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Sanctity of Life.
“Sanctitas” from my Latin dictionary of 1660: “1st. ‘inviolability, sacredness, sanctity’, 2nd. ‘moral purity, holiness, sanctity, virtue, piety, honour, purity, chastity’” The great debate which is finally coming to Ireland is the great debate on Abortion, a fierce battle to be played out on both the Religious and Political battlefield, a debate that was debased throughout Irish History, by Religion, but the real question here is “What does it mean to believe in the Sanctity of Life?” According to the Roman Catholic Church, “Sanctity of Life” reflects the belief that, “we are made in God’s image, this according to their Holy Scripture, the Bible, Genesis 1:26-27. All human life has an inherently sacred attribute that should be protected and respected at all times. While God gave humanity the authority to kill and eat other forms of life Genesis 9:3, the killing or murdering of other human beings is expressly forbidden, with the penalty being death Genesis 9:6. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. says the Bible. “Humanity was created in God’s image and likeness”. If we love God, we will value our own lives as part of God’s plan, to do His will until it comes about that His will is better served by our deaths. And we will love and care for His people, Galatians 6:10; Colossians 3:12-15. We will see to the needs of the elderly and sick. We will protect others from harm—whether from abortion, euthanasia, human trafficking, or other abuses. So as I understand the Bible, it would appear that murder is the unlawful taking of a life, while killing may be lawful or unlawful. The Bible provides many circumstances under which the taking of a life is legally allowed by Holy Scripture. While the sanctity of life can be the foundation, love must be the motivation. Christianity has never ceased to emphasise the sanctity of human life and the value of the individual, even the humblest and lowliest, including the afflicted in mind and body. The truth is the phrase “Sanctity of Life’ as an ancient principle of the Judeo-Christian and Hippocratic traditions”, is a complete lie, there is no literature anywhere on the subject, and really only appeared in use in the early 20th.century literature. Sanctity-of-life” is a mysterious concept in the bioethical debate, the ethics of medical and biological research. From its beginnings, Christianity has displayed an interest in questions of health and healing that has verged on preoccupation. The Gospels tell the story of one, Jesus who went about doing good, often in the form of miraculous interventions in the form of healing, and, in certain cases, resurrections, this incredulous feat, as in Lazarus. This essentially religious concept has its basis in the notion that life is a gift from God. An additional factor within Christianity is the belief that humans are created in the image of God. In non-religious circles the term is used to indicate the utmost respect with which human life should be treated. The problem is that the concept of “Sanctity of Life and Human Dignity,” was invented in the late 20th.century. Even more shocking and surprising is the fact that we do not seem to know where the term came from, what its roots are, and why it has been appropriated elsewhere. Worse, this lack of knowledge becomes a particular asset for those who oppose the values that the concept purports to protect.” Nowhere is the phrase ‘Sanctity of Life’ appearing, in either the Hebrew Bible or in the Christian Bible. The Roman Catholic Church has tried to counter those critical positions with a reconstruction of “sanctity as absolute inviolability” of physical human life based on the Catholic natural law tradition. The meaning of sanctity as inviolability of physical human life is used especially in the writings of Pope John Paul II, and is also generally accepted by most of its theological and philosophical defenders. The term “Sanctity-of-Life” does not appear even “in the four most important modern documents from the Roman Catholic Church’s teachings on matters dealing with killing.” So my other question is this, where was The 'Sanctity of Life' Ethic or Religious Ethos when the Roman Catholic Religious Orders were running Orphanages, and other Religious Run Institutions, and raping, murdering and disposing of tens of thousands of vulnerable babies and children, and women, world wide. As the Roman Catholic Church, talk and scream daily, “there is dignity in every human life”. The Catholic Church opposes all forms of abortion procedures whose direct purpose is to destroy an embryo, blastocyst, zygote or fetus, since it holds that "Human Life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. Yet by their practice of two thousand years, the Roman Catholic Church never respected the Sanctity of Life. Christianity has a long run as the world's most violent religion, lets take it from the beginning. Killings for Christianity includes, the Crusades were a series of religious wars, sanctioned by the Catholic Church, killed millions, the Inquisition, where hundreds of thousands of people were executed, normally burnt at the stake. Medieval witch hunts in which over 100,000 women and men died, again, burnt at the stake. The Protestant and Catholic Wars of Religion, in which tens of millions have died. Democide or Religious Genocide in the Americas, Africa and Australia, in which again tens of millions were slaughtered, before been baptised. The papal bull “Romanus Pontifex”, of 1455. In this, Pope Nicholas V, supports the killing, and forcible conversion and enslaving of unbelievers found in the New Lands, the Americas, as a result, over 14 million