Interesting factoids on Irish abuse scandal

Fr Flanagan of Boys Town:
Speaking to a large audience at a public lecture in Cork’s Savoy Cinema he said, "You are the people who permit your children and the children of your communities to go into these institutions of punishment. You can do something about it." He called Ireland’s penal institutions "a disgrace to the nation," and later said "I do not believe that a child can be reformed by lock and key and bars, or that fear can ever develop a child’s character." However, his words fell on stony ground.

He wasn't simply ignored. He was taken to pieces by the Irish establishment. The then-Minister for Justice Gerald Boland said in the Dáil that he was “not disposed to take any notice of what ........... said while he was in this country, because his statements were so exaggerated that I did not think people would attach any importance to them.”
(H/T Fr Ray Blake)

In relation to the Christian Brothers, this is relevant:
Indeed no one mentions, as Dr. Woods, a former minister for Education in Ireland pointed out, that corporal punishment, prohibited by Edmund Ignatius Rice was introduced after his death on the Insistence of the organs of state in Britain.
H/T E F Pastor Emeritus

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