Shut them down!
Imagine a secular charity organisation, say Rotary International, running a large network of orphanages and schools and it is found that widespread abuse and exploitation was being perpetrated on the boys and girls under its care. That this routinely included regular, vicious beatings, rape and other sexual abuse by the care-givers, deprivation in appalling conditions and slave labour. Imagine that when any complaints against people in the organisation were made, the hierarchy closed ranks and the complainants were punished and sidelined and the abuser was left to continue his cruelty without censure. Imagine that.
What do you think would happen to such an organisation? Do you think governments would commit young offenders to its care? Do you think parents would ignore all the ugly rumours and send their misbehaving children to these institutions?
No, this is what would happen: the organisation, and all its orphanages, schools and other institutions would be CLOSED DOWN and its members rounded up in public disgrace and sentence to long periods of imprisonment. That is what would happen.
So when a religious organisation, say the Catholic Church, does exactly that, should there be any difference in how this outrage is handled by the authorities? Well the Irish authorities certainly do. The many complaints over the years, the large number of unexplained suicides, the bitter, broken people ending up on the fringe of society – all these the Irish authorities shrunk away from in their obsequious deference to the Catholic Church.
Even the damages that have been awarded to some of the victims will largely be paid by Irish taxpayers. The Church is always accommodated. Names of known offenders – evil rapists and serial abusers – will not be revealed in another deal with this organisation that has brought so much misery to so many helpless victims in its captivity and “care”. The Church is always accommodated.
As we all know, this systematic child abuse by Catholic priests has been reported from all around the world. And wherever complaints have been made the Catholic leadership has protected the perpetrators and more often than not punished the victims. A story from South Africa illustrates this perfectly.
John McCann was molested by his Catholic priest at a church Christmas party. He happened to be the nephew of the Archbishop of Cape Town, Cardinal Owen McCann. This neither deterred the priestly paedophile rapist nor gave John McCann a chance at justice. Instead the Catholic instinct of of protecting the Church before anything else – including one’s own family or even simple things like evil being done by its agents – kicked in. This man of God, so lauded by his congregation and his country – Nelson Mandela called him “one of South Africa’s great sons” and “a man of great ability and wisdom” – this man turned his own family into victims for daring to murmur a complaint against a nasty child rapist:
My devoutly Catholic mother stood up to my uncle, both over what happened to me and my younger brother, who was severely beaten by a drunk teacher at De La Salle. She was shunned for it: the cardinal declined to visit her when she was terminally ill, despite being nearby in Pretoria on Bishops’ Conference business. My sister, who is older than I, witnessed a heated discussion between them some years later.
My parents met him at the bishop’s house in Johannesburg to discuss her intention to withdraw her sons from Catholic schools. She recalls my mother saying words to the effect of: “I am sick of my children being assaulted and abused by the church.” He threatened her with excommunication.
He was elevated to the College of Cardinals by Pope Paul VI, so this was a threat from a prince of the church. She, in turn, threatened to go to the press and he backed down.
If there is any sanity left in this world, the cry must go out” “SHUT THEM DOWN!”
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