The Future Will Condemn Us For Pandering to Trans Agenda

The Cass Report on Gender Identity Services for Children

(1) The Trans Agenda and Anti-Catholic Bigotry

The title of this article reflects the headline to an article by Eilis O'Hanlon in the Sunday Independent on 7 August 2022. The Trans Agenda is not a subject I have dwelt on (or even mentioned) on this Blog over the years. One reason I write about it now is that the year 2022 is the 25th anniversary of the first occurrence of a topic that has frequently hit the headlines since 1997  and constitutes my central concern i.e. false claims of child abuse against the Catholic Church - especially false allegations of child murder.  

I summarised my quarter century Crusade in Part E 'My Conclusion - Blood Libel Forever?' of article "Deaths of Children in Mother and Baby Care Homes". The following is an extract from that Summary where I recall an optimistic piece I wrote years ago: 

• "[the hysteria] began in 1997 with an allegation that related to the death of a REAL baby - because Blood Libel  was new in Ireland and needed the appearance of credibility
• it  came to an end in 2010 with reference to the unsolved murder of a REAL child - because several claims had been refuted and credibility was again a factor BUT
• between these two dates, anti-clerical Hysteria reigned supreme and journalists thought they could get away with anything including "Murder of the Undead" allegations!

Even THAT cynical analysis now looks too hopeful with allegations that nuns starved babies in the Mother and Baby Homes. The fact that the Report of the Commission on Mother and Baby Homes refuted those claims, won't put a stop to our anti-clerical hysteria, if the history of the last quarter-century is anything to go by."

On a few occasions over the decades, I thought that our Blood Libel hysteria was at an end (and even that I had contributed to its demise!) [NOTE (i)] but it always re-ignited, albeit in slightly different form on each occasion. Today I note that Eilis O'Hanlon, Brenda Power and Gender  Critical Feminists (and others) in Ireland and the UK are on the offensive against the Trans Lobby - and doing well for now! My own experience has taught me to be deeply pessimistic and never to anticipate victory in the struggle against fanaticism and fantasy in our society!

(2) Ireland: Gender Recognition Act, Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI) and the HSE

(2.1) In an article in the Sunday Times (Irish edition) on 12 June 2022 "Why Women are Right to Defend Their Terf", Brenda Power wrote:

Under the Gender Recognition Act (2015) all a man needs to do is to make a statutory declaration in front of a solicitor and he's a woman! He can participate in women's sport including boxing. He can use women's toilets and changing rooms. He can be admitted to a woman's prison and and indeed there are two violent biological men in Limerick prison at present, one convicted of rape threats and who must be addressed as she. [(ii)]

The employers' representative group IBEC recently circulated guidance that trans employees must be allowed to use the toilets of their gender identity, not their biological sex, and any objectors should receive "training". It has become "standard practice", IBEC says for staff to include their preferred pronouns - he/him, she/her - in email signatures. ...

The extent to which the Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI) is now directing public policy is alarming. It collaborated on IBEC's document, and Niall Muldoon, the Ombudsman for Children, [(iii)] has admitted that his article demanding more access to medical treatment for transgender children was also composed with TENI's guidance. 

According to the HSE, meanwhile, it's "people with cervixes" who get cervical cancer but men get prostate cancer. The Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2022 amends maternity legislation by replacing "woman" with "person". Sara Phillips who chairs TENI, fathered three children before transitioning and sits on the board of the National Women's Council, has admitted to resuming her male identity for a job interview as "I don't believe I'd get a fair shake if I presented myself as female".!

 

(2.2) The Tavistock Clinic - "Unquestioned, Unproven, Unsafe"

The Tavistock Clinic, in London named the Gender and Identity Development Service, was launched in the UK in 1989 to help people aged 17 and under struggling with their gender identity. But in 2020, questions about the service were raised after it was rated "inadequate" by inspectors, following concerns raised by whistleblowers. The number of people seeking the clinic's help is 20 times higher than it was a decade ago, jumping from 250 to 5,000 referrals in 2021. [(iv)] 

In 2009 the HSE began referring Irish children to the clinic. The numbers were small but growing and in the decade up to 2021, 234 Irish children, two as young as five, were referred to the clinic for treatment. From 2014, Tavistock began holding satellite clinics in Crumlin Children's Hospital, Dublin. However, the standard of care given to patients by Tavistock was soon called into question by doctors working in the National Gender Service (NGS) in Loughlinstown in south Dublin where adults and teenagers over 16 are treated.

In early 2019, senior clinicians in the NGS warned the HSE and Crumlin that Tavistock’s Irish operation was “unsafe” and should be immediately shut down. Despite this, the HSE continued to use Tavistock even as alarm about its practices grew in the UK.

The Cass Report

According to an article by Mark Tighe in the Sunday Independent on 7 August 2022 "Unquestioned, Unproven, Unsafe"

An interim report in March 2022 by Dr Hillary Cass, a consultant paediatrician commissioned by the UK government to examine Tavistock, found serious failings in how it assessed children and decided which were placed on puberty blockers.

The Cass Report found children attending Tavistock faced a “clinician lottery”. They either would be assessed for a range of psychological and social issues or instead would get a doctor who would see gender incongruence as “immutable”, with the prescription of puberty blockers and hormones the only solution.

Staff felt pressurised to adopt an “unquestioning affirmative approach” to gender — at odds with standard clinical assessment requirements. A lack of documented assessments meant there was missing evidence justifying transition regimes that children were placed on.

This was all flagged in writing in 2019 by Dr Paul Moran, a consultant psychiatrist with the NGS in St Colmcille’s hospital, who along with Donal O’Shea, a consultant endocrinologist, tried to shout “stop”. Dr Moran fears there is an ideological desire in the HSE to continue the Tavistock-type model of care. ..

Having treated former child patients of the Tavistock Irish satellite in the NGS, Dr Moran is predicting significant numbers of patients will regret transitioning or have other adverse outcomes because they were “rushed” onto puberty blockers and hormones.

“We have good evidence from the patients we have seen that it is the wrong approach for most likely the majority,” Dr Moran said. “There are some children who seem to do well, but at the moment there is no way of predicting at the start of treatment who will do well or badly. In cases where we’ve seen them and they’ve been left in a heap we’ve put resources in to try and fix their mental health, their social problems, try and get them back into college, et cetera.”...

Dr Moran and Dr O’Shea attended a meeting with Crumlin hospital management on March 20, 2019, to discuss how patients would graduate from the Tavistock service to the NGS. “We asked basic questions about the service, such as ‘how many patients attended’ and ‘how many letters of referral there were’,” Moran said. “Crumlin management said they had no knowledge about the service. ‘Who approved it?’ They had no idea.”

As more patients aged out of Tavistock’s care and into the NGS age cohort, Dr Moran and his colleagues became aware of the “very poor clinical service for children”. We were coming across children who were clearly unwell and who had none of their underlying mental health problems addressed,” Dr Moran said. “Many of them were not suitable or ready yet to be on hormone treatment. The endocrinologists working in Crumlin recognised that, too.

“They had basically gone over to Tavistock in distress, dropped out of school and started self-harming. They were rushed on to hormones but left sitting at home, not being schooled. Mental health issues were not addressed.

“There was this total focus on blockers and hormones, but the bigger problems that were pressing in their lives were ignored. By the time they got to us they were often a couple of years sitting in their rooms self-harming...

“Tavistock had a very narrow approach, because they didn’t have the clinical skill or the mix of professions, they become a very ideologically driven service. If you ignore the other problems and proceed with medical treatment, it doesn’t just leave problems unaddressed, it generally worsens. A person who’s really having difficulty engaging with life now, when they’re on hormones, unprepared, that can worsen.”...

Dr Moran  believes that the Cass Report is a watershed moment. "The international consensus is rolling back against specialist hormone treatment for children before puberty", he said. While puberty blockers were previously described as 'reversable', he said the emerging evidence is that administering them to children hitting puberty can have detrimental effects on bone growth and brain development.....     ALSO

Dr. Moran said it is ""really hard for a kid to say 'stop' when there has been such massive investment in what they want, by their family, by their doctor, by their school, by their peers." He said the idea of regret or people changing their minds is seen as "taboo" by some transgender activist groups. Patients tell him they are made feel unwelcome if they bring it up. "There's such cultural taboo about regret that people feel shame if they say there're not happy because they're left out of the community," he said.

He also voices concern that some HSE-funded groups have coached patients to "get their stories straight" before being assessed so they have the best chance lof being prescribed hormones. "They are being told to deny mental health problems and particularly any history of suicide attempts when they come for assessments," Dr Moran said. .....

Much of the surge [in patient numbers on a waiting list] has been caused by a huge increase in autistic people presenting. Dr Moran said that while roughly 20pc of their cases involved autistic people five years ago, it is now approaching 90pc .... Dr Moran is now concerned the HSE will repeat the mistakes of its Tavistock alliance. ..."The HSE seems wedded to to this idea of specialist, hormone-based care for children, which is unsafe. It may be developed safely in the future but right now, as we don't have evidence for the safety of these treatments." 

