The kind of article Catholics dare not write: Catholic-bashers have embellished the truth about abuse in Catholic institutions. It's time to put the record straight. Brendan O'Neill in the Telegraph points up the fact that no evidence of sexual or violent abuse was found in the Magdalene Laundries and that the authors were taken about by the number of women who spoke positively about the nuns.
Yet the Noble Lie defence is brought out in justification of downright inaccurate reporting because it might help to highlight abuse. This is morally unjustifiable not only because of the breach of truth and justice for those who are defamed, but also because in the long run, telling lies will hinder the important struggle to safeguard children. It is important to expose child abuse - and important not to give anyone the excuse of inaccurate reporting to hide behind.
7 comments:
Thanks for this information Father.
Good to set the record straight.
The lady who used to be the cleaner in a local pub once told me that she had been brought up "by the nuns". She said that the life had been "hard, but it wasn't meant to be easy." She then pointed out: "I brought my kids up in much the same way. It did me no harm."
It didn't do them any harm either. Two of them are friends of mine.
While I found O'Neill's article on the report fresh and fair (I must get a look at the original report) I actually know someone who claims to have been sexually abused by a nun in an institution here in Ireland. Not that her family was a safe place for her either, by the way. There may have been others like this lady who did not go forward to give evidence to the enquiry for various reasons. Still were the abuse widespread it would surely have surfaced in the testimony somewhere.
It is interesting that some atheists/secularists/anti-Catholics are now claiming that the Government here in Ireland 'fixed' the report so as to reduce any negative repercussions for the Irish State!
Perhaps the whole experience of these hearings and reports will be a lesson for the Church that involvement with the State is a two-edged sword and such relations ought to be conducted at arm's length? The industrial model then (like the corporate/business model now?) proved to be very unsatisfactory for those placed in such institutions and not much better for those asked to maintain them.
Brendan O'Neill although a declared atheist is consistently fair in his posts.
I always read what he has got to say with great interest.
You precisely display the attitude that protects those who harm and denies the authenticity of those harmed. A very different perspective is required. Vigilance to ensure that we do not slip into the view of 'Church first, victims last' does not return or be sustained in any form.
Absolutely not. The priority must be truth first for victims and for those unjustly smeared. Playing fast and loose with the truth helps nobody.
A week later and Sky News is still at it (Kay Burley, naturally). Deliberately misleading its viewing audience today. The shoehorned context was today's news that 35 institutions in Northern Ireland (13 of them Catholic) are now to be investigated concerning matters of apparent child abuse. There was no need, whatsoever, for Mzz Burley to link it back to the Magdalene story, let alone repeat the lazy falsehoods that Brendan O'Neill has exposed.
Anyway, I've just e-mailed her to accuse her of "Rome-ophobia" (yes, I invented that one...catchy hey...and I hereby offer it to the Catholic world, even with its awkward but rather necessary hyphen!). Well, everyone else has got a hate label these days!
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