A
global phenomenon, they are read about everyday
and everywhere. Like the fictional world from the
Charlton Heston movie, Omega Man, our planet
seems to be in the grip of a human pestilence; on
this occasion far removed from the comfort of the
cinema, by a plague of priests chanting 'boys, boys.'
The prevalence of clerical abuse is such that it
is tempting to visualise a plethora of paedophile
orchards where priests are hanging from every tree
- not by the neck, regrettably.
Despite
living in the era of the enlightenment, where superstition
ought to have been replaced by reason, human society
remains scourged by priestcraft and those who practice
it. We are the citizens of a world in which the
dementia of religion knows no boundaries, impervious
to both time and location. Immunization from its
effects has proven successful only in a minority
of cases. Like a social syphilis intent on destroying
the societal intellect, it exploits primordial fears
and furtively creeps inside the citadel of reason
where, absurdly, it occupies a privileged position
and expects, even demands, that the sacred, in the
form of canon law, trump the secular and allow it
to become the judge in its own cause - in stark
violation of the long established Madisonion principle
of judicial detachment. And for too long the secular
connived in its own usurpation.
In
the North we continue to elect religious maniacs
rather than ban them. Just days ago, to the eternal
disgrace of the electorate, Maurice Mills, an elected
councillor from the DUP (where else?) and throwback
to mediaeval times, regaled television viewers with
his cruel and bizarre take on the Asian tsunami
and the more recent Hurricane Katrina. Yes, it was
all the work of big Yahweh; in the first instance
taking out his displeasure on residents and holidaymakers
alike because some pretender to big Yahweh's throne
going under the name Allah was spreading Islam.
The introduction of compulsory identity cards should
help take care of that impostor for Maurice. The
second strike, Katrina the Holy Hurricane, was launched
from Heaven and using the latest Lazarus tornado
guidance system was propelled earthwards to smite
the sinners of 'Gay Orleans.' The spreading of tsunamis
would seem a worse crime in most people's eyes than
the spreading of Islam, but not in Maurice's. Then
again, God works in mysterious ways and only picks
special fools to interpret strange events. Who are
we to reason why? Maybe next time, if big Yahweh
is as just as he is mysterious, Ferns may find itself
hit by a meteorite - and hopefully not when the
diocesan men of cloth are touring orphanages in
Thailand.
People
who subscribe to various forms of this bunkum have
nevertheless benefited from it to the point that
they have for long being easily able to pass themselves
off as leading moral guardians in supposedly secular
societies, where the executive, legislature and
judiciary behaved like the three wise monkeys, neither
seeing, hearing nor speaking of the enormous phallic
moral guardian that stalked our children. The priest
class with its knowledge of Latin, must have thought
it had hit the jackpot and won a boys bonanza, when
few stopped to ask the all important question 'quis
custodiet custodies?' Like the frightened worshippers
of some Aztec God, Ireland licentiously offered
its children to the most lecherous of men. Can the
country really claim to need the Ferns Report to
serve as a wake up call? For long, many of its citizens
seemed prepared to die peacefully in bed rather
than get up and confront what was going on their
midst.
For
all its undoubted ability to magnetise the media,
Judge Frank Murphy's 271-page report is hardly any
more shocking than what has passed before. Learning
that priests are abusing children is as commonplace
as being told there is a violent conflict in the
Middle East. It has figured in our daily reading
activity for so long, it is now hard to recall a
time when newspapers did not feature stories about
priests abusing children. If an Irish Times
headline that 'More details emerge of sexual abuse
cases involving priests' is supposed to shock us,
the paper's management may hope shock stories and
sales are not correlated. Irish society and its
children will be fortunate if the Ferns Report does
not become the gatherer of the dust it helped raise,
once matters settle down. Time alone will tell if
the point has been reached for what one columnist
described as 'a landmark in the history of the Catholic
Church in Ireland.'
While
cardinals may have been forced to resign in places
as far apart as Austria and America, it remains
true that clerics are responsible for only a minority
of crimes visited on abuse victims - according to
the Ferns Report, a lowly 3.2 % of the whole. And
even here it is not exclusive to the Catholic Church.
The comedian George Carlin is reported to have quipped
that Protestant preachers wrote an impressive new
book, called, Ministers Do More Than Lay People.
Norman Ruddock has pointed to the existence of the
phenomenon within Protestant clerical circles, while
Tariq Ali showed that mullahs too liked their boys.
However, few of the secular perpetrators have been
afforded the protection of an institution as powerful
as the Church of Rome. That shield in itself became
a weapon of coercion and intimidation that dissuaded
people from coming forward with their concerns.
As Martin Mansergh observed 'the whistleblower,
as always everywhere, was the one to be punished.'
The
Ferns Report tackled the role of the Vatican directly
and expressed concern 'that the church authorities
either in this country or in Rome did not properly
alert their priests to the danger of child sexual
abuse at a time when they did or should have known
of this danger which had been clearly identified
by church authorities elsewhere.' According to Colm
Mr O'Gorman of the One in Four group the Vatican
operated an international policy that bound anyone
with knowledge of clerical sexual abuse to absolute
secrecy. The penalty for breaking Vatican omerta
was excommunication.
To
help combat this, the report recommended a new criminal
offence targeting those who recklessly endanger
children. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that the
Vatican shall extradite any of its key figures to
Ireland to stand trial. It is even more unlikely
that the Dublin Government will request the Vatican
to do so. Where has the voice of Pope Ratzinger
been in all this? It has bellowed loudly throughout
the world - but only to fuel the persecution of
gay people.
Society
cannot afford to wait until the Vatican decides
that the genuine sanctity of children is more precious
than the pious cant of the institution. Those within
the church who abused or covered for abuse it at
whatever level, should be relentlessly pursued today,
hauled from their palaces and banged up until they
cease to pose a threat. A society that fails to
protect its own children must bear a large measure
of culpability for the abuse those children endure.
