The publication last week of the Murphy report into clerical child abuse has revealed not only a Church more interested in maintaining its reputation than the welfare of children but also a state that had no interest in justice.
Most worrying of all, though, is the development that sees everyone as both a potential abuser or victim. Watching the Catholic hierarchy squirm under the media spotlight is one thing but, whatever the fallout for the Church, the lesson of the idea that ‘the state knows best’ being a fraud is being lost.
The facts of the report, released on November 26, are perfectly clear: hundreds of children were sexually abused by Catholic priests over a thirty year period and, when they reported this, the Church and state agencies conspired to ignore the allegations. (1)
What is not clear, however, is why these revelations are being used to call for the very state that is implicated in the cover-up to further involve itself in a matter it has neither the right nor the ability to deal with – family life. Put simply, attacks on the Catholic church over the clerical abuse scandal have the potential to let the government off the hook and criminalise families. July’s Ryan report into clerical abuse in institutional settings was mishandled by the entire Irish media, which took it as an opportunity to bash an already ailing Catholic church instead of plainly reporting the obvious fact that the Irish state has failed its citizens, that it was a class-ridden and backward country led by an elite that was incapable of developing a modern society.
The Murphy report into abuse in the Dublin diocese has seen a greater focus on the state’s actions, in particular that of the Gardaí in failing to properly investigate allegations made against priests. The actions of the Gardaí are now a matter for the courts but the past failures of state agencies to perform their simple and clear duties must not be used as an excuse for the state to assault private life. There is a clear onus on the police to investigate claims; there is not, however, any reason to indulge in twisted fantasies of abusers lurking in every corner.
Self-government?
Writing for the well-regarded web site Slugger O’Toole, journalist Brian Walker has tentatively linked clerical abuse to age-old Protestant fears of a Catholic Church dominated state. (2) This view is likely to enrage a certain section of republican sentiment but it is worth considering. Walker points to the Irish Times’ deputy editor Fintan O’Toole blasting of the Church’s hypocrisy, raging against ‘permissiveness’ all the while covering-up sexual abuse by clerics. (3) Anyone that lived in Ireland during the 1980s will immediately recognise what O’Toole is talking about – the Church did have a strong influence in Irish life. However, it was not monolithically so and its pernicious influence was warned of as early as 1914 when James Connolly said that partition of Ireland into two states defined by religion would result in a “carnival of reaction” on both sides of the border.
The secular republicanism of Connolly was intentionally sidelined by the founders of the Irish state but it remained a popular radical alternative to the status quo well into the 1990s. Between this and Ireland’s (decades overdue) economic growth, the authority of the Catholic church did wane significantly, if not rapidly enough for many. Today Ireland is as secluarised as any other European country, but this point is not widely understood – to the point where occasional government moves such as the criminalisation of blasphemy is seen as resulting from deference to the Catholic church rather that more contemporary politically correct forms of prejudice. (4) The bizarre collapse of republicanism should not be allowed to result in a collapse of self-belief.
The conclusion that must be avoided is that the Irish are incapable of governing themselves, either in political terms or, indeed, in personal ones. Unfortunately, that appears to be exactly where things are headed: the wider debate that surrounds the clerical abuse scandal runs the the risk of infantalising the public, casting them in the twin roles of victim and abuser rather than as rational actors capable of running their own lives and, indeed, looking after their children.
Even before the Murphy report, respect for the Catholic church was at an all-time low. This in itself is not a problem for anyone but the most ardent conservative but it has the potential to become a much more corrosive assault on social life. Countless commentators have, since the publication of the Murphy report, been at odds to point out that ‘most abuse happens within the family’. The problem with endlessly stating this view is that it masks the fact that what is so shocking about the clerical abuse scandal is not that it happened, but that it was so widespread within the Church and was systematically covered-up by the state. Whatever abuse goes on in some Irish homes, it is clearly nothing on the scale of the actions of the Church. An assault on families, the vast majority of which are loving and caring, would be the least appropriate possible response to revelations that the clergy abused children and the state was a backward and reactionary force in Irish life.
It was not simple respect for authority that allowed the abuse perpetrated to go unpunished – after all, some authority does deserve respect. In fact it was the willingness to allow private lives to be mediated by outside bodies and the failure of Ireland’s ruling class to properly modernise the new country that was the source of the problem. The failure of the Gardaí to properly investigate allegations against priests sprung not from simple deference, though this was of course a factor, but from the fact that it was considered normal to have the Church intervene in Irish family, and indeed public, life.
Just as the Irish as a nation are perfectly capable of governing the country, so we are as individuals capable of governing our own lives. Allowing the state to police private life in intimate detail would be a bizarre response to an appalling saga of abuse that the very state itself had a hand in covering-up. For some reason people in Ireland have tended to view the state as a neutral force but surely this report indicates that the very opposite is true? Writer Gerard Mannix Flynn is known for his arguing on behalf of victims of abuse. Whatever Mannix Flynn’s views on the wider issue, the first step in getting past being a society of fragile victims is recognising the truth in a sentence he spoke during a radio interview last week: “The state operates as an organised criminal gang.”
Neither the actions of priests and bishops nor the cover-ups attempted by state should blind us to the fact that self-government, nationally and personally, is an ideal that remains worth fighting for. It took more than 60 years for the people of Ireland to drag the state into line with the rest of the developed world – and much work remains to be done before we will have a society that is worth shouting about – but replacing pious and interfering Catholic clerics with even more widespread suspicion and interference in everyday life is not the way forward.
Jason Walsh is the editor of forth and a journalist based in Dublin. Visit his website at jasonwalsh.ie
(1) To read the full report, see: Report by Commission of Investigation into Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin
(2) Echoes of the case against Home Rule in the paedophile scandal, Brian Walker, Slugger O’Toole, November 30, 2009
(3) Church relationship with Irish society has itself been abusive, Fintan O’Toole, Irish Times, November 28, 2009
(4) Ireland’s bizarre war on blasphemy, Jason Walsh, spiked, July 20, 2009
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