 

 (2.3) "The Future Will Condemn Us"

Eilis O Hanlon's article "The Future Will Condemn Us for Pandering to the Trans Agenda" is also in Sunday Independent on 7 August 2022. She asks why Government Ministers and the media are silent on the questions over children sent to a dangerous medical clinic abroad. After all when people look back at scandals from the past involving the abuse of children by church and state,  they always ask  How was this allowed to happen? And  reassure themselves it could never happen today, because the citizens of our caring and compassionate society, having learned from the mistakes of the past, would now speak out against it! Nothing of the kind!

Critics had warned for years that the treatments the [Tavistock] clinic performed on children who expressed doubts or unease about their gender were driven by ideological fervour rather than medical ethics and good practice, but they were either ignored or condemned as “transphobic”.

The recent Cass Report vindicated every one of their misgivings. Despite that, there has been virtual silence in Ireland about what happened to Irish children sent to this hellish place. TDs aren’t raising the issue. The media is largely silent.

In marked contrast, an inspection report by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) that showed dozens of children in foster care in north Dublin were overdue a visit by child and family agency Tusla was given the full interrogative treatment on RTÉ’s News At One last week, despite the fact that, thankfully, “there was no child at immediate risk in any of the cases discussed”.

Why has there not been similar concern about children who were actively put in harm’s way by being referred to the Tavistock clinic? Why are no questions being asked of Irish authorities who approved this egregious trade? ....

Trans activist groups funded by the taxpayer have been given free rein to go into schools to proselytise, weaponising spurious statistics about the risk of suicide among gender-confused young people, the upshot of which is to poison children’s minds against their own bodies. Teachers and parents say more and more children are presenting as trans after being exposed to such propaganda online, where activists proliferate. Professionals who bravely resist this pressure by reassuring children that there is nothing wrong with their bodies are mendaciously accused of advocating “conversion therapy” when it is the activists themselves who are urging children to reject their bodies.....

The publicly funded Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI) even offers what it calls “gender identity skills training” for health workers, using self-styled “national and international experts”, paid for by the HSE’s Social Inclusion Division, meaning the State is pushing models of care known to be widely discredited. TENI makes no bones about what it wants to see. It explicitly urges the “abolishment of the medical/diagnostic model” of treatment, to be replaced by “the right to our own bodies”. The problem is that it wants the right to influence how children think about their bodies, too, while continuing to state as if it was a fact that puberty blockers are reversible — a highly irresponsible assertion two years after Irish doctors officially stopped making any such claims. 

Children’s Ombudsman Niall Muldoon was even forced to acknowledge last year that a piece he wrote for [the Sunday Independent] about the issue was “done in collaboration” with TENI, as well as the LGBTQ+ youth charity BeLongTo. BeLongTo also states that meetings of “trans, non-binary and questioning young people” are held weekly in the Children’s Ombudsman’s Office.

Ministers urgently need to address these concerns. A trawl of the Government’s own website fails to find a single press release published on the closure of the Tavistock clinic, despite the fact hundreds of vulnerable Irish children went through the system.....Everyone who looks at this honestly knows full well that, if this involved any other failure of care by the State, it would be everywhere on the news in Ireland, as the cervical cancer scandal was. Instead, because it’s about patients who identify as trans, there is an awkward and fearful silence from politicians and the media alike.

 

(3) WHY are Politicians, the HSE and RTÉ so Fearful of ideologically Driven Trans Organisations?

In a follow-up article on 14 August Eilis O'Hanlon attempts to answer that question. 

Regarding RTE and the HSE:   RTE initially chose to ignore the Sunday Independent story about clinical psychiatrist Paul Moran’s warnings to the HSE over Tavistock. Then, when shamed into covering the story a day late, the national broadcaster put out a report on Morning Ireland which did not even feature Moran’s voice, despite having interviewed him. Dr Siobhán Ní Bhriain, the HSE’s national lead for integrated care, was asked if the HSE had listened to Moran’s concerns.

“We did of course take them on board... but we satisfied ourselves that the evidence wasn’t there to support what we were hearing,” she said. This assertion was not scrutinised by Morning Ireland. Neither was Ní Bhriain’s statement that, as the HSE continues to send children to a discredited clinic, “we will monitor it extremely closely”. As per Eilis O'Hanlon "It goes beyond belief that RTÉ would allow such statements in relation to any other reported scandal to go unchallenged."

The RTE reporter even declared at one point that puberty blockers “work by putting a pause on puberty while a young person thinks about their gender identity” BUT according to Dr Hilary Cass, author of the report which led to Tavistock’s closure, “there has been very little research” on the effect of puberty blockers on “neurocognitive development”.

It was left to [national independent radio] Newstalk Breakfast to allow Dr Paul Moran to speak at length. He made it clear that representations by him to the HSE went unanswered.

“We went as far as sending them an audit of children outlining the problems, and this was never addressed or discussed with us,” he said. “Further, when we did meet Crumlin, the concerns we raised were omitted from the minutes — so the idea that they’ve been taking on board concerns and found no evidence is shocking.”

Regarding current Tanaiste [Deputy PM] Leo Varadkar: When the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) recently updated its policy to say that female contact rugby was only for those born female, he waded in within hours to urge the IRFU to consider “the voice of those most affected” — by which it’s clear he meant those born male.

In 2015, Varadkar’s first full year as Minister for Health, 15 children were referred to Tavistock. After he became Taoiseach [Prime Minister] in 2017, with Simon Harris as Minister for Health, referrals rose to 36. The following year they went up again, to 49. As per Eilis O'Hanlon: "Even if neither man knew every detail about what went on while they were in office, they must now be concerned — yet neither has felt the need to comment. No politician has." 

The Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI), which goes into schools and teaches children controversial gender theories, remains a source for government and media.

Ollie Bell is a self-described “non-binary socialist feminist activist” from Dublin. As per Eilis O'Hanlon "On Bell’s public profile on Twitter there is a link to a page on the internet giving advice on where to buy and administer DIY hormone treatment. Bell sits on the board of TENI. Even though it’s been reported that the HSE is concerned about TENI’s online activities, nothing has yet been done to rein them in."

BUT the dangers of placing children on puberty blockers and other hormonal treatment are becoming increasingly clear. Sweden has outlawed their use completely for under 18s, citing a “lack of quality evidence”. They believe the risks of the treatment “outweigh the benefits at present”. According to Paul Moran, these gender-affirming clinics are also being closed in France and Finland. Yet Crumlin remains ideologically committed to this form of care. “They’re very influenced by activist groups,” he says.

(4) CONCLUSION: Will Fight-Back against Trans Agenda be Successful?

I stated in the Introduction that on a number of occasions over the past 25 years, I thought my own Crusade against the fanatics who accused Catholic clergy and religious of killing children was successful. Not only was I incorrect but the insanity - once largely confined to Ireland - has spread to other countries - most recently Canada. [(v)]

I am encouraged that, in the aftermath of the Cass Report, some heavy hitters in the Media and among Doctors and Feminists have spoken out against what Dr Paul Moran believes is an ideological desire in the HSE to continue the Tavistock-type model of care. They have certainly been more successful than I or other activists have been in bringing their issue to the attention of the public and putting their opponents on the back foot. I am still dubious that this is going to end well!

I note that our national broadcaster RTE is doing its best to ignore the Trans issue - as is our "newspaper of record" the Irish Times. The vast majority of our politicians have remained silent - apparently too scared to criticise the Trans Lobby - while our Tanaiste [Deputy PM soon to be PM] Leo Varadkar spoke out against the Irish Rugby Football Union when it declared that female rugby is solely for those born female. How long will the Sunday Independent et al continue to publish critical articles about Tavistock and TENI if everyone else is either silent about their follies or actively supporting them and denouncing the critics?

Returning to my own subject (False Allegations of Child Abuse and Child Killing), I note that Irish Catholic nuns were major targets of this hysteria. The original Blood Libel was directed against the Sisters of Mercy 25 years ago and recent ones targeted the nuns who ran Mother and Baby Homes - especially the Bon Secours Sisters of Tuam. All such claims were discredited (not least by the Final Report of the Committee of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes) [(vi)] but the media, politicians and "Victims" just shifted gear and attacked the nuns on a different front. I suspect something similar will happen here. Also NO feminists - including the current gender-critical ones - spoke up for the women who were defamed over the past quarter century!

 

NOTES:

(i) I may have contributed to the demise of the "Murder of the Undead" allegations i.e. claims that the Christian Brothers killed boys - during periods when no boy died of ANY cause. On the other hand, our anti-clerics may have figured out - by themselves - that it's unwise to make idiot accusations that can be easily refuted!

(ii) See article in Irish Examiner dated 4th August 2021 "Transgender Women in Limerick jail Locked in Cells for up to 23 hours" . It begins: 

Two transgender women in Limerick Prison are locked in their cells for up to 23 hours a day, with one of the inmates describing her isolation as “mental torture” and the other saying it was “worse than hell”. 

