SCOTALND
National Secular Society
Posted: Mon, 06 Jul 2015 by Keith Porteous Wood
Following the failed attempt to obstruct the historic child abuse inquiry in Scotland, Keith Porteous Wood exposes the continuing reluctance of the Catholic Church to face up to and pay for its crimes.
Two orders of nuns have sought and failed to frustrate the appointment of the chair of the Scottish child abuse inquiry. Maybe they hoped no one would notice their shocking record of heinous abuse and ponder on their motives. As could be expected from the Scottish Catholic hierarchy’s brazen and disgraceful record on denial and covering up abuse, it conspicuously did not distance itself from the appointment challenge.
A clue emerged when the Scottish Government appointed Susan O’Brien QC to lead its public inquiry into historical child abuse, which will have powers to force witnesses to give evidence and has committed itself to ensuring that abusers “face the full force of the law”.
For some reason, two orders of nuns, the Congregation of the Poor Sisters of Nazareth and the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent De Paul, challenged Ms O’Brien’s appointment, alleging fears of “apparent bias” on the flimsiest of grounds. The QC had acted for her clients only at a very late stage in a case brought against the Poor Sisters of Nazareth to argue a point of law. For these reasons, a judge dismissed the nuns’ challenge and Ms O’Brien will continue to lead the inquiry.
Nuns certainly have their uses, whether or not they are doing the bidding of the Church hierarchy. They managed to convince the Irish Government to indemnify them from what would have been a €1.2bn compensation debt over child abuse for a mere 10% of that sum, costing Irish taxpayers over €1bn that they should never have had to pay.
As the Irish Independent put it: “Two nuns held a pair of deuces while the most experienced minister in the Government folded a full-house in a winner-takes-all game of poker with the Catholic Church.”
And it is likely that little of even the paltry proportion promised was actually paid despite what was later revealed as the massive wealth of the religious orders.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.