Brown University Students (Rhode Island) Can Accuse Others of Sex Attacks Anonymously

 Brown University Students Can Accuse Others of Sex Attacks Anonymously

Brown University in Rhode Island first hit headlines over alleged assaults in the early 1990s

The Times by Will Pavia, New York

March 23 2021, 

[I made use of my two free Times articles a week, to view THIS article and to make a contribution to the Comments section. RC ]

A lavatory at Brown University once made headlines across America after women at the college began writing the names of men who had allegedly sexually assaulted them in a list on the wall.

The “rape list”, as it was called, appeared amid complaints from female students that administrators treated allegations as misunderstandings or indiscretions by “boys” who “do not know the rules yet”. It also prompted complaints from men who claimed that they had been anonymously slandered.

Three decades later Rhode Island’s oldest Ivy League university has set up an online reporting system in which students can make allegations of sexual assault or harassment anonymously to college officials. Some student groups say that it will encourage victims who might be reluctant to speak about their experience in person or over the phone.

“Anonymous denouncements,” Professor Nicholas Christakis, a sociologist and physician at Yale University, tweeted. “What could possibly go wrong?”

Professor Amna Khalid, a historian at Carleton College in Minnesota who writes about higher education, said: “It’s a way for some people to come forward with stories about what’s happened, but if they are going to name the person but not be willing to put their name forward then it could become a way of targeting people they don’t like.”

Brown said the system was “one additional mechanism through which community members can report incidents of sexual violence” and allowed for support to be offered even if there was no formal complaint. The system would also provide “as complete a picture as possible about alleged incidents”.

Extract from COMMENTS:

MQ

This looks on the surface to be outrageous, but may well be effective as long as the accusees remain anonymous as well. Ms. Alpha lodges a complaint against Mr. Beta. If, within a short time, another complaint is lodged against Mr. Beta, an investigation begins. It should at least be a deterrent for all but the most sex-crazed predators

Rory Connor - replying to MQ

(i) And what if Ms Alpha tells her friends MS Gamma, Delta, Epsilon etc what she has done and encourages them to make lying anonymous complaints against the same guy in support?  Will there be ANY stage at which the College authorities refer this to police as a criminal conspiracy? OR will they make a private decision to ignore complaints that seem frivolous?

(ii) There is also the question of libel - which doesn't necessarily mean a false allegation has to be broadcast to the nation. A female student who tells College authorities that she has been sexually assaulted by a male student at the same College, IS going to affect the attitude of the authorities to that student!  

Again this online accusation system is being set up for the benefit of female students at  "Rhode Island's oldest Ivy League University" too embarrassed to talk about sex. Should they be at University at all?

Open Letter to Archbishop Michael Neary regarding Tuam Home

 

Most Reverend Michael Neary, Archbishop of Tuam

In a sermon in the Cathedral of the Assumption, Tuam on 11 March 2017 you asked - in relation to the women and children of the former Mother and Baby Home in Tuam: “How could the culture of Irish society, which purported to be defined by Christian values, have allowed itself to behave in such a manner towards our most vulnerable?”

I responded at the time. To understand my response in context you will need to read my article The Tuam Babies and the Bon Secours Nuns [3]

I would answer the Archbishop as follows: The late Pablo McCabe was a homeless schizophrenic man who presumably qualified as one of “our most vulnerable” and former Sister of Mercy Nora Wall was hardly a member of high society. McCabe had no money but prior to 1999 no woman had ever been convicted of rape so McCabe was accused to make the allegation appear more plausible. The leaders of the Sisters of Mercy betrayed both of them and sided with the accusers. Archbishop what makes you think that the current accusers are more plausible? Do you really find it acceptable that a Government Minister [John Halligan] should refer to Nazis and talk about Belsen, Auschwitz and Dachau? Archbishop, if a Garda investigation into the Tuam Home produces no evidence to support such claims will you do or say anything at all? Or will you remain silent like the current leaders of the Sisters of Mercy?

My response to you forms part of Comment 53 in the article (Don't worry - I don't include all the comments!). The preceding Comment 52 summaries the scandal surrounding the wrongful convictions of Pablo McCabe and former Sister of Mercy Nora Wall AND also the paranoid utterances of former Junior Minister John Halligan. 

History Seminar on Tuam Mother and Babies Home

There have been a lot of developments since 2017 not least our Seminar on Tuam Children's Home  that we held in Galway on 4 October 2020. We had to transfer it from Dublin because your colleague Diarmuid Martin cancelled our Dublin venue at the last moment - supposedly on health grounds although we had been approved by the health authorities!

In my talk I referred to 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!  (NOTE [1] )

Thus It's hardly surprising  to read in a recent article in the Irish Times by Stephanie Walsh a retired teacher who specialised in Relationships and Sexuality Education.  Good work of religious in aiding single mothers now largely forgotten (subtitle "In the 1970s church people provided more assistance to women in need than secular society")

Some years ago I met a Good Shepherd Sister who had placed women with us. I asked why the Sisters hadn’t publicly defended the important role they had played in improving the lives of single pregnant women. She answered that it was impossible to get a fair hearing in the media that had demonised all religious involved in that work.

In my experience, church women and men provided more assistance to women in need in the 70s than did the secular community. Most of the social workers who contacted our family were religious Sisters; many of the women in trouble were referred by priests.