Their plight is highlighted in a report by the Inspector of Prisons, who said the two prisoners live an “extremely isolated existence”. In a report, the inspector said the women are largely confined to their cells under a prison rule which allows inmates to be put on a restricted regime either for their own safety or that of other prisoners....

(iii) The website of our Ombudsman for Children indicates that its values include: 

"Independent — our independence is important so we can say the things that need to be said and hold public organisations to account."

Are there any circumstances that would cause our Ombudsman to criticise TENI ?  

(iv) See NHS to Close Tavistock Child Gender Identity Clinic - BBC News, 28 July 2022

(v) See in particular Part A of Blog article Blood Libel in Canada - Church Burning and Graves of Indigenous Children at former Residential Schools

(vi) See Part A of Blog article Deaths of Children in Mother and Baby Care Homes (did they die of starvation?) and the extract concerning 'Marasmus' from Chapter 33 of the Final Report of the Commission 

Richard Dawkins ("Catholicism is Worse than Child Abuse") - Cancelled by American Humanists and Trinity Students!

 

Richard Dawkins and Trinity College Students' Union

(A) Introduction

In 1996, the American Humanist Association gave Dawkins their Humanist of the Year Award. In 2021, they voted to withdraw it, stating he "demean[ed] marginalized groups", including transgender people, using "the guise of scientific discourse". In September 2020 The Hist - or the College Historical Society of Trinity College Dublin - rescinded their invitation to Dawkins to address the society in 2021 citing his stance on the religion of Islam and sexual assault as reasoning for their cancellation. Bríd O’Donnell, auditor of The Hist explained She added the society “will not be moving ahead with his address as we value our members comfort above all else”. 

I will write more about these two organisations. [The Hist was established in Trinity College in 1770, inspired by the club formed by Edmund Burke during his  time in Trinity in 1747. It is the oldest surviving undergraduate student society in the world.] For now, suffice it to say that neither of them saw anything immoral about Dawkins' grotesque attacks on the Catholic Church - even though some of his own followers are embarrassed by them! American Humanists and Trinity students are prepared to tolerate any vicious or lying attack on the Catholic Church because they themselves hate it. Their attitude is similar to that of some Weimar intellectuals in the 1920s and 30s who were so caught up in hatred of the Churches, Capitalists, Army etc that they failed to understand that the Nazis were the real danger! (See Notes [1] and [2] )

[The following is an edited version of the article on Richard Dawkins on my old website (not Blog)  www.IrishSalem.com ]

(B) Richard Dawkins: "Catholicism is Worse than Child Abuse"

In October 2002, there was an article in " The Dubliner" magazine entitled, "The God Shaped Hole" reporting on Richard Dawkins conversation with editor Emily Hourican. In the course of the conversation, Dawkins compares Catholicism to the sexual molestation of children, and argues that Catholicism is worse:

"Regarding the accusations of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests, deplorable and disgusting as those abuses are, they are not so harmful to the children as the grievous mental harm in bringing up the child Catholic in the first place."

As is clear from the full article, the above is not taken out of context but is an accurate representation of Dawkins' attitude to Catholics.

Article in "The Dubliner" and Reply re "Catholicism is Worse than Child Abuse"

Dawkins stated that:

"....The Roman Catholic Church is one of the forces for evil in the world, mainly because of the powerful influence it has over the minds of children. The Catholic Church has developed, over the centuries, brilliant techniques in brain washing children; even intelligent people who have had a proper, full cradle-Catholic upbringing find it hard to shake it off when they reach adulthood. Obviously many of them do - and congratulations to them for it - but even some really quite intelligent people fail to shake it off, powerful evidence of the skill in brainwashing that the Catholic Church exercises. It's far more skilled than, for instance, the Anglican Church, mere amateurs in the game.

"The Catholic Church also has an extraordinarily retrogressive stance on everything to do with reproduction. Any sort of new technology which makes life easier for women without causing any suffering is likely to be opposed by the Catholic Church. Regarding the accusations of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests, deplorable and disgusting as those abuses are, they are not so harmful to the children as the grievous mental harm in bringing up the child Catholic in the first place.

" I had a letter from a woman in America in her forties, who said that when she was a child of about seven, brought up a Catholic, two things happened to her: one was that she was sexually abused by her parish priest. The second thing was that a great friend of hers at school died, and she had nightmares because she thought her friend was going to hell because she wasn't Catholic. For her there was no question that the greatest child abuse of those two was the abuse of being taught about hell. Being fondled by the priest was negligible in comparison. And I think that's a fairly common experience.

 "I can't speak about the really grave sexual abuse that obviously happens sometimes, which actually causes violent physical pain to the altar boy or whoever it is, but I suspect that most of the sexual abuse priests are accused of is comparatively mild - a little bit of fondling perhaps, and a young child might scarcely notice that. The damage, if there is damage, is going to be mental damage anyway, not physical damage. Being taught about hell - being taught that if you sin you will go to everlasting damnation, and really believing that - is going to be a harder piece of child abuse than the comparatively mild sexual abuse. .......

 A critic of Dawkins,  Mike Gene replied:

I think it clear that this is raw anti-religious bigotry. We can ignore the letter from "a woman in America" as a) we have no idea whether her account is valid and b) even if valid, it is an anecdote. Since Dawkins is a drum-banger for science, surely he would recognize science would need much more than a vague anecdote to support this contention.

So let's think through on Dawkins' logic. First, where is the science? What scientific evidence does Dawkins offer to support the contention that believing in Hell is a worse form of abuse than being sexually molested? Where is the evidence of this "grievous mental harm" in bringing up the child Catholic? His biased opinion? His emotional approach? An anecdote?

Secondly, it is ironic that Dawkins has the science backwards. There are plenty of studies to show that sexual molestation of a child can have long term, negative effects. Dismissing it as "a bit of fondling" and being "mental damage anyway" is insulting to the many victims of child molestation. And there are plenty of studies that also show that religious belief and convictions, if held seriously, provide a net positive benefit in terms of psychological and physical health. In other words, contrary to the views of Dawkins, being raised a Catholic is not worse than being sexually abused.

But let's follow through with this example of Dawkins Think. As it stands, it is illegal to sexually molest a child. And, of course, it is not illegal to raise your child as a Catholic. But if it is really more harmful to raise your child as a Catholic than to sexually molest your child, as Dawkins believes, society needs to adjust its laws. According to Dawkins' logic, we should a) either make it illegal to raise your child as a Catholic, as it is worse than pedophilia, or b) legalize pedophilia, since it is not as bad as the legal activity of teaching a child about Hell and Catholicism. Which option would Dawkins choose? It's his logic, thus his choice to clarify.

Consider a simple analogy. The house next to your house goes up for sale. Two families are interested in buy it. The first family is a devout Catholic family. The father is hard working and has broken no laws. But he has taught his kids to believe in Catholic doctrine, including belief in Hell. The second family is not religious. The father is also hard working, but he also sexually molests his kids. In Dawkins World, you hope the child molester moves in next door, as he is not as bad as the Catholic man."

 (C) It Should be Illegal for Parents to Indoctrinate Their Children - Petition Signed by Dawkins

In December 2006, Dawkins signed a Petition that upset some of his most devoted followers - so much so that he quickly withdrew his signature and claimed he had "misunderstood" same. In contrast he has never withdrawn his claim that Catholicism is worse than child abuse. While the latter claim worries some of his followers, it is directly entirely at the Catholic Church and therefore a lot more palatable to anti-clerics).

Martin Wagner of "The Atheist Experience" Blog *** wrote in an article called "Has Dawkins Totally Jumped the Shark":

"The petition, authored by one Jamie Wallis using a service on the No 10 Downing Street website that allows users to write their own petitions and gather signatures right there for the PM's consideration, reads as follows:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Make it illegal to indoctrinate or define children by religion before the age of 16. In order to encourage free thinking, children should not be subjected to any regular religious teaching or be allowed to be defined as belonging to a particular religious group based on the views of their parents or guardians. At the age of 16, as with other laws, they would then be considered old enough and educated enough to form their own opinion and follow any particular religion (or none at all) through free thought.

"Whoa.

"Let's run through this.

"The first and most obvious thing that comes to mind is that what the petition asks is something that in America is unequivocally unconstitutional: government intrusion in private religious practice. Ed Brayton, over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars, has gone into outrage overload at this whole thing, declaring that "as far as I'm concerned, this pretty much removes Dawkins from any discussion among reasonable people." He goes on to a laundry list of entirely valid criticisms.

This proposal is every bit as noxious and totalitarian as a proposal from Christian reconstructionists that those who teach their children about witchcraft or atheism should be thrown in jail would be. Just imagine what you would have to do to actually enforce such a law. No one could take their children to church, which means you'd have to literally police the churches to make sure no children went in. Nor could they teach their children about religion at home, read the Bible with them, say prayers with them before they go to bed. The only way to enforce such a law would be to create a society that would make Orwell's 1984 seem optimistic by comparison.