indigenous People were slaughtered as a direct result, and millions more of Aboriginal People were enslaved in mines, digging for gold that built the Cathedrals in Europe and the Vatican. The 1994 Rwandan Genocide and many more atrocities committed in the name of Christianity in many countries in Africa, which now runs into tens of millions more. I could go on but the blog post would be endless with the millions and millions of more senseless murders and deaths at the hands of Christianity. Religion is not real, the soul and baptism are not real, but a Mother's love is real, a Mother's pain is real. In Religion and ethics, inviolability or sanctity of life is a principle of implied protection regarding aspects of sentient life which are said to be holy, sacred, or otherwise of such value that they are not to be violated. Sentience is also the capacity to feel, perceive, or experience subjectively. This can be applied to both animals and humans, for instance in religions that practice Ahimsa, as both are seen as holy and worthy of life. Ahimsa is the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jainist tradition, respect for all living things and avoidance of violence towards others.The concept of inviolability is an important tie between the ethics of religion and the ethics of law, as each seeks justification for its principles as based on both purity and natural concept, as well as in universality of application. The concept is central to the philosophy of say, Animal Rights and also the anti-abortion movement because Sentience is necessary for the ability to suffer, and thus is held to confer certain rights. Empirical evidence suggests that sentience about stimuli (life) is closely related to the process of extracting the meaning of the stimuli. How one understands the stimuli determines how one experiences them. The sanctity of life principle, which is often contrasted with the “Quality of Life” to some extent, is the basis of all Roman Catholic teaching about the Fifth Commandment in the Ten Commandments, of the Bible, but sanctity of life is usually applied solely to the human species according to the Roman Catholic Church and not Animal Life. Again, my questions is really very simple, where were the Irish Catholic Church when such murderous atrocities were been committed against vulnerable women and children in their pastoral care in the Religious Run Institutions, in Ireland, and where please, was the Irish Catholic Church when 796 babies were been flushed down a sluice toilet in a Convent in the West of Ireland. And the tens of thousands of women and their children dumped into the 1,250 secret mass graves up and down this green land of Ireland. When please is the tipping point, another thousands babies in another Septic Tank in some god forsaken rural Convent ??…or another few hundred defensible women, burnt in Convent Ovens in rural Ireland?? or the 5 or 7 thousand women and children soon to be discovered in another Septic Tank, in the biggest Mother and Baby Home in Ireland, St. Patrick’s on the Navan Road, Dublin??. And my friends, this will be happening in a few months time. Brace yourselves, its going to get shockingly sickening, will that be the final tipping point?. Where was the “Sanctity of Life” they love to talk about??. An intriguing answer to the question of the “Sanctity of Life” is to determine or to figure out when the collective set of initiatives we now call the Irish Catholic Church policy toward unwed mothers and their vulnerable children was carried out by the Religious Orders in the Religious Run Institutions in Ireland. The Irish Catholic Church’s policy of murder, medical experiments, rape, hunger, and beatings to assist the death machine, that was and ran the Religious run Institutions in Ireland. Much of the planning of the Irish hierarchy’s policy, was in great secrecy, but a decision was made by the Irish Bishops to implement and carry out the Irish Catholic Church’s horrendous policies, in the many scrumptious Palaces of the Catholic Bishop’s of Ireland at the time, many with over 30 rooms, all filled with opulent furnishings and heirlooms, while thousands of babies and children under its pastoral care, died, simply from malnutrition. The authoritarian power of the Irish Catholic Church was the real Government at the time, the weakness of Irish Governments in challenging the authority of the Catholic Church was a scandal. We know this because there are a few hand written records of the secret meetings held at the various Catholic Palaces at the time in the mid-40s. as told to me, by a retired elderly Priest, very recently. Most politicians that worked in the Irish Government at the time were staunch, fervent Catholics, most were against anything which would undermine the Irish Catholic Church’s moral authority. Nearly all professed to be Catholic first, and Irish citizens second. A former Taoiseach John A Costello told the Dáil. “I, as a Catholic, obey my Church Authorities (first) and will continue to do so,” “The Irish bishop stands on ceremony and sits on everybody,” Seán O” Faoláin wrote. “Our politicians were kissing the bishops on all four cheeks”. So our continual Silence is the Catholic Church’s best friend, those who know and knew must speak out, and speak out now. The Bible is not the infallible word of God, or is it? “Sanctity of Life” is that an infallible word of God or again, man made word of God?. Using the word, “Sanctity", does it make the debate holy? moral purity,? no, sorry, it’s made up, like the Latin Bible itself, “the Bible is a book of lies dressed up in Latin”. Owen Felix O'Neill
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Why DNA is Important for Irish Survivors.
