The report of the Irish Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse has dominated religious reporting in England over the past few days. Here are the key documents:Executive Summary
Full Report
They make sickening and heartbreaking reading. I don't intend to try and say anything clever or original in the face of this evil. Have a look at the above pious representation of Our Lord's love for children. Or this one:
Our Lord said what needs to be said in the case of one who commits scandal against children, let alone sodomy:It were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea. (Matt 18.6)I am reminded of the heartfelt words of Pope Benedict at his Homily at the Mass for bishops, Seminarians and Novices during his visit to Australia last year:
Here I would like to pause to acknowledge the shame which we have all felt as a result of the sexual abuse of minors by some clergy and religious in this country. Indeed, I am deeply sorry for the pain and suffering the victims have endured, and I assure them that, as their Pastor, I too share in their suffering. These misdeeds, which constitute so grave a betrayal of trust, deserve unequivocal condemnation. They have caused great pain and have damaged the Church’s witness. I ask all of you to support and assist your Bishops, and to work together with them in combating this evil. Victims should receive compassion and care, and those responsible for these evils must be brought to justice. It is an urgent priority to promote a safer and more wholesome environment, especially for young people.It is worth watching the homily in the clip below for the emphasis he places on the words "unequivocal cnodemnation". The quotation above is at 08:23.
I will offer Mass at Lourdes next week for all those who have suffered as children in these ghastly cases of betrayal of trust.
There seems to have been a local resurgence in the craze for rosaries. I keep a large box of blue and pink plastic rosaries to give out for free, and small boys have been ringing my doorbell all day asking for them. It is a nuisance to be interrupted but I take some consolation in the fact that they haven't yet decided that every Catholic priest is a bogeyman.
If you are puzzling in your soul about what is at the root of the child abuse scandal, one good book is "After Asceticism" which I reviewed for Faith Magazine last year.
20 comments:
So what about the taking of our childrens innocence through sex education?
Father, my parents have told me that their relationship with priests and religious in Ireland was one of fear rather than love or reverence. But despite this manifest evil, we mustn't forget that Ireland remained faithful to Christ and His Church and was persecuted for it by the English...
Jackie - yes indeed, that is an evil too.
Giving in to temptation is one thing, and we are all have human weaknesses of one sort or another and we are all tempted in different ways.
They say, "To understand all is to forgive all."
Well. I simply don't understand how priests or religious could betray their vocations like this.
I'll try reading the book recommended by Fr. Tim, but I doubt I'll ever understand.
Judging by your review, 'After Ascetism' offers a very plausible thesis. But I can't see that the dates match. The Executive Report gives the impression that most of the cases of abuse took place in the 1940s–1960s; if that is the case, then surely a large number of the perpetrators would have been formed under the earlier, ascetical system, well before all that personalist physchology stuff came in?
Thank you for a very thoughtful approach to a very difficult and sensitive topic. Perhaps we can like Jackie all campaign as well to put sex education back to the appropriate age levels and stop the sexualiasing of our children and grandchildren and encourage parents to take back the control of what their children can and can't be educated in.
Irish Catholicism degenerated in its morals because of a historic entanglement with Jansenism. The Ryan Report expresses acutely the fruits of this noxious heresy, which creates an attitude to sex that is downright gnostic and engenders an aversion to human goodness. Especially anathema to Jansenists is the innocence of children. This spread to other parts of the world missionized and ministered to by Irish clerics.
I was recently reading a book on the history of Irish Catholicism. A priest in the 1940’s from Nebraska who had established the main orphanage network there attacked the industrial schools here as a ’scandal to the nation’. He was attacked in the media for his comments. No doubt many of those same newspapers are imputing malice to other authorities while conviently neglecting to mention the role they played in keeping this information distant from the public.
I have always maintained that British society is more amenable to Catholicism, and certainly its culture is in many ways influenced by Catholicism to a greater degree than we are. There are no Irish theologians of great repute, nor is there any distinctive Catholic literature from Ireland, at least for the last 3 centuries. A short and by no means comprehensive list of British Catholic luminaries will suffice to highlight the disparity: Gerard Manley Hopkins, Hilaire Belloc, G.K. Chesterton, Edward Elgar, Eric Gill, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Muriel Spark, Elizabeth Anscombe, Elizabeth Jennings, Michael MacMillan – the Irish equivalents of such figures simply don’t exist. In fact the vast majority of Irish writers were Protestant (Joyce was lapsed Catholic) -hence ‘Anglo-Irish literature’. A theological sewer (which is what essentially Ireland was for a long time) is never prodigious for literary or theological talent.
