THE attempt by the Catholic Church spokesman, Mr Jim Cantwell, to present a posthumous image of Archbishop Charles McQuaid as a progressive champion of the natural rights of the mother and child in adoption cases - in his recent letter to this newspaper (March 14th)- is not in accord with the historical, record. That record shows his primary concern was the upbringing and indoctrination of children either in a Catholic home or a Catholic-run orphanage.
Nor does Mr Cantwell's assertion conform with the McQuaid directive governing the adoption by Americans of Irish Catholic children between 1948 and 1962, the subject of current controversy for the Department of Foreign Affairs.
As revealed recently in the Sunday Tribune, this directive divested a mother of all further rights to her child. It required the adoptive parents, Catholics of course, to promise to give the child a Catholic education. The adoptive mother had to prove that she was not using contraceptives, an obsession of McQuaid. It further demanded that the adoptive mother would give up work, an echo of McQuaid's anti-feminist contribution to the 1937 Constitution.
Mr Cantwell's picture of Archbishop McQuaid as being in tune with today's thinking on the respective rights of the parties to an adoption relies on the pioneering but outdated researches of the late John Whyte, rather than on recent revelations. Despite the refusal of the Archdiocese of Dublin to allow scholars access to the files covering Archbishop McQuaid's long reign from 1940 to 1972, significant documentation casting light on his imperious approach to Church-State relations is available for inspection in the National Archives, though not apparently by Mr Cantwell.
Had Mr Cantwell consulted these records, he would have not been so hasty to dismiss Dr Noel Browne's recollections of how Archbishop McQuaid "wouldn't allow" the introduction of adoption legislation in 1948. (The Irish Times, March 11th).
The records show that not only did Archbishop McQuaid block a proposal by Gen Sean MacEoin, the Justice Minister in the Costello government of 1948-51, he had also frustrated an earlier initiative in 1944-5 by Gerry Boland of Fianna Fail.
The absence of legal adoption in Ireland became a matter of public concern towards the end of the second World War, in view of the large number of orphans throughout the world and on account of a rise in Ireland in the numbers of illegitimate children who were born during the Emergency.
With Ireland ranked as one of the few countries still without an adoption law, the de Valera government made tentative steps to remedy this serious social omission in early 1944. In January, Mr S.A. Roche, the Secretary of the Department of Justice, sought Archbishop McQuaid's advice on "religious problems" involved in the adoption of "destitute children".
In March, 1945, the Archbishop delivered his opinion: while legal adoption was not against the tenets of the Catholic faith, he had not seen any proposal which would safeguard the faith of the children. "If your draftsmen can put forward such a provision it would be a matter of great interest to me," he wrote. "If my advice be sought, I should urge that no step be taken in respect of Catholic children - and you know what a proportion that category entails - without referring the matter to the Catholic Hierarchy.
HE message from the Archbishop's palace in Drumcondra was not lost on Mr Roche. In his memorandum to Mr Boland, he feared that if the Archbishop of Dublin was not in favour of the proposal, the hierarchy would not be likely to accept it. "I suggest therefore," he informed Boland, "that we should drop, for the present at any rate, any idea of introducing legislation which would enable the courts to make orders transferring to adopters parental rights and duties in regard to adopted children".
Appending his ministerial approval to this advice, Boland wrote: "I agree that it is unlikely that the hierarchy would be more favourable than the Archbishop, so we had better drop the matter."
Boland in 1945, like MacEoin in 1948, had backed off when confronted with Archbishop McQuaid's demands for absolute Catholic Church control over the terms of proposed adoption of Catholic children. McQuaid's primary concern was religious proselytism, not the advanced psychology of individual rights.
However, when Boland returned Justice after the collapse of the Costello government over Noel Browne's Mother and Child scheme, availed of a new opportunity to introduce adoption legislation - but on McQuaid's denominational terms.
More single-minded than the politicians, the Adoption Society had lobbied Cardinal John D'Alton of Armagh in 1950 to take a more flexible approach than that of McQuaid. This overture resulted in the formation of a hierarchy sub-committee consisting of five bishops, led by the universal McQuaid!
IN January, 1952, this sub-committee came up with the formula desired by McQuaid. "Legal adoption, if it be restricted within certain limits and protected by certain safeguards, is consonant with Catholic teaching. A child's right in respect of faith and, morals must be protected by such safeguards as will assure his (sic) adoption by persons who profess and practise the religion of the child and who are of good moral character"
This episcopal wording paved the way for Mr Boland to introduce a Bill in the Dail. Clause by clause was vetted by McQuaid's intermediary, Father Cecil Barrett, culminating in the Adoption Act, 1952, which contained the condition requiring that adopting parents were "of the same religion as the child and his parents or, if the child is illegitimate, his mother". The measure prevented the adoption of orphan children of a mixed marriage and it prohibited couples in a mixed marriage from adopting a child.
Ironically, in 1974, the year after Dr McQuaid's death, a new Adoption Act formally repealed the religious clause after the High Court had ruled it to be unconstitutional. The clause dictated by Dr McQuaid was found to discriminate against Protestants. It was not an instance of advanced social thinking, as erroneously argued by Mr Cantwell.