Forensic Interpretation of Mass Graves; War crimes are always committed during armed conflicts between Nation States. Crimes against humanity, such as summary executions of civilians, are also not uncommon in situations of national armed conflicts, revolutions, or in totalitarian regimes. All of these events result in missing persons and often in undiscovered Mass Graves. Both are searched for and processed by forensic experts in the aftermath of the conflict. Legal medicine has greatly benefited from the development of molecular biology and its new analytical techniques, in particular DNA analysis, in the identification of highly decomposed human remains. But we have an usual situation, shameful here in Ireland of many secret Mass Graves at many of our Religious Institutions, run by the different Catholic Religious Orders. Years ago DNA was unknown to humankind but the identification of human remains are now possible in all cases to be identified, by comparing medical and dental records of missing persons with findings at autopsy in cadavers rescued from mass graves. Mass Graves can tell a story that contain large amounts of highly decomposed bodies and skeletal remains, but they do pose specific challenges for forensic experts in Ireland or anywhere else for that matter, especially when dental and medical records are none existent, or when the grave is a secondary one, as is many cases, containing parts of bodies which were purposely removed and mixed by the perpetrators, the Irish Catholic Religious Orders. The recent development of new DNA sequencing and profiling technologies, as well as the understanding of the uniqueness of certain DNA sequences among individuals, has become greatly useful for human identification in situations of mass bodies dumped into Mass Graves, in many of the Mother and Baby Homes, Magdalene Laundries and Industrial Schools in Ireland. DNA can be extracted from the bone marrow of Mass Grave skeletons, no matter the age of the remains. All genes are inherited in two copies: one from the Father and the other from the Mother, which are respectively known as paternal and maternal alleles. Each “allele” encodes a phenotypic feature or a certain inherited characteristic. An individual normally has two “alleles” for each gene, one contributed by the Mother and one by the Father. Now to the technical, First with especial Thanks to Thomson Gale of World of Forensic Science;- DNA sequences are also used for human identification. They are classified according to their characteristics, such as LINES (long interspersed sequences), SINES (short interspersed sequences), LTR (long terminal repeats), STR (short tandem repeats), and VNTR (variable number of tandem repeats, or micro-satellite DNA). Short tandem repeats are used in tests of paternity and VNTR is used to identify victims and suspects. Crime scenes, like mass graves often produce mixed biological samples containing genetic material from two or more individuals, such as mixed body fluids , bloodstains, or blood pools. In mass graves however, samples contain DNA of several victims, rapidly degrading in tropical climates or due to moisture and soil conditions, all of which affect the STR sequences and other DNA loci used in human identification. Until recently, this constituted a serious obstacle to forensic interpretation. With the rapid evolution of genetic screening technologies, however, new test kits and software are being constantly developed. Some of these kits are more sensitive to low, degraded concentrations of DNA found in mixed samples than others. In degraded DNA mixtures, the margin of error for minor STR components can be 10–33%, and the burial of several relatives with similar alleles in a mass grave can make individual identification of DNA from a mixture even more difficult. Statistical evaluation of DNA mixtures takes into account the match probability. So it works this way, living relatives of missing persons donate blood samples for comparison with DNA extracted from the long bones and teeth of the exhumed human remains. Mass Graves when located and exhumed in the Irish Convents or other Religious Institutions, run by different Catholic Religious Orders are located, to identify one corpse or any, or multiple bodies, and DNA is recovered, Survivors are then needed to give their DNA to seek matches. This way a unique profile for each individual is established, this is called DNA profiling. Every child, mother or other body must be DNAed to establish Identity and family connections. We know, DNA extracted from teeth and the application of other forensic identification techniques will led to the successful identification of all the victims, dumped into secret Mass Graves at most Religious Run Institution in Ireland. DNA analysis may efficiently contribute to the identification of remains even decades later. The significant percentage of positively identified remains (60%), even when the number of the examined possible living relatives was relatively small, proved the importance of cooperation with the members of the local community and Survivors, who can help to identify the closest missing persons’ relatives and collect referent samples from them. There is another Ireland, buried under modern Ireland. There is nothing more awful nor powerful than standing on the edge of a a septic tank structure, posing as a final resting place at the back of an Irish Catholic Convent, to watch the hundreds of baby’s bodies