Unfortunately Ireland has long been rife with Jansenism. There are historic reasons for this. The first Irish seminary since the Reformation, the Royal College of St Patrick in Maynooth was staffed by French emigrants from the Revolution. A very high percentage of the faculty were Jansenists. Even before the Royal College, the Irish students at Louvain were taught by the Irishman Lord Trimblestown, who was a Jansenist and whose family played a crucial role in trying to defend Jansenism from persecution.
There has thus always been a Jansenistical air in Irish Catholicism, for historic reasons, and this has caused immeasurable harm to souls. I can remember my uncle telling me about going to Mass, and the priest demanding that any couples who had sexual relations would have to go to confession. No wonder you hear so many horror stories of this sort coming from Ireland.
When compared with Mediterranean Catholicism it could look quite grim, dreary and unpleasant. Often Irish Catholics were infected with what Garrigou-Lagrange calls “the proud Jansenist austerity” which “lost sight of the spirit of Christian mortification, which is not a spirit of pride, but of love of God”
The lesson in all this: Jansenism is a spiritual cancer, destroys piety and ruins souls.
-Shane O'Neill
Cor Blimey,I bet the Catholic Priests in Ireland will feel really uninspired by some of the comments here,they seemed almost racist to me.If Ireland is such a rotten place to be a Catholic from,how come Our Lady of Knock appeared there? She didn't utter any dire warnings,as she does in some places. I reckon the devil himself chose to go there and try and wreck things.Pope Leo,when writing the Holy Michael prayer warned of inside infiltration in the twentieth century.The Irish Catholics have suffered greatly through famine, and social and political injustice.If their behaviors or teachings became flawed,due to lack of resources in the theological sense,can we all hold our hands up in historical innocence?(Black and Tans springs to mind).Hardly call that 'British society being amenable to Catholicism',maybe in England,but not in Ireland.You ate the porridge,changed your religion, or starved and died.That satan would attempt to steal their faith by any vile means should be no surprise.Look at one's own life and the struggles therein.I know why Jesus had to die for me.It is hard to see Christ in this terrible suffering,but He is there,scorned,abused,insulted.Mary will give us her heart to replace our prejudice,if we ask humbly.As for saying there are no Irish theologians or men of note,I expect a great many of them were starved to death during the famine,spuds make scholars!A nation became overwhelmed,Only God knows what literary giants there could have been.Let us ask for their prayers now,and Our Lady's and for the healing of this nation's damaged precious children.
Noting the comments of 'Catholic Observer' and others, is Janesnism in it's Irish catholic manifestation, possibly the reason why I have never experienced the sense of joy that so many of my co-religionists speak of? Having been brought up in the North West of England during the 50's and 60's my experience of catholicism was heavily influenced by Irish clergy and teachers. Consequently, much of what I understand regarding the faith is coloured by the awareness of sin, and a personal unworthiness which cannot be overcome. There is no place for something as apparently fivolous as 'joy', only the immense burden of sin and and the pervasively grim necessity of penitence. Have I been mislead?
(Another Patricius, by the way). While we are naturally and quite properly appalled at what went on in Ireland in Catholic institutions we would do well to try to see the context. How would British institutions, Catholic AND otherwise, compare over a similarly long period and including a wide variety of behaviours deemed abusive. For instance it is not all that long since corporal punishment was banned from schools in England and Wales and, as others have suggested, inappropriate sex education is considered a normal part of school curricula today= or is that OK because sanctioned by the authorities?
Fr. Tim,
Picking up on Delia's comments, anti-ascetic and therapeutic ideology about the exercise of priestly life and ministry has been floating around for about 150 years.
The therapeutic model of priestly life is inspired both by Freudianism and by modernism, which Rome officially condemned in 1907.
There wasn't a sudden swing away from asceticism at a point in time. It has been a much more gradual and insidious process.
In the face of the report - much of which I have read over the last few days, I hardly dare to comment. Perhaps one thing that hasn't been said so far is a word of thanks for the enormous care that has gone into researching and producing the report, which seems as fair and balanced as it can be. It cannot have been an easy task, and our gratitude should go to those who have undertaken it.
In the light of the evidence, some of the comments seem beside the point. Yes, corporal punishment and sexual abuse of minors certainly took place in British institutions. But what is shocking about the Irish examples is the scale of the involvement of the church and of religious orders. What remains unfathomable is how someone who has dedicated his or her life to the Church can behave in such a way towards defenceless children.