"In case the "thrown in jail" part sounds a little hyperbolic to you, recall that the petition itself uses the word "illegal," and the general idea is that if someone does something illegal, then they've earned at the very least a citation and at worst imprisonment. Does Dawkins really want people to go to jail for taking their kids to Sunday School? Has he really gone that far over the top?" [End of Quotation from Martin Wagner]

*** The Blog motto seems to be "We feed on the blood of the ignorant!" - but they may not be referring to Dawkins!

My Comment: Dawkins withdrew his signature, claiming that he had misunderstood the Petition, believing it only referred to religious schools. The Petition does not mention schools at all and moreover is perfectly in line with Dawkins claim that raising your child as a Catholic is a form of child abuse.

(D) Hitler was not an Atheist; He was a Catholic - as per Richard Dawkins

On 22 September 2010 the UK Guardian reported that "Richard Dawkins has contacted the Guardian to strongly deny that he compared Roman Catholics to Nazis, rather he said that Hitler was a Roman Catholic." The Guardian then gave a detailed account of his speech that included the following:

"The unfortunate little fact that Ratzinger was in the Hitler Youth has been the subject of a widely observed moratorium. I've respected it myself, hitherto. But after the pope's outrageous speech in Edinburgh, blaming atheism for Adolf Hitler, one can't help feeling the gloves are off ..

"Hitler was a Roman Catholic. Or at least he was as much a Roman Catholic as the 5 million so-called Roman Catholics in this country today. For Hitler never renounced his baptismal Catholicism, which was doubtless the criterion for counting the 5 million alleged British Catholics today. You cannot have it both ways. Either you have 5 million British Catholics, in which case you have to have Hitler, too. Or Hitler was not a Catholic, in which case you have to give us an honest figure for the number of genuine Catholics in Britain today – the number who really believe Jesus turns himself into a wafer, as the former Professor Ratzinger presumably does.

"In any case, Hitler certainly was not an atheist. In 1933 he claimed to have "stamped atheism out", having banned most of Germany's atheist organisations, including the German Freethinkers League whose building was then turned into an information bureau for church affairs. ...

"Even if Hitler had been an atheist – as Joseph Stalin more surely was – how dare Ratzinger suggest that atheism has any connection whatsoever with their horrific deeds? Any more than Hitler and Stalin's non-belief in leprechauns or unicorns. Any more than their sporting of a moustache – along with Francisco Franco and Saddam Hussein. There is no logical pathway from atheism to wickedness.

"Unless, that is, you are steeped in the vile obscenity at the heart of Catholic theology. I refer (and I am indebted to Paula Kirby for the point) to the doctrine of original sin. These people believe – and they teach this to tiny children, at the same time as they teach them the terrifying falsehood of hell – that every baby is "born in sin". That would be Adam's sin, by the way: Adam who, as they themselves now admit, never existed.

"Original sin means that, from the moment we are born, we are wicked, corrupt, damned. Unless we believe in their God. Or unless we fall for the carrot of heaven and the stick of hell. That, ladies and gentleman, is the disgusting theory that leads them to presume that it was godlessness that made Hitler and Stalin the monsters that they were. We are all monsters unless redeemed by Jesus. What a vile, depraved, inhuman theory to base your life on. 

"Ratzinger is an enemy of humanity. ..........."

 (E) Extracts from "Hitler's Secret Conversations" (aka "Hitler's Table Talk") regarding Christianity

The book Hitler's Secret Conversations 1941-1944 published by Farrar, Straus and Young, Inc. first edition, 1953, contains definitive proof of Hitler's real views. The book was published in Britain under the title, "Hitler's Table Talk 1941-1944", which title was used for the Oxford University Press paperback edition in the United States.

All of these are quotes from Adolf Hitler:

Night of 11th-12th July, 1941:
National Socialism and religion cannot exist together.... The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity.... Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things. (p 6 & 7)

10th October, 1941, midday:
Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure. (p 43)

14th October, 1941, midday:
The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.... Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity.... And that's why someday its structure will collapse.... ...the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.... Christianity the liar.... We'll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State. (p 49-52)

19th October, 1941, night:
The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity.

21st October, 1941, midday:
Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism, the destroyer.... The decisive falsification of Jesus' doctrine was the work of St.Paul. He gave himself to this work... for the purposes of personal exploitation.... Didn't the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, faggots? Of old, it was in the name of Christianity. Today, it's in the name of Bolshevism. Yesterday the instigator was Saul: the instigator today, Mardochai. Saul was changed into St.Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx. By exterminating this pest, we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea. (p 63-65)

13th December, 1941, midnight:
Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery.... .... When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let's be the only people who are immunised against the disease. (p 118 & 119)

14th December, 1941, midday:
Kerrl, with noblest of intentions, wanted to attempt a synthesis between National Socialism and Christianity. I don't believe the thing's possible, and I see the obstacle in Christianity itself.... Pure Christianity-- the Christianity of the catacombs-- is concerned with translating Christian doctrine into facts. It leads quite simply to the annihilation of mankind. It is merely whole-hearted Bolshevism, under a tinsel of metaphysics. (p 119 & 120)

9th April, 1942, dinner:
There is something very unhealthy about Christianity (p 339)

27th February, 1942, midday:
It would always be disagreeable for me to go down to posterity as a man who made concessions in this field. I realize that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors-- but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie. Our epoch Uin the next 200 years will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.... My regret will have been that I couldn't... behold ." (p 278)

(F) MY CONCLUSION

Hitler was in fact, a Social Darwinist who believed in an impersonal Providence which gives victory to the strong by using a process of natural selection to ensure the survival of the fittest. (He objected to Christianity because he saw it as "a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature ..... the systematic cultivation of the human failure".) In addition Hitler - like Dawkins - did not believe in Original Sin - which the Catholic Church regards as a radical weakness in human nature by means of which we have a "natural" tendency to do evil rather than good.

NOTES:

[1] As per Wikipedia "The College Historical Society (CHS) – popularly referred to as The Hist – is one of the two debating societies at Trinity College Dublin. It was established within the college in 1770 and was inspired by the club formed by the philosopher Edmund Burke during his own time in Trinity in 1747. It is the oldest surviving undergraduate student society in the world. .... Prominent members have included many Irish men and women of note, from the republican revolutionary Theobald Wolfe Tone and the author Bram Stoker, to founding father of the Northern Irish state Edward Carson and first President of Ireland Douglas Hyde, and – in more recent times – Government Ministers Mary Harney (who was the first female auditor of the society) and Brian Lenihan."

Theobald Wolfe Tone, later leader of the United Irishmen rebellion in 1798, was elected auditor in 1785, and future rebel Thomas Addis Emmet was a member of the committee. The society was briefly expelled from the college in 1794, but readmitted on the condition that "No question of modern politics shall be debated". Eight members of The Hist were expelled in 1798 in the run-up to the Rebellion, and a motion was later carried condemning the rebellion, against their former auditor.

Tension between the society and the college flourished in the early nineteenth century, with the auditor being called before the provost in 1810. After a number of members were removed at the request of the college board, the society left the college in 1815. The society continued from 1815 as the Extern Historical Society until 1843, when it reformed within the college again on the condition that no subject of current politics was debated. As per Wikipedia "This provision remains in the Laws of the Hist as a nod to the past, but the college authorities have long since ceased to restrict the subjects of the society's debates." 

The decadence of the oldest surviving undergraduate student society in the world ("we value our members comfort above all else”) is therefore significant and illustrates the truth of the old saying that "A fish rots from the head down"!

[2] The Guardian has a very informative article dated 20 April 2021 on the issue "Richard Dawkins Loses ‘Humanist of the Year’ Title over Trans Comments" The subtitle is "American Humanist Association criticises academic for comments about identity using ‘the guise of scientific discourse’, and withdraws its 1996 honour" 

Like The Hist, the American Humanist Association had no problem with Dawkins' view that raising one's child  as a Catholic is worse than child sex abuse. So exactly WHAT did the AHA object to? 

 On Monday, it announced that it was withdrawing the award, referring to a tweet sent by Dawkins earlier this month, in which he compared trans people to Rachel Dolezal, the civil rights activist who posed as a black woman for years.

“In 2015, Rachel Dolezal, a white chapter president of NAACP, was vilified for identifying as Black,” wrote Dawkins on Twitter. “Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss.”

The Guardian article goes on to give details of a statement from the AHA board:

The AHA said that Dawkins had “over the past several years accumulated a history of making statements that use the guise of scientific discourse to demean marginalised groups, an approach antithetical to humanist values”. The evolutionary biologist’s latest comment, the board said, “implies that the identities of transgender individuals are fraudulent, while also simultaneously attacking Black identity as one that can be assumed when convenient”, while his “subsequent attempts at clarification are inadequate and convey neither sensitivity nor sincerity”.

“Consequently, the AHA Board has concluded that Richard Dawkins is no longer deserving of being honored by the AHA, and has voted to withdraw, effective immediately, the 1996 Humanist of the Year award.”

