Blaming Only Religious for Abuse Is a Serious Injustice, Irish Catholic, November 13, 2009

'Blaming Only Religious for Abuse Is a Serious Injustice'

Irish Catholic
November 13, 2009

http://www.irishcatholic.ie/d5/content/blaming-only-religious-abuse-serious-injustice

A subtle form of denial has come into operation since the Ryan Report which offloads all the blame on religious orders the Bishop of Killaloe, Willie Walsh has said.

"I believe that in the wake of the Ryan Report a subtle form of denial has come into operation. By offloading the whole blame on religious orders we rid ourselves of any responsibility and can feel united in condemning the cruel treatment of children", he said.

And Bishop Walsh asks if the bishops participated in this denial. "And have we as bishops and the wider Church participated in this denial by somehow distancing ourselves from the religious in avoidance of blame? It is a frequent sociological phenomenon for a community to find its identity in its exclusion of certain groups of 'unacceptable people'.

Bishop Willie WalshHe adds: "What I am trying to say is that of course the religious orders and bishops and Church generally have to bear responsibility for what happened but to force them to take on sole responsibility is to evade the truth and to perpetuate another form of serious injustice."

Bishop Walsh goes on to say that something similar has been in operation in recent years in making Child Sexual Abuse a solely Church issue rather than admitting it is a societal issue - "treating Child Sexual Abuse as simply a Church issue is a denial and an evasion of the truth."

In his article which appears in the November issue of The Furrow, Bishop Walsh warns against calls to prosecute perpetrators of abuse. "Apart from cases of extreme abuse I do not see that there will be any healing in attempting to drag large numbers of elderly religious or lay people into courts at this hour of their lives....if we put people on trial for severe physical punishment administered 40/50 years ago where do we draw the line? Do we confine it to religious?" he asks, "or do we widen it to take in parents, teachers or anyone else who might have taken on the task of disciplining children. I stood in a classroom myself for 25 years and I have no desire to be called to account for every single action of mine over that time!"