Debates about formation can never be conclusive. As Delia rightly points out, the formation of the Christian Brothers of 50 years ago was probably rather "ascetic". But by its fruits it doesn't seem to have been particularly successful in helping Brothers to arrive at affective maturity. The debate about "asceticism" versus "therapeutic approaches" seems to me to be a diversion. Both approaches are valuable. A prayerful, disciplined approach to life is clearly essential to a priest, particularly in these days when priests are so isolated. But an understanding of psychology and a capacity for reflection on oneself, on one's formative experiences and on how one interacts with other people can complement and support that ascetic life. I don't see that they are in conflict. Anyone who has read the remarkable series of Carthusian Novice Conferences, and some of the other literature which has come out of Parkminster in recent years can see how the insights of modern psychology can be part of a novice-master's toolkit in a very traditional ascetical setting.
Some of the wider reflections on this blog about the Irish character and the influence of Jansenism are interesting debating points. But they only go a certain way towards explaining what happened in these schools. To state the obvious, a rather "Jansenistic" approach to religion was prevalent across much of Ireland and the Irish diaspora for a couple of hundred years. It may not have been a very joyful approach to religion, but it didn't produce everywhere the sort of catastrophic breakdowns of normality that are recorded in this report. One of the most striking aspects of the report is the isolation of the schools, and of the inmates (both staff and pupils). With such limited contact with the wider world, "normality" seems to have been forgotten.
Thank you for this post, Fr Tim.
Lourdes is a good place to pray.
Remember how Bernadette, when she first saw Mary, took her rosary from her pocket.
How good to see children asking for one. Just feeling it in the pocket reminds us of God's presence.
Have a good pilgrimage Father.
only one word comes to my mind, such hypocrisy!
While the "top" sin about 50-60 years ago in the religious circles might have been just that -hypocrisy -it is for sure that this our modern age has replaced that by "I'm ok, you're ok" -mantra and all the teachings of the church can thus be thrown away...
Well, maybe it's better if monks practice zen-meditation instead of molesting children they are supposed to take care of, but it's so sad anyway, what happened and what happens in the world today...
oremus.
Of course it is right to say that the ascetic and therapeutic approaches should be complementary rather than mutually exclusive, but the problem with the therapeutic approach in practice is that it tends to be based on a non-transcendent Freudian pan-sexualist anthropology which is not "open to the full truth regarding man" (c.f. JPII Pastores Dabo Vobis n45). Given the culture in which mental health professionals are trained, this is hardly surprising, but the results range from the merely ridiculous to the truly horrifying. As the Linacre Institute point out in graphic detail, the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of therapy and needs to swing back in the direction of asceticism if we are serious about avoiding these scandals in the future.
Dear Father Finigan
"There seems to have been a local resurgence in the craze for rosaries. I keep a large box of blue and pink plastic rosaries to give out for free, and small boys have been ringing my doorbell all day asking for them. It is a nuisance to be interrupted but I take some consolation in the fact that they haven't yet decided that every Catholic priest is a bogeyman".
Men who discover Christ in prison also wear these rosaries too. I have a white one. Thanks for handing them out INSIDE 'N' OUT and for not being a "bacon".
Our Lady of the Rosary pray for us!
I can't even read this report. I dread to think what it contains. I do hope that some kind of retrospective justice will be possible with naming and shaming of all abusers and imprisonment for those still alive. If the Legionaries of Christ are to be disbanded then so should the Christian Brothers be.
The husband of a friend attended a prep school run by the Christian Brothers in England. There was at least one sexual abuser there.
There may be cover ups from time to time, but we will all one day be answerable directly to God for what we have done.
Shadowlands: Our Lady was silent at Knock! perhaps she couldn't bring herself to speak.... Seriously though, the Knock apparition occurred at the parish of a very holy priest - let us not forget that not all Irish priests are alike. I think all Catholics, Irish or not, must pray and do acts of penance in reparation for this unspeakable tragedy. Ireland is so beautiful, let us continue to hold it dear.
Pope Benedict XVI has enemies outside and inside of the Church.They dont like him and are out to discredit him.This is how they are taking their revenge on him by discrediting him with this child abuse scandal implicating him in it.
Gerald has said in a straight forward way what we can all see. Pilate's statement from John "what is truth" can be applied through out each element of these scandals. Our very New Testament was born of this very similar human propensity, the press is only a tool to whip up the crowd. If the Pope follows the path of the Cross of Christ he cannot falter. If the clergy do also they will not fall into such an easy trap. Satan only wins when the cross of Christ is diminished, the last fourty years has shown that. It takes a bit of working at, you will be shown the way forward somehow, other paths will only bring judgemnt of various forms.
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