Letters to the editor: Abuse not exclusive to Catholic institutions

Your columnist Fergus Finlay can bash Catholic Church all he likes but he needs to aim some blows at the Protestant Church

An inscription on the monument in Mount Jerome Cemetry to honour all the children who died in Bethany Home between 1922-1949 pictured this morning. Picture: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin

Commenting on the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Inquiry report, your columnist Fergus Finlay said: “The Catholic Church ruled us — formed our attitudes, told us what we were allowed to think.”

Not Derek Leinster in the Bethany Home, sent to a dysfunctional family that abandoned him, it didn’t; not the children farmed out as labour from the age of five by the Nursery Rescue Society, it didn’t; not the children emotionally, sexually, and physically abused in Smyly’s Homes, it didn’t; not the Westbank Orphanage children transformed into professional orphans and paraded around church and Orange halls in Northern Ireland, it didn’t.