State to blame for abuse scandal

The issue of the Cloyne report has once again raised its ugly head along with the subsequent closure of the Irish Embassy to the Vatican.

The Taoiseach in his address to the Dáil on July 20, 2011 denounced the Catholic Church from his despatch box by the use of words such as dysfunction, disconnection, elitism and narcissism in his barrage of criticism.

Conveniently, Mr Kenny and everybody else seem to have ignored the part played by the Irish State and its contribution to the whole sorry mess.

The State since its foundation and indeed further back (just read Brendan O’ Heir’s The Begrudger’s Guide To Irish Politics) courted and coerced the Catholic Church into certain roles that the State itself wanted to wash its hands of. I refer specifically to the institutions such as orphanages, industrial schools and laundries that were run by religious orders and were totally unregulated. This situation led to the Irish State being almost totally subservient to the Catholic Church and not the other way around as it should be.

This freedom of operation merely fermented the whole system of the Church’s control and abuse of people under its care and created an atmosphere within society that went like, ah sure if they are under the control of the Church they are in the right hands, end of that story. However, sadly for thousands of people in this country it is not the end of the story.

I therefore hold this State totally responsible for the mess we are in today regarding abuse in institutions. Imagine if we had an independent prison system unregulated? What uproar there would be. The same would go for any other institution, for that matter.

Michael Guiney

Hazelwood

Glanmire

Co Cork