Thank you, Enda for brave speech

IN more innocent times in 1991, Bishop Comiskey of the diocese of Ferns, said this about the Irish Government: “It is economically and morally bankrupt.”

What did they do, rape children? No, Comiskey was complaining about proposed legislation to make contraceptives available to anyone over the age of 16 years. How thing were to change.

In 2002, Bertie Ahern was asked about child rape with regard to clergy in the same diocese of Ferns; It had just been bannered across every public medium. His reply was this: “I have not been following it at all. It’s really a matter for the Church; it’s not a matter for the politicians. I’m not going to cross politics and religion.”

Brian Cowen said this in 2010 about the rape of children and the cover-up by Cardinal Sean Brady, which because of it led to more child rape by Fr Brendan Smyth: “The leadership I am giving is that clearly it is important that the state maintains its base and the church maintains its base. It’s not a question for the state to get involved in Church matters nor the Church to get involved in state matters.”

Archbishop Weakland of Germany said this about child rape: “We had no idea of its criminal nature. It was not necessary to worry about the effects on children. Either they would not remember or that they would grow out of it.”

The present pope said this about the rape of children in 2010: “Paedophilia wasn’t considered an absolute evil as recently as the 1970s. In the 1970s paedophilia was theorised as something fully in conformity with man and even with children. Child pornography was increasingly considered “normal” by society.”

Taoiseach Enda Kenny said this about the Catholic Church and the cover-up yet again of child rape by clerics on July 20, 2011: “This is the Republic of Ireland 2011; A republic of laws, of rights and responsibilities, of proper civic order, where the delinquency and arrogance of a particular version of a particular kind of ‘morality’ — will no longer be tolerated or ignored. Where the law — their law — as citizens of this country, will always supersede canon laws that have neither legitimacy nor place in the affairs of this country.”

Enda Kenny, I thank you.

Barry Clifford

Child Aware

Oughterard

Co Galway