Child abuse: religious orders betrayed themselves

CONTRIBUTIONS to RTÉ’s Spirit Level programme (June 28) showed there is an ongoing need to hold to account religious congregations who even still wish to cast themselves as the victimised and betrayed.

If they are betrayed it is by themselves and arises from their inability to accept responsibility and to do the right and indeed Christian thing, again and again.

Fr Tony Flannery expressed great dissatisfaction at certain senior Catholic bishops’ responses to the Ryan report. In particular he spoke of the members of congregations’ sense of “enormous anger” and “betrayal” at what they perceive as the bishops leading public criticism and making scapegoats of them.

We feel the position articulated by Fr Flannery, although not of one of the 18 congregations investigated in the Ryan report, illustrates the ongoing inability of many congregations to understand what is required of them given the litany of individual and institutional failings and betrayal of children, society and Christianity.

The congregations’ track record in relation to victims, the process of breaking the silence, the commission, the Redress Board and the Ryan report leaves a lot to be desired. Survivors were vilified and disbelieved throughout the process, and again Fr Flannery took the opportunity on the programme to make allegations of false reporting by survivors.

The commission was obstructed by congregations. Many survivors felt bruised, bullied and harassed by the congregations as they moved through the commission and redress procedures. On release of the Ryan report many of the congregations’ first response was to issue statements defending themselves, including “apologies” along the lines of “we are sorry if they felt hurt by the sins of individuals in our congregations”.

Under pressure, not least from the bishops but certainly not led by them, the response was to deliver fresh apologies that seemed to contain some of the levels of accountability and remorse that were necessary. They added that they would make further resources voluntarily available and work with survivors to decide how best to distribute them. Under pressure, the Government insisted that any such resources should be transparently and independently decided upon and distributed. As part of a government assessment of what further reparations are fair, a report on the assets of the congregations is being conducted by congregations on themselves. The audit of those reports will be conducted by a panel of three independent experts.

One of the key lessons of the Ryan report is that transparency and accountability are vital where services are being delivered to vulnerable members of our society. Support of such scrutiny by any group or individual providing services is a fundamental requirement.

We would suggest that bishops would not have had to intervene and speak contrary to the positions being expressed by the congregations had the congregations’ responses been acceptable in the first instance.

Fiona Neary

Director

Rape Crisis Network Ireland

The Halls

Quay Street

Galway