Note: I write this post as the only non Roman Catholic contributor to this blog.
The News media are doing everybody a disservice with the manner of their reporting of the Irish clergy abuse scandal. The problem is the conflation of serious incidents with those which are not greatly out of whack with the times in which they occurred.
The report is massive and covers a period of over thirty years, multiple institutions and describes the grim childhood environments of underprivileged Irish children who had the misfortune to end up in care - and grim it is, especially from our 21st century perspective.
However while there are cases of sexual and severe physical abuse recorded, the bulk of what is contained in the parts that I have read is not terribly different from the childhood experiences of many children of that era, some of whom were came from privileged backgrounds.
For example Roald Dahl's description of his time at Repton School, which co-incides with the early period covered by this report, make for chilling reading today and undoubtedly the way the boys were treated there constitutes gross abuse in today's more enlightened times.
And the savage beating of boys at Eton (including birching) continued throughout the period covered by this report.
So do you suppose the childhood experiences of these unfortunate Irish children differs greatly from those in similar circumstances in state run institutions in Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia or the United States during the same period?
But I guess there is no mileage to be gained by answering that question.
The News media are doing everybody a disservice with the manner of their reporting of the Irish clergy abuse scandal. The problem is the conflation of serious incidents with those which are not greatly out of whack with the times in which they occurred.
The report is massive and covers a period of over thirty years, multiple institutions and describes the grim childhood environments of underprivileged Irish children who had the misfortune to end up in care - and grim it is, especially from our 21st century perspective.
However while there are cases of sexual and severe physical abuse recorded, the bulk of what is contained in the parts that I have read is not terribly different from the childhood experiences of many children of that era, some of whom were came from privileged backgrounds.
For example Roald Dahl's description of his time at Repton School, which co-incides with the early period covered by this report, make for chilling reading today and undoubtedly the way the boys were treated there constitutes gross abuse in today's more enlightened times.
And the savage beating of boys at Eton (including birching) continued throughout the period covered by this report.
So do you suppose the childhood experiences of these unfortunate Irish children differs greatly from those in similar circumstances in state run institutions in Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia or the United States during the same period?
But I guess there is no mileage to be gained by answering that question.