being taken up from a septic tank below. With Survivors and their families, sitting throughout the land, anxiously waiting in the hope of identifying the remains, and muttering quietly to themselves, “ Is this my brother, Is this my sister, Is this my son, Is this my daughter”, Is this really Ireland !!. Hundreds and hundreds and Row after row of baby sized heads and bones, mixed up, with human waste, shattered across 17 dark septic tank chambers, all filled with human bones of babies and children. Incomplete, unable to be identified, and never given dignity, in life nor death. There is something rotten in the Catholic State of Ireland, that we can do this with babies and children, 796 is a big number, a powerful symbol of a failure to safeguard vulnerable babies and children in the care of Irish Catholic run Orphanages. This is a constant reminder of human vulnerability and exposure to Irish Catholic Church tyranny. The Irish Catholic Church contributes to maintaining the atmosphere of distrust that so often defines the fragility of Governments in transition and they adversely affect the credibility of political, democratic and rule of law institutions. While the public in general and Survivors of these Irish Catholic run Institutions, seek answers as each baby is pulled from the depths of an abandoned septic tank below. Survivors and other Family members have a right to honesty and clear information concerning the fate and whereabouts of their Brothers and Sisters. This right is clearly stated in the European Convention on Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Resolution 7/28 of the United Nations Human Rights Council, and other human rights instruments, as well as in International Humanitarian Law as applicable.” Above a similar death chamber with scattered remains to be seen, on the earthen floor of the chamber, one of 20 similar secret Chambers used in Tuam were 796 remains of Babies and Children bodies were dumped into similar cesspits or cesspools. 17 of the Chambers were proven to contain remains of Babies and Children bodies for the 1950s. Many experts now believe that this number of 796 will greatly increase. A cesspit, or cesspool, is a manmade structure, which is not sealed at the bottom. It was used for the collection and storage of feces, excreta or fecal sludge as part of an on-site sanitation system used at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home in County Galway, Ireland. Traditionally, it was a deep cylindrical chamber dug into the earth, having approximate dimensions of 1 metre diameter and 2–3 metres depth. The cesspit was lined with red bricks, and formed into underground chambers covered with a very large concrete slab, the cesspool should have been emptied on a regular basis but it never was emptied, because the Bon Secours Sisters, at the time knew their dirty secret would come out, the cesspit was the place to dump, in secret the remains of the bodies of unwanted, vulnerable Babies and Children. Burials were expensive at the time, and no money was provided for burials by both the local council nor the Irish Government. So the Bon Secours Sisters, collectively made a decision not the bury each child or baby. The Bon Secours Sisters believe that these babies and children were not God’s Children, but spawns of the devil. In addition, we now know that the Crafty Sisters of the Bon Secours Order, collected money weekly on the babies and children in their care, the Bon Secours Sisters, never informed the Irish Government when a baby or child died, you see they were paid per child, it was in the interests of the Bon Secours Sisters not to report any of the children’s deaths, if it could, and something else, if the Bon Secours Sisters reported too many deaths, they feared Irish Government Inspectors, visiting, unannounced and asking awkward questions. The Bon Secours Sisters feared exposure, both for their financial crimes and manner of the children’s murder and deaths would be exposed. Also the Irish Government Inspectors, would then see the site of thousands of tiny crosses denoting an individual grave on their, the Convent lands, which would mean that all the locals and Irish Government Inspectors, would know and see for themselves, the thousands of tiny crosses, and that the Tuam Mother and Baby Home in County Galway, Ireland, was really the killing ground for unwanted, vulnerable Babies and Children. Something else, the Bon Secours Sisters, would than have to keep a record of each child, each baby, they buried, and the Mothers’ of the Babies and Children would have a place to visit daily, and lay flowers, this I can assure you would cause horror and nightmares for the Bon Secours Sisters,. The sight from their luxurious bedrooms and well refined, elegant drawing rooms, of their Convent, watching a parade of thousands of grieving Mothers, paying homage, every day, at the graves of their buried babies and children, would be to much for the Holy Nuns to bare. The Children’s graves would be a daily reminder of the Bon Secours Sisters, barbarousness, murderousness, brutishness, and merciless savagery melting out daily in their Convent. To the Bon Secours Sisters, the Cesspit was the better option, concocted by the evil, warped minds of the Bon Secours Sisters of Tuam, “out of mind out of sight”, the Bon Secours Sisters, believed, and told each other, it’s for the better, they said among themselves, after many scrumptious dinners and many bottles of