The claim that Dawkins had "accumulated a history of making statements that .. demean marginalised groups" presumably includes his 2015 remark that: “Is trans woman a woman? Purely semantic. If you define by chromosomes, no. If by self-identification, yes. I call her “she” out of courtesy.”

[3] The Hist and the American Humanist Association are not the ONLY secular organisations to take offence at Dawkins' tweet. The afore-mentioned Guardian article also quotes Alison Gill, vice president for legal and policy at American Atheists (founded by Madalyn Murray O'Hair) and a trans woman. According to The Guardian "she said Dawkins’ comments reinforce dangerous and harmful narratives". She said: “Given the repercussions for the millions of trans people in this country, in this one life we have to live, as an atheist and as a trans woman, I hope that Professor Dawkins treats this issue with greater understanding and respect in the future.”

Proposed Restorative (Redress) Scheme for Former Residents of Mother and Baby Homes

 

Minister for Children, Roderic O'Gorman

OAK Consulting

c/o Department of Children, Equality and Youth

Block 1, Miesian Plaza

50-58 Baggot St Lower

Dublin 2

With reference to the "Restorative Recognition Scheme" I note that "Submissions are being invited from former residents, their families, advocacy and representative groups and other interested parties." I am definitely an "interested party". I was a De La Salle Brother from 1966 to 1969 and details of my background are in the article "The Reason Why: Brother Maurice Kirk and I" on my Blog IrishSalem.Blogspot.com. I believe that nearly every one of my former colleagues who worked in an Industrial School or similar institution was accused of child abuse and if I had done so myself, I'm sure I would have been accused also. Hate Speech from the media plus the almost evidence-free payouts from the previous Redress Board, encouraged people to lie. I am therefore concerned that there is going to be a repetition of the previous fiasco.

(A) Richard Webster regarding our previous Redress Scheme

I corresponded for years with the late UK cultural historian Richard Webster on the issue of false allegations and the Irish Redress Board. I gave him the material regarding Ireland that he included in his book "The Secret of Bryn Estyn - The Making of a Modern Witch Hunt" - a work that mainly concerns a child abuse panic in North Wales but also material on similar bouts of hysteria in other countries. (His book is mainly about lying attacks on secular child care personnel but he sees the link with similar attacks on the Catholic Church).  He published the Irish material separately on his website in an essay "States of Fear, the Redress Board and Ireland's Folly". Unfortunately Richard Webster died in 2011 aged only 60. His friends maintained the website RichardWebster.net until recently but it's no longer available (although his Blog is). Fortunately I copied the text onto my old website and I have linked to that. 

The data regarding Ireland in the book mainly concerns the allegations made by Pat Rabbitte, and the late Christine Buckely and Mary Raftery.

I also gave Richard the material concerning the Redress Board on which he based his essay "The Christmas Spirit in Ireland" dated 24 December 2005. Again I copied it onto my old website IrishSalem.com My contribution to that essay mainly consisted of the the statistics and the quote with which Richard ended it: 

With the standard of proof dangerously close to zero it is clearly, for the moment at least, almost impossible to be refused compensation. As the former bank robber James Gantley put it a year ago, the Redress Board is 'The Good Ship Lollipop, lots of dosh for everyone'.

The Secret of Bryn Estyn was published at the beginning of 2005 but was 9 years in the making.  In the book  Richard wrote that: 

Once again it must immediately be acknowledged that some of the allegations which have been made against Roman Catholic priests – possibly the majority of the early ones – are genuine. Others, including a number based on bizarre recovered memories, are quite evidently false.

But in the later essay he said: 

But it is also likely to be the case that a very large number of the claims received [by the Redress Board], perhaps as many as 90%, would prove, if it were possible to investigate them fully, entirely false. If that is indeed the case then the Irish government has committed a protracted act of folly on a scale unprecedented in the entire history of sexual abuse compensation schemes. [my emphasis]

 I hope that I contributed to his change of emphasis! 

(B) My Testimony to the Ryan Commission re False Allegations

I gave evidence to the Ryan Commission on my own behalf and as a member of the group "Let Our Voices Emerge" that represented victims of false allegations. I had a letter in the Irish Examiner on 7 November 2011 "Ryan Report Did Not Deal with False Allegations"

that summarizes our experience. 

My own testimony concerned false allegations of child murder - mainly targeting the Christian Brothers but also against the Sisters of Mercy. An updated version of my testimony is contained in my article "Blood Libel in Ireland - directed against Catholics not Jews"  The same kind of allegations have been made against the Bon Secours Sisters in Tuam (and Good Shepherd nuns etc) - except they are supposed to have starved children to death rather than beaten them to death!

In that connection, I also contributed to Hermann Kelly's 2007 book "Kathy's Real Story: A Culture of False Allegations Exposed" which deals mainly with fake abuse "survivor" Kathy O'Beirne but also goes into the culture of hysteria that made her own book "Kathy's Story: A Childhood Hell Inside the Magdalen Laundries" into a best-seller in 2005. I contributed to the second part of Mr. Kelly's book and especially to the section he which he discusses claims that the Christian Brothers had been responsible for the deaths of boys in their care. Because many of these claims refer to periods when no boy died of ANY cause(!), I coined the phrase "Murder of the Undead". Since Hermann Kelly is more moderate than I, he uses the subheading "Funerals of the Undead"  in his discussion of this issue! 

(C) History Seminar on Tuam Children's Home etc

This History Seminar was held in Galway on in October 2020 and - apart from myself - it featured Eugene Jordan, recently the President of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society and Brian Nugent ,author of  @Tuam Babies: A Critical look at the Tuam Children's Home Scandal. A major topic was the claim that the Bon Secours and other nuns allowed children to starve to death. These allegations were based on a (deliberate?) misunderstanding of the medical term "Marasmus". (The Final Report of the Commission on Mothers and Baby Homes later confirmed that Marasmus on a Death Certificate did not mean death by wilful neglect.)

In my own lecture, I quoted from a crazy article by Emer O'Kelly in the Sunday Independent on 8 June 2014 "Tuam Babies Cry Not For Justice But For Vengeance" that opens with the following:

Seventy years ago, on the orders of a maniac, little children and babies were herded into barren camps in Germany and occupied Poland by men in black uniforms. They were starved to death in those camps; sometimes they had hideous medical experiments carried out upon them while alive, so hideous the silence of death was probably merciful. And when they died, their little bodies were thrown into huge pits. Because they were scum: Jewish scum.

In the course of the article Emer O'Kelly trice denounces the Good Shepherd Sisters  i.e. the wrong nuns!

Similar thuggish articles appeared in other newspapers (including the Sunday World) and obviously affected former residents. In my "Open Letter to Archbishop Michael Neary regarding Tuam Home" I quoted one of them (regarding the Good Shepherd Home in New Ross in 1964) : 

I saw a baby in a nun’s arms and blood dripping along the floor. I saw another nun standing with a shovel in her hand. I was a 12 year old. I knew they were going out to do something, or dig a hole for that child but nobody would listen to me.

This was published in the Sunday World on 29 June 2014. Earlier that same month Fr Brian D’Arcy had an  article  entitled “Fr Brian: Baby Graves are Our Greatest Crime” that includes the following:

“When I first heard the news that more than 800 babies were buried in what was formerly a septic tank I was astonished – because initially I thought it happened in some famine-stricken country today. Then I thought I was hearing about Nazi Germany….

Please note that part C of my article "Deaths of Children in Mother and Baby Care Homes" is entitled "Commission Acknowledges Existence of False Allegations!" and includes the Commission's conclusion that "A number of witnesses gave evidence that was clearly incorrect. This contamination probably occurred because of meetings with other residents and inaccurate media coverage" [my emphasis]

(D) SUMMARY

I had intended to write more but today 31 March 2021 is the deadline for submissions. I may send additional material as an Appendix later tonight. To summarise my concerns I will repeat the above quotation from Richard Webster's 2005 essay "The Christmas Spirit in Ireland":

But it is also likely to be the case that a very large number of the claims received [by the Redress Board], perhaps as many as 90%, would prove, if it were possible to investigate them fully, entirely false. If that is indeed the case then the Irish government has committed a protracted act of folly on a scale unprecedented in the entire history of sexual abuse compensation schemes.

I am concerned to ensure that Minister for Children, Equality and Youth, Roderic O'Gorman does not repeat this "protracted act of folly" !

[ I note that "submissions received will be subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2014 and may also be published as part of a final report on the Restorative Recognition Scheme." I am publishing my submission on my Blog IrishSalem.blogspot.com . You may find it easier to access the links via the Blog rather than the email! ]

Best wishes

Rory Connor

11 Lohunda Grove

Clonsilla

Dublin 15

Submissions

10:32 PM 

to me

Dear Rory

I wish to acknowledge receipt of your written submission which we will take into consideration when compiling our report.

