Sir, – In the wake of the horrific discovery at Tuam, it is to be hoped that the pending visit of Pope Francis provides an opportunity for meaningful contrition on the part of the Catholic Church.
If the proposed visit is to go ahead, it is vital that the papal itinerary includes Tuam, and that Pope Francis addresses the dark legacy of intolerant Catholicism in this country.
If the Pope were to pray at the site, and apologise for the role of the religious institutions in the mistreatment of women and children in Ireland, it would send a meaningful and much needed signal to those still fighting to discover the truth of what happened behind forbidding walls. In the meantime, we should remember that the religious orders were one element in a scandal that involved many others also.
The absent fathers, the family members and friends who turned their backs on the “fallen” women, and the State authorities that colluded in the “system”, all speak to a warped society where evasiveness, inertia, and gross hypocrisy prevailed.
Unfortunately, the ongoing scandals involving the Garda Síochána and the HSE suggest that these key markers of “Irishness” are as entrenched as ever. – Yours, etc,
Dr MARK PHELAN,
Craughwell, Co Galway.
Sir, – Brendan O’Neill writes that “the Tuam ghouls” “reveal that they share something in common with the Old Ireland they claim to hate: a preference for moral zealotry over reason” (“Rush to moralise over Tuam has run ahead of the facts”, March 9th).
There is a fundamental difference between the “moralising” of people who are sickened by the Tuam revelations and the “moralising” of “the Old Ireland”: the former relates to a revulsion to the find of “significant quantities” of babies’ and toddlers’ remains in an unmarked grave, whereas the latter related to a religio-social prejudice against single mothers and children born out of wedlock. No amount of gymnastics in terms of moral equivalence or casuistry could ever compare the two.
Blame has rightly been placed at the door of the State, the Catholic Church and Irish society of the time.
But what has largely escaped commentary is that, rather than these being supposedly separate and unconnected pillars, they were, and to an extent still are, densely interwoven strands (one need only look to our State-funded, but religiously dominated, primary school system).
The State and Irish society at the time of the mother and baby homes were fervently religious and it was a religious-driven agenda obsessed with sin, purity, guilt and shame that fomented the toxic culture of prejudice against single mothers and children born out of wedlock, resulting in them being treated as outcasts. – Yours, etc,
ROB SADLIER,
Rathfarnham, Dublin 16.
Sir, – The recent discoveries regarding mother and baby homes can only be understood with reference to the culture of concealment which then obtained in relation to birth outside marriage. The women admitted to these homes were not allowed to appear in public.
The rates of infant mortality in the homes were no doubt higher than among the general population for the same period. Infant mortality, however, affected many or most families a couple of generations ago. In order to say by how much mortality in the homes exceeded general rates one would need to have reliable figures for the number of admissions to the homes in the first place. At present these do not seem to have been established, and some of the recent assertions made in this regard can hardly be well founded.
A calmer approach is needed if we are to arrive at a balanced judgment on the homes. Calls for a religious order which ran a home to cease its operations here are not in keeping with a calm or reflective response. – Yours, etc,
ÁINE NOLAN,
Dublin 1.
Sir, – T Gerard Bennett’s letter (March 9th), in a misguided attempt to re-apportion blame and spread responsibility beyond the purview of the church, appears to wilfully miss the point.
He says that we ought “not engage in self-righteousness, that it was ‘them’ and this has nothing to do with ‘us’.” To make such a statement is to ignore the dogmatic stranglehold in which the Catholic Church held the people of Ireland for countless generations.
The power of the church’s “teaching” on “moral” issues such as sex before marriage and pregnancy out of wedlock, and its shaming of those who transgressed in these areas, led to a culture of paranoia and fear. To seek to disperse the blame for such a tragedy as Tuam is to (again) fail to point the finger at the (lowest) common denominator in all such tragedies: the Catholic Church. – Yours, etc,
SIMON McINERNEY
FITZROY,
Victoria, Australia.
Sir, – Brendan O’Neill has a point (Opinion, March 9th). I have been confused for some days as to what has actually been established in the Tuam investigation.
There is a shocking narrative in the public domain that is significant enough for us to question ever deeper who we were and who we are as a people and as a nation. We have seen and heard much over the years to understand that we were not the decent, pious people we liked to tell ourselves. We now know we were petty, hypocritical, sexually repressed and voraciously cruel to those who failed to conform.
However, the story that we were callously dumping dead babies into sewers simply does not compute.
The importance of getting this right cannot be underestimated and there is far too much loose reporting going on.
There is enough awfulness to go around without prematurely adding to the trauma by alluding to “facts” that have not yet been established. We need a fuller report. – Yours, etc,
BILL O’ROURKE,
Crumlin, Dublin 12.