sherry, no grieving mothers to worry about, no Angel Plots for Babies or children, no nosey Irish Government Inspectors. In reality it really was easier for the Bon Secours Sisters to forget the spawns of the devil, flushed into the bleak, black hell of the cesspool chambers, hidden, far under their Convent lands at Tuam, County Galway. The present Archbishop of Tuam, Dr Michael Neary, while previously distancing his Archdiocese from involvement in the Tuam- Mother and Babies Home scandal, is now in fear of further investigations, discovering more hidden graves and septic tanks, and has and is refusing to meet any and all Survivors from the Tuam, Mother and Babies Home. The Archbishop of Tuam, Dr Michael Neary has also refused to provide Church Documents and Records pertaining to the Tuam- Mother and Babies Home and Survivors, looking for their brothers, sisters, and mothers. In fact Dr Michael Neary, is committing grievous crimes and genocidal crimes by hiding and disposing of, direct evidence of the atrocities committed at Tuam- Mother and Babies Home. You see, it’s very simple, the Bon Secours Sisters would have needed the express permission of his predecessor Archbishop Thomas Gilmartin in 1925 to enter the Tuam Archdiocese to set up shop, their Mother and Babies Institution.The Bon Secours Sisters would have been under the direct jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Tuam and secret contracts would have been entered into by then Archbishop and the Bon Secours Sisters at the time and rubber-stamped by Galway County Council as regards the refurbishment of this old public assistance building and the payments of monies to the Order, which would only go through the Archdiocese of Tuam and then passed into the rich coffers of the Bon Secours Sisters themselves, for their “taking in” of unmarried pregnant girls. I expect the Parish Records that the Archdiocese of Tuam had, is now, also flushed into the same Sluice Toilet with the remains of the 796 babies. The Bon Secours Sisters, showed their true colours, their total lack of empathy by never touching the baby or child, they simply told an older docile, slave woman, how to flush the spawn baby down the Sluice Toilet with the used toilet paper, except there was no toilet paper, it was only a used baby, the older docile, slave woman, simply flushed as the Bon Secours Sisters instructed and taught her to do. In this way 796 babies were flushed down the Sluice Toilet at the rate of 22 babies per year, or an average of 2 babies per month for 36 years, since 1925 and the Tuam Mother and Baby Home closed its doors in 1961. But recent Irish Government Forensic Science Reports has informed us that the majority of the babies were from the 1950s..and again something else, the forensic archaeologists, also informs us, that the children’s playground in front of the Mother and Baby Home in Tuam which was also part of the Convent land, contains another mass grave, a genocide of over 1,800 more women and children, again from the same period of 1925 to 1961, and not the famine babies from 1843 as first reported by the lying Bon Secours Sisters in 2014 and the compliant Irish Police, An Garda Síochána. The Bon Secours Sisters said, and I quote….“we never knew anything about it.” The Bon Secours Sisters, again in 2014, also said “They had no awareness of a grave “in the area” of the Home. — Please Sisters, don’t add insult to injury, when does the lying stop. Owen Felix O’Neill Triumph of evil: medical experiments on children in care of the Irish state
By mór rígan Posted on August 31, 2010 After the heartbreaking revelations about the treatment of children in Irish industrial schools, documented in the Ryan Report, it is difficult to imagine how any action by the state or the Catholic Church could continue to shock. Children in industrial schools, run by the Church on behalf of the state, were routinely enslaved, raped, beaten, tortured and starved. Now, it has come to light, that some of these children were also used as test subjects in experimental medical trials. As far as it is possible to tell, three trials were conducted on behalf of The Wellcome Foundation (now GlaxoSmithKline), by Professor Irene Hillery and Professor Patrick Meenan, from the department of Medical Microbiology in University College Dublin, and other doctors. The first trial investigated what would happen if four vaccines, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus and polio, were combined in one overall four-in-one shot. Trial two measured the effectiveness of a intra-nasal rubella vaccine compared to the standard injection. The third trial was to compare commercially available batches of the three-in-one vaccine, Trivax and Trivax AD, with that of a modified vaccine prepared for the trial. The first trial was published by the British Medical Journal. Fifty two infants were used as trial subjects, thirty six of whom were subsequently reexamined. The researchers ended the article with We are indebted to the medical officers in charge of the children’s homes-namely, Dr. V. Coffey, Dr. B. Cullen, Dr. J. Finn, Dr. B. O’Sullivan, and Dr. R. Sutton-for permission to carry out this investigation on infants under their care That is the crux of the matter. The children were nominally in the care of the state, de facto in the care of the religious orders. Parents were not informed. Consent was not given. Informed consent was non-existent. The Nuremberg code lays out Directives