On Child Rape

Description: A Personal Anatomy of Clerical Abuse and its Postscripst

Though its postscript has yet to be documented clerical abuse has always been with us and much longer than it ever needed to here in Ireland. I cannot claim to be an expert on what drives abusers to do what they do and at best any professional in this field can only give an abstract view of it. I am only concerned with their victims. A doctor can only ask about their pain but cannot feel it as only that victim can. This is where my shared experience of abuse with them can offer perhaps a very narrow but personal view of that pain and its symptoms.

Abuse itself has three main strands: Physical, sexual, and emotional and not in any particular order and cannot be disconnected from each other. Its symptoms though are all emotional, more often permanent and seen in their low self-esteem, social exclusion, anger, being overly defensive, and highly strung. Left untreated it leaves most victims fighting shadows in empty rooms, having drugs for bed- mates, and finding peace only in cemeteries often helped by the rope that got them there. Not ever being heard or believed would be their epitaph that is yet to be written.

That epitaph has and is being fought on every front by the church, for only months after the Ryan report findings on institutional abuse of children in Irelands orphanages and children's prisons, and just days before the Dublin Diocese report on clerical abuse they were already showing their hand. One day after it, it had already become a tale of two bishops that signaled nothing had changed or ever would.

Bishop of Killaloe, Willie Walsh, is quoted in the Irish Catholic warning against calls to prosecute perpetrators of abuse and states, "If we put people on trial for severe physical punishment administered 40 or 50 years ago where do we draw the line?" He then widens this question to include parents, teachers or others while admitting a desire not to be called to account him self even though corporal punishment had already been outlawed in this country for most of his teaching life. His safety in numbers defense along with him seeing it as more of an historical abuse is of course only part of the 'learning curve' that Willie is still on. This is not withstanding the Church cover up itself leading to justice being delayed. Then there is the other half of this tale, Bishop Eamonn Walsh, Auxiliary Bishop Of Dublin.

Though both bishops carry the same title and name except DNA, the similarities do not stop there. I feel he is not as simple as Willie and is probably the most dangerous of them both and sadly too is still on that 'learning curve'. Criticized in the Dublin Diocese report he clearly shows why.

He does not want any further enquiries into child abuse to be extended to the rest of the State and the noble reasons given of course is to 'protect children'. This individual sense of justice for victims was lost somewhere between his preference instead for saving time, energy and money in consolidating church and school protection services for children, forgetting easily such legislation has been there for some time now. Then Eamonn gets into his long and well rehearsed role where the actor has long since blurred the lines between truth and fiction. Maybe only at night does he wrestle with his demons for what he knew all along but I expect sleep still comes easily enough for now. He states that the "don't ask don't tell" and fear of scandal having primacy over the rights of children within the Catholic Church was dead and gone and if it is not, that person should be". He could easily start with himself by resigning.

He then blames everything on improper communication, isolated cocoons, little coordination, and with his lowly position as a messenger rendered him powerless anyway. Just in case the point was missing he copper fastens all this by stating that he was not at the decision making table or was privy to what was going on. There was a ray of hope for Willie when he said it was "most regrettable" that the Vatican did not respond to requests from the Murphy inquiry but then claimed "it was from another era, the diplomatic corps era". When reminded that it was as late as 2007 when these requests were made, he fell on his own sword yet again by claiming that Vatican Mentality has changed. He should get out more often as that cocoon he is still in is clouding his judgment. There are lay scribes out there too who have been busy on abuse victims epitaphs and desperately trying to mute the voices of those of us whose hearts still beats loudly. They are driven by their own desire to be exalted among a society who may yet turn on them for Jesus had left the building a long time ago. One in particular comes to mind in his contributions to Catholic magazines and mainstream newspapers, David Quinn.

Mr. Quinn latest comment gives praise to the Christian Brothers for their additional pay-out. The reality is that most of it is built back into clever trusts designed for themselves and no victim has yet seen a penny. It is also worth noting this non-offer came on the eve of the Dublin Diocese report and is little more than a public relations exercise. Anybody or organization who has been brought screaming and kicking in the first place before a tribunal and lied every step of the way does not offer compensation willingly. David then waxes lyrical that the best we or really he in this case can say is that with this report the church may at last have hit rock bottom. Yet he easily forgets that this is only about one diocese in Ireland. Other pieces he has written in the most recent past suggested that victims have axes to grind and much worse, and that was as good as it got in his defense of them. In the wake of this report he has to tow the morally critical line for now for the sheer horror of it all demands it, but this will change as time itself will give him many chances to work on damage control and look for ever new ways to undermine truth by his narrow definition of it.

All of what I write here is no more than a cautionary tale of what the postscript of this story may yet be. It has the making of history in its hands and is been fought by the forces of good and evil. With purple robes, funny hats, and a silly book called canon law on the wrong side of this battlefield, it now faces a more formidable foe. They are the victims of clerical abuse recently vindicated walking with the courage and spirit of Jesus and have something in their arsenal that the opposition never knew. Jesus was with them all along.

Barry Clifford    [former industrial institution victim] 

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