The report into historical sexual abuse in schools run by religious orders has once again brought to the spotlight the utter depravity of the Church.
A staggering 2,395 allegations of sexual abuse have been uncovered by the inquiry across 308 schools. And those are just the numbers recorded by the religious orders involved. The true figures are likely horrifically higher than that, with the CSO putting the estimated number at around 40,000 people over 35 who would have experienced sexual violence as a child at school.
It is an epidemic of violence and abuse of terrific proportions. As one source from the Irish Times reflecting on the figures put it, “The reality would seem to be that, just in my own homeplace, there were 30 paedophiles with unimpeded access to schoolchildren. That means that the number of victims in just one Dublin suburb must have been in the thousands. How do you begin to comprehend this, let alone render it down into an official account?”
No doubt, it is the same story in every neighbourhood across Dublin and virtually the whole country, and the same feeling in the minds of hundreds of thousands.
Free Hand to Abuse
That there were predators in the Church, and the school system in particular, was an open secret. But the report starkly exposes the scale and the brutality of the abuses. It shows how much of a free hand the Church was given in the past.
These paedophilic priests would commit abuses in plain view of their whole class, in front of other members of staff, even in front of parents. Virtually all of these monsters would have been known by the school authorities and the local communities, but the crushing moral authority of the Church, and the connivance of the State, were able to protect them from any consequence.
It is only now, after a myriad of scandals has exposed the Church and shattered its authority in the eyes of hundreds of thousands, that victims are openly coming forward.
The report itself makes of a tough read in certain parts:
“The abuser took the participant up to the church gallery to see the organ and while there, anally raped the participant. The participant bled for a week afterwards and wore the clothes it happened in for a week afterwards because he was too scared to look at what was going on.”
“One day the participant wore extra pants to school to make it more difficult for the abuser to access his body. The abuser went ‘berserk’ and punched and kicked the participant.”
“He would take me out of my desk, stand me up against the corner of it. He would press himself up behind me and dry ride me up against the back of the desk. That was very unpleasant; it felt violent. The thing I found most revolting was the spittle that used to form on the bottom of his lip – that was disgusting to me.”
Reading things like that really makes one’s blood boil in rage. And this is only a small sample of the horrors that have been exposed.
All of these crimes were committed against children, with many being under 10 years old. And by those who supposedly defended ‘traditional family values,’ who endlessly lecture on the sanctity of an (unborn) child’s life and who took control of education, again supposedly for the children’s best interests.
In reality they subjected these children to a campaign of terror and abuse for a century.
None of this was accidental or the result of a few bad apples. A systematic effort by the Church was made to cover this up, which runs all the way to the top. The whole institution is responsible.
Who is to blame?
Clearly the Church has proven once more there can be no place for it in Ireland.
Every individual is naturally entitled to their private religious beliefs, but the marriage of Church and State has only facilitated horrendous abuses of power and privileges. The Church should be driven out of our schools and hospitals, and the billions worth of lands and assets it owns in Ireland should be immediately nationalised without compensation. From mother and baby homes, to schools, hospitals and childcare, for long enough they have been given free rein to commit atrocious crimes on the most vulnerables of Irish society.
But let’s be clear. There isn’t a hope in hell that the government would be willing or able to carry this out.
Actually, even when it comes just to financial redress of the victims, the establishment parties have a rather lacklustre record. Back in 2009, a report produced by the state exposed 100 years of abuse by the Church alongside a series of recommendations, including redress which the Church was expected to pay.
If anyone is getting a sense of déjà vu that is because this is an exact repetition of what is happening today. The same cynical phrases about accountability were deployed and, in the end, the Church got away paying a mere pittance, with no real consequences for the perpetrators of the abuses or those that loyally covered it up.
The same level of shameless disregard was shown in their response to the horrors of the Magdalene laundries coming to light in the 90s when the bodies of over a hundred women were found in unmarked graves. The Church made millions from the enslavement of around 30,000 women with the full support of the state behind them. And again, next-to-nothing has been done.
And yet Simon Harris dares to say, “Lessons must be learned from the past when, quite frankly, the church was let off the hook.” Can anyone take seriously these words coming from the mouth of Mr. “Back to Fine Gael Basics”? His party, along with Fianna Fáil, have been in power and overseen the entire past century of rampant abuse by the Church!
The government can’t be trusted with bringing about actual justice, actually they are the ones continuing to syphon off public money straight into the pockets of the Church and allowing them to maintain their stranglehold on the education system. And Harris pretends to act as someone having nothing to do with it. What an absolute farce!
Church and State – Partners in Crime
The fact of the matter is that ever since the betrayal of the Irish revolution, the ruling class has leaned on the Catholic Church for political support, surrendering hundreds of thousands of women and children in the process.
It wasn’t by accident that the Church came to dominate over 90% of primary schools in the country. Likewise access to abortion, contraception, divorce and marriage equality were denied by the Irish state acting at the behest of the Church.
These reactionary ministers who facilitated the Church’s rule are not some lingering shadow of the past, they are the very concrete bodies sitting in the Dáil today. All of the noise being made about this report is only a hypocritical cover for our ruling class’ own complicity.
Both Simon Harris and Micheál Martin, in line with their parties, were for example opposed to abortion. In fact, the 8th amendment (which prohibited it) was proposed by Fianna Fáil in the 80s and, thanks to lobbying by the Church, was implemented under a Fine Gael government. They were happy to bend the knee and serve the Church until the growing hatred of the workers and youth meant it was no longer politically viable to do so in the open.
While they talk about accountability and justice for the victims, it is really the last thing they care about. Minister for Education Norma Foley has ‘convened a high-level group which will progress the work that is needed to establish a commission to investigate how to go forward with redress.’
In plain English, they will do the bare minimum and try to brush this story under the rug.
Smash Capitalism!
What a sick joke the ruling class have been willing to play on the Church’s victims. But what else should we expect from them at this point?
This government has overseen skyrocketing levels of homelessness, affecting over 4,000 children. On top of this, 230,000 children suffer from material deprivation. Levels of violence against women have been rising while social services are being slashed. Can a government with this track record be expected to deliver anything more than hollow words when it comes to protecting women and children?
Of course not! They allow this horrible exploitation of the most vulnerable in society for the exact same reason they allow the abuses of the Church: they are the loyal servants of capitalism.
It is the very nature of the capitalist state, not the policy of this or that government, that is the problem. On areas like education and healthcare, the Church and the Irish State are completely interwoven together. Those on the left who foster illusions that separation can be achieved by reformist means and on a capitalist basis are only playing into the hands of the ruling class, which is only too happy to diffuse the outrage into a myriad of commissions and shallow promises for future changes.
The bible of all things explains this clearly:
“No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
The real divide in society is between the capitalists, with the support of the Church and the State, on one side and the workers on the other. Any sort of tinkering around with the capitalist state to make it kinder to workers is to try and serve two masters at once.
In order to sweep away the barbaric legacy of the Church, a socialist revolution is necessary to completely overthrow capitalism and replace it with the rule of the working class.
