IRELAND
National Survivor Advocates Coalition
Every layer they strip
Seems camped on before.
The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage.
The wet centre is bottomless.
Seamus Heaney, the “Bogland”
Kristine Ward, Chair, National Survivor Advocates Coalition
The National Survivor Advocates Coalition (NSAC) stands on the sod of Ireland to bear witness to the incredible courage of the children raped, sodomized, and demeaned from whom childhood was cruelly and crudely ripped asunder by molesting priests and nuns in Irish parishes, schools and orphanages.
When we lived in the void of unknowing before the survivors’ truth penetrated our consciousness, Seamus Heaney’s portrait of Ireland’s bogs might have simply been stunning poetry.
Not today.
Today they are heavy with Irish melancholy that moans without ceasing for deliverance from the fraud of self-preservation over genuine leadership for justice and the protection of children.
We speak of two prelates – one on each side of the Atlantic, — two Irishmen — the Cardinal Primate of All Ireland, Sean Brady and the Cardinal Archbishop of New York, former Archbishop of Milwaukee, and current president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Timothy Dolan.
Atlantic seepage indeed.
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