for Human Experimentation and the second standard is as follows: The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonable to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment. The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent rests upon each individual who initiates, directs or engages in the experiment. It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity. Children cannot consent. The informed consent of parents was not sought. The children were in the care of the state. The religious orders gave permission for children in their care to be used in experimental vaccine testing. The experiments were a violation of human rights. The survivors, decades later, are only now being acknowledged. The state has not made any expression of remorse or apology. Neither have the religious orders. In addition, these three trials are the known trials. Many others may have been conducted on the bodies of children but have been buried in paperwork. Rumours of these experimental trials floated for years among journalists but it was not until 2000 that the “Report On Three Clinical Trials Involving Babies And Children In Institutional Settings, 1960/61, 1970 and 1973” was produced. It is the foundation of all public knowledge regarding the trials. The report is not available to the public on government websites but can be read on The God Squad by Paddy Doyle. In 2003 the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse was deemed by the Supreme Court to have exceeded its mandate by including a division to investigate vaccine trials, following legal challenges by two of the doctors that conducted the trials. Since then, there has been no further enquiry. For all practical purposes, there was no investigation of why the State and Church permitted medical experiments without consent or information on infants and children in their care. It appears that the state has no interest in investigating severe violations of human rights. Following media interest, the Department of Health and Children has released a statement to confirm that they are in the process of locating their files relating to the trials but Minister for Health Mary Harney has ruled out the possibility of a further investigation. Mari Steed, a survivor of the industrial school system and the vaccine trials, announced that she and three others are preparing a class action lawsuit against GlaxoSmithKline in the United States because the Irish government will not act to protect its citizens. Mari was nine months old when she was first given the “one-in-four” vaccine. By the age of two, she had received the experimental injection four times. Her mother was told the jabs were routine. Since her announcement, other survivors have come forward to lobby the Department of Health and Children to release all the files with regard to this violation of human rights. Legal action will be taken against both the pharmaceutical company and the Sacred Heart Order. Through the courts, it is possible that the survivors will at least receive an admission that their human rights were violated because such an admission will not come from the state. The 1916 Proclamation of the Republic states the necessity of cherishing all the children of the nation equallyand article 42 clause 5 of the Constitution reads as follows In exceptional cases, where the parents for physical or moral reasons fail in their duty towards their children, the State as guardian of the common good, by appropriate means shall endeavour to supply the place of the parents, but always with due regard for the natural and imprescriptible rights of the child. All the laws and declarations in the world do not change the fact that Ireland did and does not cherish her children equally. The most vulnerable in society have been treated as less than human. That the state will not acknowledge the impact of its decisions or take the necessary responsibility is abhorrent. That children in the care of the state are disappearing to this day; the children are still placed in adult psychiatric wards; that schools are rat infested, underfunded and still under control of the church; that foster parents are not being screened; and that children are left on the street because temporary accommodation cannot be found, only demonstrates that the state continues to violate Irish laws and international human rights laws. The Ryan Report one year later: Still no accountability for the Church
By mór rígan Posted on May 22, 2010 Thursday was the first anniversary of the publication of the Commission of Inquiry into Child Abuse. Commonly called the Ryan Report, its publication cumulated in the realisation of the extent of the violence, rape and sexual assault that children suffered in the care of the Catholic Church. I have written more here. Eight organisations (Barnardos, CARI, Children’s Rights Alliance, Irish Association of Young People in Care, ISPCC, One in Four, Rape Crisis Network of Ireland and Dublin Rape Crisis Centre) met to discuss progress on the implementation of the Ryan Report. To this day not a single additional penny has been paid by the eighteen religious congregations that committed crimes against children. I say additional because the Irish Government struck a shameful deal with the religious orders in 2002. The then Minister for Education Michael Woods and Attorney General Michael McDowell struck a secret deal. It was never put before parliament and there was no vote. In short, religious