I have just read a lot of the report of the (Irish) Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (here) and am absolutely sickened. If true (and there seems little doubt of this from the consistency of accounts by witness after witness, and just as tellingly, the stringent efforts made by the “Christian Brothers” and the Catholic Church first to prevent this report from seeing the light of day and then to delay it) this was far, far worse than anything I had expected. The depiction of Catholic laundries where young girls and women are employed seemingly as slave labour, as shown in the film The Magdalene Sisters was bad enough - apparently Catholic laundries still operate in India and other countries, although they stopped operating in Ireland about 10-15 years ago - but this was even worse, with endemic physical, sexual and emotional abuse of already vulnerable children by priests and nuns, which was condoned by the church authorities and the Irish education department. Orphans in particular were singled out for the worse abuse, because the priests and nuns knew that they had no relatives to complain to. It confirms what atheists like me have been saying: “For a good man to do evil, it takes religion”.
It is time for men and women everywhere to take stock, and realise: what is religion other than superstition? In what way is any religion different from astrology?
In the UK, we do not allow the practice of African witchcraft with its associated sacrificing of animals to appease the African gods, but we do allow several other religions, including Roman Catholicism, the Anglican Church, Islam, Hunduism etc. to practice. Where is the logic in that? How can you draw the line between one religion and another, between religion and superstition?
How many wars would be prevented if we all had the courage, and humanity, to stand up and renounce all religions as superstitious wishful thinking? How many wars would have been either prevented or at the very least foreshortened without religion? Protestant versus Catholic in Northern Ireland, Shia Mulsim v Sunni Muslim in the Iran/Iraq war, the 2003 Iraq war (which seems largely to have been entered into because George W Bush and our own Tony Blair both “do God” and believed that He was telling them it was the right thing to invade Iraq?). How long would the Middle East wars have lasted if the children of that area had not been brainwashed into believing that Islam, Christianity and Judaism were (depending on the accident of where they happened to have been born) respectively the “one true religion”?
The next time a religious person tries to tell you that religions do more good than evil, ask them to read the above report, and explain how the most shocking behaviour and abuse of vulnerable children could have happened over more than fifty years (and probably before that), with (according to the report itself) the full knowledge of both the Roman Catholic Church and the Irish State?
It is time for a secular revolution in Ireland: no longer must the state be subservient to a superstitious and discredited historical institution.
“This episode leaves a terrible stain on the whole nation and stinks to high heaven.
From the Catholic Church, who were dishing out the abuse, to the State which was charged with the care of these children. From the civil servants who… knew what was going on but were not brave enough to betray their political masters, to the parents who sent young girls away to hide their pregnancy so they could hold their heads high in their local communities is just disgraceful not to mention the height of hypocrisy.
Teachers, doctors, nurses, relations, people delivering milk; anyone who came into contact with these kids should hold their heads in shame.
Any time we feel like saying we are proud to be Irish we should think of these kids and think again.”
The worst thing about the report is that apparently no one is going to be prosecuted as a result of it, because the Christian Brothers won a court case in 2004 demanding that all names in the report be kept anonymous, even in cases where individuals had already been convicted of child abuse!
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