As well as the abusers, there were many religious who gave their all to care for society's children, says Séamus Murphy
Recently, Labour's Joan Burton said it was "astonishing" that religious who have spoken out on behalf of the poor and disadvantaged "have chosen to remain silent" on abuse in residential institutions, and called on them to "come forward" about abuse they witnessed (The Irish Times, September 29th, 2003). The sub-text of her statement is clear: do religious not care about justice when it comes to sexual abuse by clerics and religious?
They do care, and they have spoken out, as the pages of such periodicals as The Furrow and Doctrine and Life can attest. Since the early 1990s, religious have pushed their leaders to institute proper policy for dealing with abuse allegations, including reporting to the police. Far from such a policy being resisted, it has been unanimously supported. I have yet to meet the priest or religious who thinks that such crimes should not be reported to the police.
Yet the drift of Irish society to trial by TV docu-drama and studio audience has generated a subliminal perception of priests and religious as tending to paedophilia because of celibacy, and collectively guilty for the crimes of the few. While the good work of individual religious is acknowledged, it is presented as the exception, rather than the rule. Such demonisation of a category of people undermines the civic culture that supports justice and the law.
Issues of justice also arise in connection with compensation for former residents of industrial schools and orphanages run by religious congregations. Many people think that the 18 congregations involved should pay far more than the agreed €128 million, perhaps even the bulk of the full cost, as they are responsible and therefore guilty.
The Government scheme compensates former residents of the institutions for "sexual, physical or emotional abuse or serious neglect". This lumps together very different things. One type of abuse (usually sexual) involved assault which was criminal then as now, perpetrated by individuals. The other has to do with how such institutions were generally run, in which discipline was always strict, often harsh and sometimes cruel. Today, such treatment would be unacceptable. But it was not criminal then, and Irish society (including parents) saw it as acceptable, even desirable.
When the implications of each type of abuse are considered, it becomes clear that the 18 religious congregations are not "guilty" of anything. In the case of criminal abuse, we are dealing with the alleged crimes of individuals, not of any congregation as a whole. Such individuals can be found guilty only in a court of law and by the same standards of evidence applicable in any criminal trial. Accusations of criminal wrongdoing have been made against individual religious, but many of them have vigorously denied any wrongdoing.
In view of this, congregation leaders had to be concerned lest agreeing to participate in the redress scheme might be interpreted as admission of guilt in such cases, prejudicing future criminal trials and violating the rights of the accused. To say that this reflects the congregations' greed or desire to protect the guilty is to display prejudice, ignorance of what religious think, and indifference to the accused's rights.
As regards other types of "abuse", arising from the way the institutions were run, we are not talking about guilt in a legal sense at all. What was not a crime then cannot be retroactively turned into a crime. We may today decide that it was wrong that such institutions existed. It does not follow that religious who ran them are more to blame than others.
The attacks on the congregations are dishonest for, in all the denunciation, I have yet to hear anyone say that they should not have been involved in such work. Yet the implication of the criticism is that, if it were all to do again, such terrible people should not be let near children, which would mean that the State and the taxpayer would have had to foot the full bill.
Logically, that implies the taxpayer should pay the full bill now for all non-criminal "abuse".
As a member of a religious congregation not involved with such institutions, and as a taxpayer, I think the 18 congregations are those who should least be expected to pay. Perhaps the sordid truth behind the rage directed against the 18 is that we, Irish taxpayers, want to avoid paying. We make much of our outrage about neglect of children, but surveys indicate that we oppose higher taxes, even to provide for homeless and disturbed children who would once have gone to those institutions. Would the children of those bygone yearsbeen better off on the streets or in prison, as quite a few are today?
If the religious congregations had profited substantially from their charges, there might be a case for transferring the equivalent to former residents. But they didn't, and as religious had no families, and worked far more than eight hours a day for a pittance, those institutions were being subsidised by the congregations. That's another reason why penalising the congregations now is unjust.
The full story of the residential institutions has not yet been told. But if the anecdotes of harshness are to yield compensation, ought not the anecdotes of kindness be rewarded?
What compensation should be paid to ageing religious, who worked hours nobody would work nowadays for no pay worth talking about? As well as the abusers, there were many religious who gave their all to care for the orphaned or neglected children of the rest of Irish society. It is a travesty of justice to suggest that very work should now render them subject to collective fine and collective imputed guilt.