orders were awarded indemnity against all legal claims provided they supplied €128m in cash and property. The idea was that if there was a shortfall, the taxpayer would provide. Woods expected around 2000 claimants and a total cost of around €300m. Fast forward to 2010, and 14 000 claimants have come forward. The bill is expected to be around €1.3bn. And the religious orders have not contributed a single additional penny. The congregations claim that the Irish Government had not yet provided the details of what further contributions are required. In addition, the Catholic Church, which runs 92% of the primary schools in Ireland have ordered the schools to pay €4.75 per pupil to the church each year to begin at the end of May. There is no reason given for the charge and the church requires immediate payment. Given that many primary schools in politically-disadvantaged areas are in dire conditions, this demand for money is particularly egregious. Students were requested to bring tolls of toilet paper from home because of budget cutbacks in one Cork school. Several schools have repeated rat infestations. 50 000 students are being educated in prefabs – some for over twenty years. Granted, that these failings are also due to the indifference of successive Education Ministers. However, this is the same government that promised €2 million for the funding of counselling services for the survivors of institutional rape and torture. Organisations like the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre and One in Four have received no extra funding to date and have had their budgets cut by 5.8% despite a government commitment not to do so. Organisations that provide counselling services have been and remain overwhelmed. There is now a nine-month waiting list for one to one counselling at One in Four. Numerous reports have come out about the cover-up of the sexual abuse of children, yet bishops named in the Murphy report remain patrons of primary schools. The primate of all Ireland, Seán Brady engaged in a conspiracy to cover up serial child rape and refuses to resign. He still holds that position. The leader of the Catholic Church in the Vatican covered up child rape. Benedict XVI was revealed to have ordered bishops not to report child sexual abuse to the correct authorities – the civil authorities – yet he is still lauded by millions. There has been no information about the children who died in care and were allegedly buried in mass graves. The only information in the public domain is that in 1993 an order of nuns in Dublin sold part of their convent to a real estate developer. The remains of 155 inmates, who had been buried in unmarked graves on the property, were exhumed and, except for one body, cremated and reburied in a mass grave. There has been no other information. Children were murdered, starved and worked to death but we do not even know their names. The Irish state has not prosecuted those priests, nuns, monks and lay personnel that committed the crimes of rape, torture, neglect, starvation and slavery described in the report. The names were redacted. It was part of the compensation package. If a survivor who was financially compensated by the Commission, names the rapists and abusers, that survivor is liable for prosecution and all monies will be retrieved. That is part of the pact. Michael O Brien, 77 years old, is going on hunger strike when he is released from hospital. Mr O Brien was detained in Ferryhouse industrial school for eight years where he was raped and beaten repeatedly. He has spoken out about his abuse. Indymedia has more information on the hunger strike. A member from Religious Truth Abuse will start a hunger strike outside the Bishops residence in Drumcondra, Dublin on Monday 17th of May to high light the lack of investigation by the Gardái and Government. Since the release of the Ryan and Murphy report last year there have been no investigations or arrests, all but one. A man was arrested outside of Dáil Eíreann last May 09 as he made a protest at the gates of the Dáil single handedly. That has been the only arrest. Minister for Law reform and Equality Dermot Ahearn said publicly “We continue to pursue relentlessly the perpetrators of abuse, to bring them to justice, the justice they deserve”. It would seem more obvious that abusers freedom is more important than actually bringing them to court to face their crimes against children over the last 80 years. The Irish Catholic Church and child abuse: It’s not about “bad apples”
By mór rígan Posted on May 25, 2009 It is public knowledge that the Catholic Church ruled the roost in Ireland. The Church’s education system was harsh and children in school were beaten. The allegations of child sexual abuse were proved true and compensation was provided – ten percent coming from the Catholic Church and ninety percent from the state. An investigation commission was set up in 2000 to hear from persons who allege they suffered abuse in childhood, in institutions, during the period from 1940 or earlier, to the present day; to conduct an inquiry into abuse of children in institutions during that period and, where satisfied that abuse occurred, to determine the causes, nature, circumstances and extent of such abuse; and to prepare and publish reports on the results of the inquiry and on its recommendations in relation to dealing with the effects of such abuse.The report of the Commission was published on 20 May. The revelations