Sir, - Dr Desmond Connell delivered a speech to the graduates of the Mater Dei College which was printed in full in your paper in the Rite and Reason column: I read it looking for something that might been left out in the TV coverage of Dr Connell's speech. What I was looking for, and didn't find, was an apology.
Instead Dr Connell told us a number of things - in summary, "that the tendency to blame the Irish Church for all the ills of the past is damaging Irish society as a whole" - and he wants "to ask for justice towards the Church and to challenge the kind of revisionism that is making our children ashamed of their past".
Justice for the Church! Not once in Dr Connell's speech did he take the opportunity to apologise for the appalling behaviour of even one of his "chosen flock"; not once did he mention the many victims of Church abuse, who will have to live with the repercussions for the rest of their lives. What about justice for them, Dr Connell? Surely it's the abuses of the Church that have damaged Irish society, not the apportioning of blame!
Dr Connell referred to how hypocritical people are to complain about Church-arranged adoptions in the 1950s when people today are welcoming foreign adoptions. How can Dr Connell compare the two situations? The Church adoptions were shrouded in secrecy, arranged to "hide" the problem of births outside marriage. Today's foreign adoptions are conducted in an open and transparent way - not behind closed doors!
The Church is entitled, if it wishes, to pat itself on the back for the long list of great things it feels it was responsible for in the past, but Dr Connell needs to step out into the real Ireland of today, where the Irish people are no longer accepting Catholicism taught through fear, but now have the confidence to question Catholic teachings, and identify hypocrisy when they see it.
Once again Dr Connell has missed an opportunity to face up to the problems in the Catholic Church and accept the emergence of a more discerning Irish people.
Hopefully the graduates of Mater Dei who listened to his speech will show more compassion for Church victims and consider their welfare more seriously than Dr Connell has done up to now. - Yours, etc., Sally Ann O' Donovan,
Adelaide Road, Dublin 2.