Madam, – In response to the visitor panel’s invitation at the meeting with Cardinal Murphy O’Connor in Drogheda, I made a brief comment on three aspects of its work. Your account conflated these (Home News, January 12th).
First, I urged that the visitation panel would take account of established findings in the behavioural sciences. I specifically mentioned the work of Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University, readily available on TED.com. This research helps explain the origins of “bad” behaviour by otherwise “good” people. Another writer, Irving Janis, explains how “groupthink” or false consensus can arise among cohesive groups of people in authority positions; so, for example, Nazi officers could apparently spend their evenings appreciating their Beethoven and Schubert after a day spent supervising the work of the concentration camps, or, more recently, that unsupervised young American soldiers abused prison inmates under their charge.
Second, I welcomed the presence of Dr Sheila Hollins on the panel, as a representative of the 50 per cent of the members of the church whose views are routinely disregarded.
Finally, I pointed out that organisations as well as individuals may have their mental health examined and assessed, and they too can be diagnosed as paranoid, psychopathic or otherwise unwell. – Yours, etc,