contained therein are obscene: Children were enslaved, raped, tortured and abused systematically in both residential and day schools, and institutions. What is more, complaints were made to the clergy, police and the state and the complainants were ignored and humiliated. The report covers children in industrial and reformatory schools, orphanages, laundries, foster care, hospitals, disability centres and novitiates. The vast majority of children were committed to industrial or reformatory schools from 1936 to 1970 because they were ‘needy’. Other reasons of commitment were involvement in a criminal offense or school nonattendance. Involvement in a criminal offense included girls who had been ‘morally corrupted’. In fact, girls as young as eight who had been raped or abused, or even those children in contact with such girls, were considered unsuitable for an ordinary industrial school and were sent to reformatoriesinstead. Siblings were separated. Children were shamed and told that their parents were dead or that they had been abandoned. Parents and grandparents had great difficulty accessing their children and complaints made on their behalf were ignored. There were marked differences in the treatment of those with parents and those without. The children had to contend with neglect, physical, sexual and emotional abuse: “I don’t know why I was there, where I was before, who sent me there … no idea what happened.’… I didn’t know I had sisters until I was over 10 or so … I wasn’t even told they …(X and Y)… were my sisters, I thought they were just other girls that were in there like me.” [source] “She …(Sr X)… literally took off your underwear and got one of the bigger girls to hold your hands and another held your legs and literally walloped you until you were bleeding and you were hot and sticky and you went to bed and slept that off if you could. … (It would)… leave bumps on you.” [source] “He …X… got us back to his house, said he had a sandwich for us. After that he used to follow me around the place, the nuns would have to be blind not to see this. He threatened to burn down the School and threatened to kill my sisters, so you went to bed at night petrified, thinking he was going to break in and burn down the School. You were just petrified, so if I didn’t go to his house, this is what he would do, burn down the School and kill my sisters. He …(witness described anal rape)… several time over years …crying…. It stays with you, it sticks in my mind, and the threat to burn down the School.” [source] “The girls from the workhouse …(orphans)… they were treated worse, they suffered worse. … When we were out for a walk we would bring them back bits of chewing gum and haws that we found on the hedges and on the ground, we were all so hungry and they didn’t get out. … (Orphans)… clothes were different, big patched knickers, boots with no soles in them.” [source] These children were tortured and enslaved by the Catholic Church in Ireland, and the state failed to supervise or protect them. The state indemnified the Church against civil prosecution and is still fighting survivors in the courts. It is clear that people knew what was happening. Children were threatened with being sent away for complaining. Even within the schools there was always somewhere worse to go. Those who stood by and let it happen are just as guilty. As a nation, we have to stand up and admit that we were complicit. It is time to admit the full extent of what happened and seek convictions for the perpetrators. The words of President McAleese – “it was an atrocious betrayal of love” – are mealy-mouthed and underplay the obscene treatment of children in the state’s care. The idea that this was just a few bad apples is surfacing in several quarters, but the report makes it clear that the abuse was systematic and pervasive. According to the Irish Times, “none of the 18 religious congregations that were party to the redress agreement with the Government seven years ago has any plans to look again at its terms.” Despite the report, the congregations are unwilling to provide restitution. This is hardly surprising considering that every attempt to expose their crimes has been blocked, objected to and denounced. The Christian Brothers even tried to block the publication of the report. Their statement of regret was not an apology. Every aspect of the church’s participation in the exposing of these crimes has been forced. There is too much emphasis on the “bad apples” defense. What is important now is what we do with the information. There are apologies to be made – full, frank apologies with admission of guilt. Then there is restitution to the survivors. We have to put a name to what happened to the children in care. These acts by religious congregations were crimes against children and crimes against humanity. Having identified the acts as crimes, the individuals do not get the protection of the cloth that hitherto they have enjoyed. The justice system must name and prosecute the perpetrators. The Catholic church has to own up to its criminal responsibilities. Then, all assets should be frozen and confiscated by the state. All church officials should be removed from public life and there needs to be a complete separation of church and state. Once they have repaid financially and served time for their crimes, the named congregations should no longer have the right to serve in Ireland. |
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