Madam, – It is a cause for anxiety that Pope Benedict XVI has had to repeat his instructions on clerical sexual abuse, delivered to the Irish Catholic bishops during their ad liminavisit to Rome in October 2006 and to remind them of their obligations, in this very important matter (Home News, June 9th).
Why is there such apparent inertia, non-responsiveness and disregard, among members of the Irish Catholic hierarchy, when it comes to sincere and heartfelt engagement with the sufferings caused by this issue?
These matters of sexual, physical, emotional, spiritual and psychological abuse of the young by Catholic clerics, diocesan and religious, have been to the fore now for years.
These sins and crimes cannot be blamed only on the 18 religious orders indicted by the Ryan report, for there was also brutal physical abuse – and in some cases sexual violence – perpetrated in so-called “diocesan colleges”, run by diocesan priests, under the patronage of diocesan archbishops and bishops.
Neither is it true nor just to attempt to pin these scandals on those who entered religious congregations from “large and poor families” as Fr Vincent Twomey has attempted to do (“Church leaders to report on meeting with pope”, June 8th).
Cruel abusers emerged from among the “educated” and “well-heeled”, as much as from what Fr Twomey astonishingly describes as the “dregs of society”.
These scandals envelope the church, North and South of the Border.
The Holy Father has had to reiterate his 2006 call to the Irish bishops to fully examine this situation with a view towards justice, truth and healing for the victims.
Will they now listen to him and properly respond? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Not for the first time we owe a debt of gratitude to Fintan O’Toole for a superbly researched article that we might venture to hope will prove to be pivotal. (“Lessons in the power of the church”, Weekend Review, June 6th).
I believe this is the articulation, on the back of the Ryan commission report revelations, that has the potential to finally bring to an end the bizarre domination of the management of our primary school system by one particular religious grouping.
This article, Madam, should be made into a pamphlet and then distributed to every home in the country. – Yours, etc,