perhaps they don't have much money, and presumably their properties and lands have plummeted in value. It has been suggested their assets are held in trust and cannot be given to a fund. But they have not communicated their position publicly.

As a convent-educated Irishwoman – like most of my fellows – I respect the excellent work carried out by nuns in various walks of life. But on this occasion they have fallen far short of the standards they set for themselves and others. Enda Kenny said he could not compel the orders to contribute to the scheme. But he added that he would ask them to reflect on the issue, a relatively mild rebuke.

Observers might be forgiven for thinking Mr Kenny gave the congregations an easy ride, but maybe he's had his fill of tackling the church about its failures and interferences. At this stage, Enda is entitled to a breather.

In any case, the notion that a state should be obliged to resort to threatening court action to force religious congregations to do the right thing is extraordinary. They should surely want to do it of their own volition.

The orders have said they will contribute by continuing to look after about 100 Magdalene women in residential settings. Although if someone was mistreated by nuns as a young woman, she might not relish being under their care during her sunset years.