WALTER DECLAN
Sir, - I write to rebuff those correspondents who over the past months have sought to defend the Catholic Church's response to child abuse. Their pseudo-theological defences are sickening.
The Catholic Church must not be allowed to continue the portrayal of child sexual abuse as some kind of aberration by this or that priest. The brutal abuse of children took place in an all-powerful and unaccountable cultural barbarism, which masqueraded as Christian educational or correctional institutions, here, in holy Catholic Ireland. This happened with the full knowledge of the State.
As someone who was sexually, psychologically and physically abused - sometimes all three at once - from the age of four until I was 18, I find the "expressions of sorrow" to be no more than empty words. The Catholic Church is not sorry for what happened: it is deeply ashamed at being found out.
The Church and the various religious orders continue to deny the extent of the abuse and by their legal manoeuvrings and actions, they continue that abuse in collusion with the State.
I salute the courage of all those men and women who have spoken out in recent years. By doing so they have given confidence to others like me to begin to tell our story and the process of seeking justice for the horrors inflicted on us. This process will help us to understand and come to terms with what happened.
Too many nameless victims have died without justice, smothered in shame and guilt. Some have committed suicide or drank themselves to death. They had nothing to be ashamed of, and they were not guilty. They were abused and brutalised innocents whose lives were destroyed in an almost neo-fascist environment dressed up as Christianity.
I believe that it is not enough to just expose what this or that brother, nun, priest or lay teacher did; many, I would suggest, were probably conditioned themselves by the culture of abuse in their youth. We must ensure however - as is the case in the US - that action for damages is taken against the order(s), the Catholic Church and the State, all of whom allowed these institutions to function and operate. The State financed these institutions by various means and we, as children, were placed in their care. Clear evidence now exists to show that they were all aware of the wholesale brutality and that they colluded in outrageous denial and cover-up. They did nothing to save the children.
All survivors of abuse, and not just those who were in institutional care, must have access to justice. - Yours, etc.,
WALTER DECLAN KENNEDY, Middlesex