With my thanks and kind regards

Mary Lou

Dear Mary Lou

Thanks a lot. Before clock strikes midnight I'm sending you links to two articles I wrote regarding Richard Webster after his death (Appendix 1) and a link to his Blog that is still online (Appendix 2). Both have material on Redress Boards in Nova Scotia and Jersey as well as Ireland

Appendix 1 "In Memory of Richard Webster" - article/obituary on my old website after he died on 23 June 2011 and "Richard Webster, The Idea of Evil and Operation Midland" my Blog article comprising some of our correspondence regarding the Jersey lunacy.

Appendix 2. HIS 2008 blog article "Something evil had happened . . . I had to go on' - Jersey in the Sunday papers"

Rory

EPILOGUE:

(i) Associated Press Apology to Bon Secours Sisters

I had intended to add more to my submission but, as usual for me, ran up against a deadline. The main thing omitted is reference to my article "Tuam Babies and Associated Press Apology to Bon Secours Sisters" 

The Jesuit magazine "America" got the AP to apologise for its worldwide publication of stories that the Catholic Church had refused to baptise the Tuam babies and that it was Church policy to refuse Baptism to the children of unmarried mothers. The AP apology indicated that they had repeated "incorrect Irish news reports"

THIS lie isn't on the same level as the ones about Nazi nuns starving babies to death but it's important because it can be PROVEN false- even half a century or more later. I'm not sure how it started BUT I recall reading reports about "Survivors" claiming that nuns had insulted them and referred to their babies as "Spawn of Satan". I assume that some "Survivors" then progressed from telling stories whose credibility can't be established decades late, to telling lies that can. And Irish media published their lies!  

It's interesting that it was a publication in the USA that got the AP to apologise. I'm sure there are many Americans - ignorant of or prejudiced against the Catholic Church - who would have seen nothing remarkable about this tale. (Just another routine example of Catholic Evil). However is there a single Irish editor - or journalist - who actually believed it? Probably not but there are no Irish MSM editors who are interested in nailing the lie or securing an apology! 

(ii)  "A Redress Board for Jersey"

[Extract from R Webster's article dated 9 June 2008 - no longer online but I quote from it in my article "In Memory of Richard Webster" - see Appendix 1 above]

There have also been a number of other developments. More than a week ago the Jersey Evening Post reported that calls had been made by victims' advocates for Jersey to set up a 'Redress Board'. In practice this would mean that compensation could be awarded to alleged victims without the the need for allegations to be tested in a criminal court. In support of this move Fay Maxted, chief executive of the Survivors' Trust, actually cited the examples provided by compensation schemes set up both in the Republic of Ireland and in Nova Scotia:

"The redress boards set up in Nova Scotia and Ontario in the 1990s, and in Ireland in 2002, have been able to allow victims the opportunity to be heard and recompensed in some way and given communities the opportunity to challenge the silence and secrecy that concealed the abuse in the past."

Today almost exactly the same story appears in the Guardian. What neither the Jersey Evening Post nor the Guardian pointed out was that there is a significant amount of evidence that both in Ireland and Nova Scotia these schemes have in practice functioned almost as a compensation-on-demand scheme for anyone who has made allegations of abuse, whether or not there is any evidence to support these allegations. 

In both cases there have been well-informed claims that the creation of such redress schemes has led to, or intensified, a veritable culture of false allegations. This is the argument put forward by Herman Kelly in the closing sections of his book Kathy's Real Story: A Culture of False Allegations Exposed. The same argument was also implicit in the conclusions of the Canadian judge Fred Kaufman when he was commissioned by the Nova Scotia government to conduct an inquiry into the compensation scheme there.

For my own comment on the workings of the Irish redress board, click here.

If the Jersey parliament were to act on the ill-judged recommendations reported today by the Guardian, they would be committing an act of the grossest kind of folly. [My emphasis RC]

(iii) Ireland, Jersey and Myself as Footnote in History!

[ Extract from R Webster's article of 19 April 2008  Flat Earth News and The Jersey Child Abuse Scandal - Part 1 

The idea that residents of children homes were being murdered played little or no part in the Kincora, North Wales and Casa Pia scandals. But such ideas were prominent in the moral panic which overtook the Irish Republic in 1999 after the broadcast on Irish TV of States of Fear, a three-part documentary series about the Irish industrial schools. Amidst the widespread allegations of abuse which were made in the wake of this programme, many children were said to have disappeared or been murdered in schools run by the Christian Brothers. As the tireless campaigner Rory Connor has pointed out, in a comment posted on the Community Care website, ‘these included accusations in a major Sunday newspaper of mass killing (“a Holocaust”) at Letterfrack in Co. Galway.’ However, as Connor notes, ‘Not a single claim has proved to be correct. This is not surprising as several relate to periods when no child died of any cause.’

In Ireland, as in North Wales and Kincora, there can be no doubt that some children were physically or sexually abused in children’s homes. But in all these cases what has happened is that a small nucleus of reality has had woven around it a vast tissue of fantasy and fabrication. Both in Ireland and in North Wales, as in similar scandals in Cheshire, Merseyside, Northumbria (and indeed in Nova Scotia), the evidence indicates that overwhelming majority of allegations associated with such scandals are false. [My emphasis]

 

Deaths of Children in Mother and Baby Care Homes (did they die of starvation?)

This is Eugene Jordan, past President of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society being interviewed by Niall McConnell of Síol na hÉireann on 15 February 2021. The topics include naming and shaming the politicians who spread false information regarding the deaths of children, comparing religious run Homes to secular County Homes plus the living and social conditions in Ireland during the first half of the 20th century.

[ See previous articles on the Tuam Babies especially "Seminar on Tuam Children's' Home" and "Open Letter to Archbishop Michael Neary" ]

 Eugene Jordan Exposes lies of the Mother & Baby Care Homes  15/2/21

The above YouTube video consists of  an Introduction only. The full video interview is HERE: 

Eugene Jordan Exposes lies of the Mother & Baby care homes:

Eugene: Irish politicians took the word "Marasmus", which appeared as a cause of death on a small number of death certificates as evidence of starvation. It was a lie, and that has been proven in the  Final Report of Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation. Will politicians have the guts to do the right thing and apologise for misleading the people?

(A) Eugene Jordan: Politicians and "Children Starved to Death"

The following quotations are from Eugene Jordan's website FALSE HISTORY DEBUNKED and specifically from his article Political Fantasy – Children Starved to Death The first quote is from Chapter 33: Deaths of the Final Report of the Commission - concerning the Marasmus issue

33. 5. Some commentators have concluded that infant deaths which occurred in mother and baby homes due to marasmus indicates that infants were neglected, not appropriately cared for, and/or wilfully starved to death in these institutions.

However, marasmus was a frequently cited cause of infant deaths in institutional, hospital and community settings in early twentieth-century Ireland. The Commission considers it unlikely that deaths in hospitals and family homes were due to wilful neglect and so cannot conclude that the term marasmus denotes wilful neglect in mother and baby homes. The more likely explanation is that marasmus as a cause of death was cited when an infant failed to thrive due to malabsorption of essential nutrients due to an underlying, undiagnosed medical condition. 

Dáil Éireann debate – Wednesday, 27 Jun 2012 

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald (Sinn Féin)
In 1939, the Government’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer refuted damning public and health inspectorate concerns in regard to the standards of care at Bethany Home on the basis of a barbaric belief that it was normal for children of unmarried mothers to suffer from starvation. While no action was taken by the Government to protect the children in Bethany Home, which was a Protestant run home, the State did force the home to cease admitting Catholic mothers and babies. What does that say about the State, its orientation and actions?

Dáil Éireann debate – Tuesday, 10 Dec 2013 Bethany Home: Motion [Private Members] 

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald (Sinn Féin)
Evidence in the public domain and records held by Departments tell us this, yet the Minister of State will table an amendment to the Sinn Féin motion that is beyond a distortion of the truth. She has underpinned her amendment with an argument set out in the same vein as that used by the State’s deputy chief medical adviser in the 1930s. He was of the view that children born outside of marriage were prone to starvation and, judging by the amendment before us, it appears the Government shares this view.

In 1939, the State’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer visited Bethany and attributed the ill health of children – rickets, scalding and purulent conjunctivitis – in the home to the fact that they were “illegitimate” and, therefore, “delicate” and prone to starvation. Are the Minister of State and the Government supporting that view in 2013?

The State colluded. In 1939, for example, the deputy chief medical adviser, Dr. Winslow Sterling Berry, dismissed public concerns and even the concerns of his own health inspectors, by claiming that it was “well known that illegitimate children are delicate and marasmic” – in other words, that they suffered from starvation.

Deputy Niall Collins (Fianna Fáil)

Records reveal that 54 of the children had died from convulsions, 41 from heart failure and 26 from marasmus, a form of malnutrition. 

Dáil Éireann debate – Tuesday, 26 Feb 2013  Magdalen Laundries Report: Statements (Resumed) 

Deputy Robert Dowds (Labour Party)

Sterling Berry, in 1939. In his report, Berry reported that it was well recognised that a large number of illegitimate children were delicate and marasmic, which means they were suffering the effects of starvation. I stress that this is from the report of an inspection of the home by the State. Was the State involved, was it indifferent to their plight and did the State fail them? The answer is obviously “Yes”.

