Historian Diarmuid Ferriter addressed the Merriman summer school over the weekend and pointed out the obvious, namely that the clerical abuse scandals are not unique to the Church in Ireland. He might also reflect on the fact that child abuse scandals are not unique to the Catholic Church either.
As this blog has pointed out over and over again, many institutions, both secular and religious, have suffered child abuse scandals or have presided over child protection failures, not least the HSE.
The summer schools this year have been full of Church-bashing with the scandals making the job of Church-bashing very easy.
Notably none of these same summer schools devoted themselves to the phenomenon of child abuse in general. It seems the subject is only of interest when it involves the Catholic Church.
As an example, the week the story broke about the Pope not accepting the resignations of Bishops Walsh and Field, another story broke on RTE, namely that 88 HSE staff in the last two years have been accused of physical, sexual, or emotional abuse of patients.
The first story received lots of publicity, the second story almost none. Why not?
The coverage of failings by the church has been massive. coverage of the failure of institutions which were state run etc has not occurred to the same extent if at all. therefore one can assume that failing did not occur elsewhere and that is why i was asked for specifics. these have been provided and proven that indeed cover up was widespread and not exclusive to the church
Specific detail here:
The Anglican Dioceses in Canada have been driven to bankruptcy because of how they ran their institutions. Why dont you know about that and why hasnt this received coverage?
Also The Swedish Government published and interim report in January detailing the abuse in State-run Institutions there. No church involvement. more than 60% of the children (adults now) interviewed were female and 50% were male. this was marked as 'a dark chapter' by the minister dealing with this issue and that was it. a chapter to be 'put behind us'. not one report of resignation or outcry from the public or politicians in this regard.
Cover up? definitely.
Specific? yes
Obstruction of Justice? most definitely
The actual church bashing is outlined in my article Fergal. The specifics being that we are called an evil organisation. That is factual and a conversation i had with an individual.
The cover up was not denied but in some cases access to files was not given simply because auxiliary bishops are not entitled to that information. This is wrong and the Code of canon law needs to be revised on this score. I have no difficulty stating that as a canonist this should happen.
To wallrachel:
Why are you talking about church-bashing? If I wrote anything that is not true, then point it out. People who talk incessently about church-bashing invariably have no arguments. It has become a handy cop-out - instead of responding to specific arguments and facts, too many people (like David Quinn) resort to the usual mantra about church-bashing. Are you people really incapable of presenting logical arguments?
First of all 'you people' and 'incapable' I definitely and strongly challenge you on the use of that subjective phraseology. I am perfectly capable of presenting a logical argument.
In the States the Public School system have moved teachers who are accused of and guilty of child abuse to other schools and had not informed the new schools of this. There were few if any convictions of these teachers. In short this also spells 'cover-up' to me. authors include George Wiegal and Carol Shakeshaft.
I would advise you Fergal to keep your arguments objective and refrain from calling our challenges or debates 'mantras' also talking or challenging 'church bashing' is our right because many people argue to the contrary, what exactly do you mean by cop-out? a cop out is avoiding argument or challenge instead of facing it head on...i think that we are doing the opposite.
It has struck me in recent weeks that many are not accustomed to arguments in favour of the GOOD work that many Catholics do.
To PLaighleis:
Maybe you'd be so kind as to give some specific examples. Give me one example of an organisation which has covered up and protected paedophiles amongst its employees to the extent that the Catholic Church has. And don't bother with the Church-bashing mantra - just stick to the facts.
You're right, David, child abuse scandals are not unique to the Catholic Church. But systematic cover-up and obstruction of justice is.
I had a very difficult debate with a person I know very well last week because of this very trend. Namely Church bashing. I was appalled when he called the catholic church an 'evil organisation' and so told him in no uncertain terms that he was out of line. other people got involved including a person who (after he felt the need to clarify that it was the Catholic church he was referring to) replied that 'everyone knew that' meaning that everyone knows it is evil, you know 'doh that is a given' type attitude. when i challenged this ascorbic material i was told that i was over the top with my comments. My comments were that not EVERYONE agreed nor called the Catholic church an evil organisation. Not everyone has the same point of views. I am a member of this 'said' organisation and therefore i was labelled as evil and i took exception to that. The comment that was made was on facebook and i was told to 'unfriend' this person because basically i challenged him, told him that very few agreed with him and that he had no right to label or judge people. Essentially he was telling me to 'go away' because i wasnt agreeing with him.
The irony of this event was that a notorious Killer-Rapist Larry Murphy walked free from prison after committing the most horrific act imaginable and was (inaccurately) reported to be roaming around our local area. That was proven to be untrue but this guy that called the Catholic Church evil never once mentioned this guy in his little rant.
This is a similar point to David Quinn's reference that the HSE are just as culpable but for some reason escaped the 'populist' agenda whilst church bashing.