Refreshed, renewed and envigoured after my two days of recrimination and penance I am back on track as Wooden Bridge’s only gobshite. One of my accusers during these hard days was someone who said and I quote “if you have nothing good to say about something, say nothing” and whilst I hope fervently that this is not the philosophy of the majority of people, it does explain some of the quirks in small town thinking.
The Bishops of Dublin and God knows what other diocese, took up this pithy quote years ago and they still adhere to its essence today with all its dramatic and awful results. The citizens of many parts of Poland and Germany thought this in World War 2 whilst Hitler was eliminating and allowing to rot to death millions of Jews, Gypsies and others not abiding by his Aryan misthinking. For some reason the hand rarely goes up to draw people’s and right minded authority’s attention to a thing that is not right before it is swiftly cut off. Therefore so called whistle blowers often spend years whistling and blowing and end up sometimes with no hands and no minds. So let us remember and congratulate these very few seekers after justice who have managed to come out the other side scathed or unscathed.
When Hitler’s evil ways were eventually discovered it was supposed to cauterise the minds of most of the world so that it would not happen again but unfortunately it did and very shortly afterwards and has continued to do ever since. We have to be on our guard at all times.
Hopefully when the Bishops misguided evil practice of favouring a malaised institution instead of the rights and lives of innocent children is considered and digested in the light of this Murphy Report and hopefully many other reports to come, this cancer within the Church can also be removed and it might and only might allow the organization to regain a little speck of humanity. This will be a slow and arduous trail and we are due for a good education over the next few years as the scale of this problem is appreciated.
This progress against the devil and all his pomps will only succeed if the brave few keep putting up their hands, it will never be done by people sitting on their big fat simian arses and saying “I see no evil, I speak no evil, I hear no evil.”
So let us ignore the person who tried to give me that advice and let each and every one of us start on a programme of education, designed to give us love, respect and gratitude for the people around us and let us engineer the organs of state and religion to do likewise.
I am delighted to be able to comment on your blog and articles and especially as you do not appear to have a problem with those of us who chose, for whatever reason, not to reveal our identities. On some blogs (they will know who they are), this is not always the case – well with the exception of whether one is speaking in favour or against the views expressed. A “Pat from Boyle” might not sound too authentic but if one was kicking with the correct foot the true identity could be overlooked.
I assume that you really wish to move on from the article “I Wonder Why” and that is a good thing. You have made a few changes which has helped add a little further to the genuineness of your thoughts and I suppose, if the truth were to be known, both parties would need to make a statement.
Life in a small town can really be tricky. Boyle is probably no different, though, than any other town of similar size in Ireland. There are leaders and there are followers and there are those who think they are leaders with their followers. Attempting to rightly pigeon-hole the relevant citizens, correctly, is not easy.
Regarding the Catholic church, it’s bishops and the Murphy report, it might not totally be as clearcut as is being presented in the media or by yourself. I am just generalising here and leaving myself open to contradiction or abuse but so be it. Firstly, what happened was wrong and terrible for those abused. Unforgiveable in my eyes. No excuses, good, bad or indifferent. My venom is against the perpetrators.
The bishops and priests who did nothing to stop this – what was the reason. In doing nothing did they realise the dangers they were exposing other children to. Did they care. Would they knowingly turn a blind eye to such abhorring conduct. What was their motive in not acting. Surely they weren’t a party to this despicable and outrageous abuse of our children.
Is this level of abuse being carried on at present. Is any abuse being carried on at present. The answer probably is “no” to the first and “yes” to the second. But as regards the “yes” probably to no greater extent than by any labelled grouping of people, be they lay or religious (God forbid).
Attitudes have well changed towards the religious, be they bishop, priest, nun or Christian Brother. We seem to have moderated ourselves albeit rather slowly.
Should those who stood idly by be prosecuted or be made redundant (there is a scarcity of religious so redundancy seems out of the question)
Can the excuse of trying to hold the decline in the flock to a minimum be used to explain certain in-actions – Possibly – provided every genuine effort was made to avoid recurrences. (My own view)
The waters are too high at the Wooden Bridge for me to risk being there but the devil knows me well as I courted there in my youth.
Jesse,
The waters have declined here, it is safe to skiff but not to swim. As regards the scarcity of clergy, it was mentioned on the Kenny debacle last week that there would be no priests left in 2040. Has I said in the blog we are just bringing on the day. Bring in the laity and let us hope that Boswell’s words do not ring true “A man who is good enough to go to heaven is good enough to be a clergyman”
Paul Malpas