Deputy Seán Crowe (Sinn Féin)
The big question that arises during this debate, when one steps back from the apology, is why it took the State so long to accept that it played a central and crucial part in supplying the women who were enslaved, starved, ill-treated, abused and treated with cold contempt.

Dáil Éireann debate – Tuesday, 10 Jun 2014 

Deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Sinn Féin) 

Cemetery records indicate that the causes of death included 54 from convulsions, 41 from heart failure, 26 from starvation and seven from pneumonia. 

[NOTE: the death certs record marasmus not starvation]

Dáil Éireann debate – Wednesday, 11 Jun 2014 Death and Burial of Children in Mother and Baby Homes: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] 

Deputy Seamus Healy (Independent)

State inspection reports described children as being fragile, pot-bellied and emaciated. Cause of death was regularly recorded as starvation. [NO marasmus]

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett (Solidarity–People Before Profit)

Children died of starvation or were used as guinea pigs, while families were ripped apart. It is an appalling stain on our history.

Deputy Ciara Conway (Labour Party)

Young women were forcibly separated first from their communities, then from any sense of pride or self worth and then from their babies. Their babies were neglected and starved, with illnesses untreated. They were seen as worthless and buried, ultimately, in unmarked graves, left in the end without even an identity.

Deputy Seán Crowe (Sinn Féin)

Women’s children were starved and disease, including TB, was rampant. The child mortality rate was massively higher in these institutions than among the general public and the State allowed this to go on. 

Seanad Éireann debate – Tuesday, 27 Jan 2015 
Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes: Motion 

Senator Marie Moloney (Labour)
State inspection reports described children as being fragile, emaciated and pot-bellied. Cause of death was often recorded as starvation. [NO: marasmus]

Dáil Éireann debate – Thursday, 9 Mar 2017: Commission of Investigation Announcement on Tuam Mother and Baby Home: Statements 

Deputy Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fáil)
What was uncovered in Tuam is only the tip of the iceberg. We do not know exactly how these babies died and it seems likely they were left to starve or die in the cold, as the mortality rate is too high to suggest otherwise.

Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Sinn Féin)
In Sean Ross Abbey, the death register lists a total of 269 deaths between 1934 and 1967, but some of those buried in the plot there are not listed on the register. It is also deeply shocking and appalling to learn that the main cause of death in the case of some 20% of the deaths in Bessborough was marasmus or severe malnutrition – in other words, death by hunger was happening in the 1940s and 1950s in Cork. At a minimum, we need to expand drastically the terms of reference of the commission of investigation into mother and baby homes.

Deputy Mick Barry (Irish Solidarity–People Before Profit)
According to a former chief medical officer of the State, James Deeny, in his autobiography, To Cure and to Care, in one year alone, of the 180 children born in the home 100 died. One in five of those who died in the 1934 to 1953 period died of marasmus, that is, severe malnutrition.

Seanad Éireann debate – Thursday, 9 Mar 2017 
Commission of Investigation Announcement on Tuam Mother and Baby Home: Statements

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) [Daughter of President Michael D Higgins]  

There were 472 deaths in 19 years in the Bessborough home. Some 80 of those children were suffering from marasmus, which means severe malnutrition, including babies who have in many cases been taken away from the arms of their mothers, who have not been allowed to breast-feed them. Children suffering from malnutrition – an issue which is easy to control, deal with and address – represent almost 20% of known deaths in a short period in the Bessborough home alone, as we heard in the story earlier.

Senator Catherine Noone (Fine Gael)
Women were starved, neglected and hidden from society. They suffered horrendous abuse. It is imperative that we now respond with sensitivity and respect to what has been unearthed.

Dáil Éireann debate – Tuesday, 7 Mar 2017: Leaders’ Questions

The Taoiseach (Enda Kenny, Fine Gael)
We gave them up because of our perverse, in fact, morbid relationship with what is called respectability. Indeed, for a while it seemed as if in Ireland our women had the amazing capacity to self-impregnate. For their trouble, we took their babies and gifted them, sold them, trafficked them, starved them, neglected them or denied them to the point of their disappearance from our hearts, our sight, our country and, in the case of Tuam and possibly other places, from life itself.

Dáil Éireann debate – Wednesday, 22 Mar 2017: Commission of Investigation Announcement on Tuam Mother and Baby Home: Statements (Resumed)

Deputy Seán Crowe (Sinn Fein)
They have come up to me and started telling the story of what they went through – the starvation, abuse, malnutrition and the fact their spirit was broken. That is what we did. We stripped people and took their clothes away. We took their identity, beat them and starved them. This was all done for what was supposed to be the greater good of some individuals or idea.

Dáil Éireann debate – Thursday, 18 Jan 2018: Report of the Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution: Statements (Resumed)

Deputy Kate O’Connell (Fine Gael)
We murdered them in their hundreds through neglect and hate, brutalised them in the name of salvation and enslaved them in the name of redemption.

My Comment: Most of this hysteria is coming from Sinn Fein, Labour and Independent Deputies - precisely the people who re likely to form a Government following the next General Election in Ireland. However they are ably backed by Fine Gael including former Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny and the craziest comment of all comes from former Fine Gael Deputy Kate O'Connell. If Sinn Fein come to power and try to use undemocratic methods to implement populist but unviable economic polices, Fine Gael don't have the moral courage to stop them. 

(B) The Ravings of Junior Minister John Halligan - AND the Media

Some of the above can be (partly) explained by confusion concerning the meaning of the term "Marasmus" - that does not indicate deliberate starvation by nuns, or anyone else. However a more generic kind of hysteria is also loose in this country. Fine Gael Deputy Kate O'Connell exemplifies it  (last quote above) as does former Junior Minister (for Training and Skills) John Halligan. See Irish Times article dated 11 March 2017  "Death Rates in Mother and Baby Homes similar to Concentration Camps’" subtitled "Minister of State John Halligan says Old Age should not Diminish Responsibility for a Crime"

Independent Alliance minister John Halligan has compared child mortality rates in mother and baby homes to Nazi concentration camps. The Waterford TD also said religious orders found guilty of criminal neglect should have their assets seized. The Minister of State for Training and Skills said elderly nuns who worked in the homes should be interviewed as part of expected criminal investigations to be conducted by gardaí.

“Old age should not diminish accountability for any crime or alleged crime. If you bear in mind that the child mortality rate at Bessborough in 1943 was approaching 70 per cent, sure that’s similar to concentration camps,” he said. “Are we seriously saying that because somebody is ill or aged that we shouldn’t at least interview them? If you look at what’s happened at Belsen, Auschwitz, Dachau, even up to last year individuals who are alleged to have carried out horrendous crimes in their 80s and 90s were interviewed.”

Mr Halligan was speaking to RTÉ Radio on Saturday in the wake of confirmation last week from the Mother and Baby Homes Commission that “significant quantities” of human remains found at a mother and baby home in Tuam run by the Bon Secours Sisters belonged to young infants. Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Katherine Zappone is said to be considering broadening the commission of inquiry’s remit to include other homes beyond Tuam, and will examine her options over the coming weeks.

Referring to State grants paid to the Bon Secours order for maintenance of children in its care as well as sums received through the sale of children to foster parents in the US, Mr Halligan said monies should be seized if significant wrongdoing is established. “I think there has to be an investigation, everybody has to be interviewed, and if it is found that they’re guilty of neglect, well their assets should be seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau, ” he said.

Much of this hysteria was whipped up by the media with politicians jumping on the band-wagon to get votes (although I doubt if people like John Halligan and Kate O'Connell needed any encouragement). I wrote about the media background in "Open Letter to Archbishop Michael Neary regarding Tuam Home" It includes an article by Emer O'Kelly in the Sunday Independent on 8 June 2014 "Tuam Babies Cry Not For Justice But For Vengeance" that opens with the following:

Seventy years ago, on the orders of a maniac, little children and babies were herded into barren camps in Germany and occupied Poland by men in black uniforms. They were starved to death in those camps; sometimes they had hideous medical experiments carried out upon them while alive, so hideous the silence of death was probably merciful. And when they died, their little bodies were thrown into huge pits. Because they were scum: Jewish scum.

During the course of the article Emer O'Kelly trice denounces the Good Shepherd Sisters i.e. the wrong nuns! 

The demonising of the nuns is not confined to bigoted anti-clerics: "Progressive" priests who like to make themselves popular with the media also get in on the act. On 1 June 2014  Fr Brian D’Arcy had an  article in the Sunday World entitled “Fr Brian: Baby Graves are Our Greatest Crime” that begins as follows:

“When I first heard the news that more than 800 babies were buried in what was formerly a septic tank I was astonished – because initially I thought it happened in some famine-stricken country today. Then I thought I was hearing about Nazi Germany…..”  

It's in no way surprising that four weeks later the same same Sunday World carried an article subtitled “Councillor Seeking Justice For ‘Murder’ of Babies" It includes THIS:

I saw a baby in a nun’s arms and blood dripping along the floor. I saw another nun standing with a shovel in her hand. I was a 12 year old. I knew they were going out to do something, or dig a hole for that child but nobody would listen to me.

The claims of child murder (and dumping babies in a cess pit) are complete lunacy comparable to the 19th century hysteria in Canada over the "Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk" that also involved claims of infanticide by nuns in Montreal. As per the Wikipedia article on Maria Monk: "If the sexual union produced a baby, it was baptized and then strangled and dumped into a lime pit in the basement." Of course all Catholic priests and bishops denounced the allegations and supported the nuns at the time. "Progressive" priests and Bishops (like recently retired Archbishop Diarmuid Martin)  who endorse secular anti-clericalism are a modern phenomena! 

(C) Commission Acknowledges Existence of False Allegations!

The Mother and Baby Homes Commission actually acknowledges that some allegations of  abuse are false! This is a surprise to me given that the Ryan Commission (to which I gave evidence) did no such thing.  An article in the Irish Times by Patsy McGarry dated 14 January 2021 headed "Commission dealt with 1.3m documents and held 195 hearings" has as its subheading "Report from body states that its conclusions ‘may not accord with prevailing narrative’" and begins

The Mother and Baby Homes Commission states in bold type in its report that “the conclusions it reaches may not always accord with the prevailing narrative”. As well as adhering to its terms of reference, it says: “It must look at all the available evidence and reach conclusions based on that evidence. It must be objective, rigorous and thorough........”

The confidential committee report “outlines the experiences of those who chose to recount their experiences. They are not a representative sample of the residents of the institutions under investigation,” it said. And while there was “no doubt that the witnesses recounted their experiences as honestly as possible”, it had “concerns about the contamination of some evidence. A number of witnesses gave evidence that was clearly incorrect. This contamination probably occurred because of meetings with other residents and inaccurate media coverage,” it said.

 

(D) Bethany Mother and Baby Home - a PROTESTANT Institution

I was slightly surprised to see that the Protestant Bethany Home was also the subject of false allegations of starving children - coming mainly (of course) from Sinn Fein but Deputy Niall Collins of Fianna Fail makes a contribution as well by referring to Marasmus as "a form of malnutrition"., This seems to be the sole Fianna Fail contribution to this brand of hysteria. It does indicate that irrational attacks on the Catholic Church have a way of spreading.- and corrupting the entire society.

However the Catholic Church was always the main focus of attack - as pointed out by David Quinn in article in the Irish Independent on 10 March 2017 Harsh Victorian Morality at Core of Mother and Baby Home Scandals He contrasts the attitude of politicians to the Tuam Home run by Bon Secours Sisters vis a vis the Bethany Home. First he quotes the words of the then Fine Gael Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny in the Dail (Irish Parliament) that week:

 "Tuam is not just a burial ground, it is a social and cultural sepulchre. That is what it is. As a society in the so-called 'good old days', we did not just hide away the dead bodies of tiny human beings, we dug deep and deeper still to bury our compassion, our mercy and our humanity itself. No nuns broke into our homes to kidnap our children. We gave them up to what we convinced ourselves was the nuns' care."

David Quinn points out that our Prime Minister's tone and his words contrasted very sharply with those of the Labour Party's Kathleen Lynch in 2013 when she addressed the Dáil about Bethany Home, which also housed unmarried mothers and their babies. Ms Lynch, then the junior minister in the Department of Justice, used much softer language than the Taoiseach, even though hundreds of babies also died in Bethany Home and were buried in an unmarked grave.

Explaining the high death rate in the Protestant-run institution she said: "Unfortunately, poverty and disease were commonplace in Ireland up to the 1950s and this was reflected in infant mortality rates. Infant mortality rates in the 1940s were at a level that is hard to comprehend today, about 20 times higher than now and that figure applies across the entire population. For those who were malnourished and subject to disease and a lack of hygiene, the figures would have been higher still."

Responding to critics of the home, she said: "Our Constitution demands we respect the rules of natural justice. People are entitled to a fair hearing and an opportunity to protect their good name…it seems to have been accepted at the time that Bethany Home was run by people with charitable motives."

 It's clear that different moral standards are being applied to Catholic and non-Catholic institutions and personnel. However it seems to me that the differences are lessening now as society becomes more secular and ALL forms of Christianity are coming under attack from politicians who stand for nothing and therefore concentrate on spewing hatred at their religious adversaries!

(E) My Conclusion - Blood Libel Forever?

(i) This hysteria can be said to have begun in 1997 with an article in The Mirror (by their Irish editor Neil Leslie) entitled HOT POKER WAS USED ON LITTLE MARION.. NO CASH WILL GET HER BACK; I THINK MY BABY WAS MURDERED AT THE ORPHANAGE, SAYS PAYOUT MUM. concerning the death of baby Marion Howe in 1955 i.e. 42 years previously. THAT libel was aimed at the Sisters of Mercy and specifically at the late Sister Xavieria Lally. However in subsequent years the MAIN targets were the Christian Brothers. Leaders of four "Victim" groups were quoted in the media as claiming that the Brothers had killed boys in their care, especially in Artane and Letterfrack industrial schools. A number of these allegations related to periods when no boy died of ANY cause (!) so I coined the phrases "Murder of the Undead" and "Victimless Murders". For obvious reasons accusers did not normally state the names of the killer Brothers! The initial phase of our Blood Libel hysteria may be said to have ended in 2009/10 with a Garda investigation into claims that the Catholic Church colluded with Garda authorities in the case of the unsolved murder of schoolgirl Bernadette Connolly in 1970. The immediate targets of the child murder claim were members of the Passionist Order but the suggestion was that Archbishop John Charles McQuaid intervened to stop the Garda investigation.

I summarised this phase of our witch-hunt in my article "Blood Libel in Ireland - directed against Catholics not Jews!"

(ii) Over the years I thought on a few occasions, that the Blood Libel hysteria was played out. The above article was based on one I submitted to the Sunday Tribune in 2006; this related mainly to the Christian Brothers and the Murder of the Undead claims. I had to update it following the manufactured hysteria in 2009 concerning the death of Bernadette Connolly, four decades previously - and for a time I thought THAT was the end! I once wrote that Blood Libel in Ireland followed  a logical trajectory in that 

• it began in 1997 with an allegation that related to the death of a REAL baby - because Blood Libel  was new in Ireland and needed the appearance of credibility
• it  came to an end in 2010 with reference to the unsolved murder of a REAL child - because several claims had been refuted and credibility was again a factor BUT
• between these two dates, anti-clerical Hysteria reigned supreme and journalists thought they could get away with anything including "Murder of the Undead" allegations!

Even THAT cynical analysis now looks too hopeful with allegations that nuns starved babies in the Mother and Baby Homes. The fact that the Report of the Commission on Mother and Baby Homes refuted those claims, won't put a stop to our anti-clerical hysteria, if the history of the last quarter-century is anything to go by.

(iii) The chief proponents of the death by starvation narrative were Sinn Fein (including leader Mary Lou McDonald) and other left-wing Deputies and Senators -- including Senator Alice-Mary Higgins (Ind) the daughter of President Michael D Higgins. These are the people who are likely to form a Government after the next General Election (given that we are now governed by a coalition of Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and the Greens). However the anti-clerical hysteria promoted by Sinn Fein was echoed by Fine Gael - including their former leader and Taoiseach Enda Kenny. The most grotesque comment of all was actually made by  then Fine Gael Deputy Kate O'Connell: 

We murdered them in their hundreds through neglect and hate, brutalised them in the name of salvation and enslaved them in the name of redemption. 

What sort of Opposition are Fine Gael going to provide to a Government dominated by Sinn Fein? If Sinn Fein try to pass dubious legislation, is President Michael D going to refer it to the Supreme Court (given his expressed admiration for Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez)?  I have written about this issue at the end of my article "EU Commissioner Phil Hogan Forced to Resign...." - section (F) "Conclusion: Sinn Fein and Antifa"

(iv) Forthcoming Book by Eugene Jordan "The Irish Attack on Christianity - The Case for the Defence"

In March 2021 a book by Eugene Jordan with the above title is due to be published. He writes that Irish Christianity has been under attack for more than seven decades now. The attacks  increased in ferocity in the second decade of the twenty-first century and reached an extraordinary level of frenzy when Christian-run Mother and Baby homes were accused of starving and murdering children in their care. These allegations are lies, the evidence to disprove the falsehoods is abundant and simple to understand, yet the Irish political establishment and media have chosen to ignore it.

The book essentially tells the story of how the Irish came to hate the Irish - especially the Catholic Church - and thrashes out the causes at the court of reason.

As Ireland enters the third decade of the twenty-first century, it stands at the most embarrassing moment in its intellectual history. The Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes finished and published its final report, which has again been subject to biased misreporting. The commission has rubbished many of the scandal propagators’ notorious claims to their credit but has made several significant errors of its own.