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. In June 2014  Fr Brian D’Arcy had an  article in the Sunday World 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…..” etc 

Unfortunately Fr Brian's Sunday World article is no longer online but a shorter version is available  in the Irish Examiner dated 5 June 2014 entitled Disposal of babies' bodies in Tuam 'as bad as Nazi Germany': Fr Brian Darcy 

Well-known cleric Fr Brian Darcy has said the discovery of almost 800 babies bodies next to a Galway mother and baby home is as bad as anything that happened in Nazi Germany. The Government has today confirmed that a "scoping exercise" is underway to determine whether other mass graves such as that found in Tuam exist in other parts of the country.

Fr Brian Darcy said he thought previous scandals involving the Church had left him "unshockable", but that this was a shocking as something that happened in Germany during World War II. He added that people needed to be brought to justice for "sinful crimes". "I think if the facts are as bad as they seem to be, and I have no reason to doubt that, I think this will cause a massive revolution about the kind of country that we had and the kind of country that we're all children of."

(Helpful key words after the article include "Nazi Germany" and "World War II") (NOTE [2] )

In contrast with this  you have Irish atheist and editor of the SpikedOnLine magazine Brendan O'Neill who wrote an article on 9 June 2014  “The Tuam Tank: Another Myth about Evil Ireland” with subtitle  “The obsession with Ireland’s dark past has officially become unhinged.”  He quotes some of the world-wide headlines:

Bodies of 800 babies, long-dead, found in septic tank at former Irish home for unwed mothers’, declared the Washington Post. ‘800 skeletons of babies found inside tank at former Irish home for unwed mothers’, said the New York Daily News. ‘Galway historian finds 800 babies in septic tank grave’, said the Boston Globe. ‘The bodies of 800 babies were found in the septic tank of a former home for unwed mothers in Ireland’, cried Buzzfeed.    ......The blogosphere and Twitter hordes went even further than the mainstream media, with whispers about the 800 babies having been murdered by the nuns and demands for the UN to investigate ‘crimes against humanity’ in Tuam.

 Unlike Fr Brian, Brendan O'Neill believes it is nonsense. However it certainly wasn't just "Twitter hordes" that suggested the nuns murdered babies. The Sunday World - for which Fr Brian has written for many years - had a story on 29 June 2014 subtitled “Councillor Seeking Justice For ‘Murder’ of Babies” about then People Before Profit councillor Deirdre Wadding. The following is an extract:

Deirdre said that what was happening to single mothers in Ireland even in the 1980s was a form of “torture”. “In later years, there was brutality, what you would call torture,” she said, describing the babies bodies found in the septic tank in Tuam as “nothing short of murder”. “Children seem to have been allowed to die. No doubt the cracks will uncover as time goes on and we can be sure if it happened in Tuam it happened elsewhere. We have to seek justice. Somebody has to be responsible for this. ……If that means individuals being brought to court, jail sentences, whatever it means, we cannot hold back”.

Another woman describes a “sinister scene” in the Good Shepherd convent 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.

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. The difference is that then, Catholic Bishops and clergy stood firmly in support of the nuns whereas now you are silent when not actively throwing them to the wolves! 

To answer your question

So to answer your question: How could the culture of Irish society, which purported to be defined by Christian values, have allowed itself to behave in such a manner towards our most vulnerable?” Before you respond to the publication of the Report on Mother and Babies Homes today, perhaps you will take time to consider just WHO are the "vulnerable" ones here? Is it the "Survivors" backed by all the power of Media and State  or the nuns in general, and the Bon Secours Sisters in particular, who have been subjected to obscene abuse - up to and including Blood Libel?

Yours sincerely,

Rory Connor

PS You are well aware of the lie spread worldwide by the media a few years ago that the Catholic Church refused to baptise the children of unmarried mothers and the apology issued by Associated Press at the behest of the Jesuit Magazine "America": Tuam Babies and Associated Press Apology to Bon Secours Sisters It was a lie directed at your own predecessors more than at the Bon Secours Sisters but most journalists were probably too ignorant to realise this! It doesn't measure up to the Nazi Nun claims but it is important  because it can be PROVEN false - even 60 years after the Tuam Home closed. 

NOTES

[1] And THIS is Emer O'Kelly writing about Nora Wall (extract from the Wikipedia article on Nora). It's clear that her rant against the Bon Secours/Good Shepherd nuns was not an aberration!

On 28 November 1999, the Sunday Independent published an article entitled "Judge reflects a nation's outrage" by columnist Emer O'Kelly. The  title refers to the sentencing by Judge Anthony Murphy of a Brother of Charity to 36 years imprisonment for the physical and sexual abuse of children. However the article contains these words about the Nora Wall case:

When the former Mercy nun Nora Wall was vindicated, and an announcement was made that she was not to be retried for rape, there was an outcry from some members of the public about the way she had been vilified before her conviction was set aside. The horrible reality of our society is that so many appalling crimes of abuse of children by Catholic religious have been proved in the courts that many people are inclined to believe that no cleric, man or woman, accused of such crimes can possibly be innocent. And that is not the fault of public opinion. It is in large measure the fault of the religious authorities who seem more concerned with limiting the damage to their own reputations and standing than in acknowledging their collective guilt and active negligence.

[ Emer O'Kelly has, of course, nothing to say about Nora's co-accused, homeless  schizophrenic Pablo McCabe who was accused solely in order to make Ireland's first rape allegation against a woman, look more plausible! RC ] 

[2]  An article in the Irish Independent on 5 June 2014 gives a slightly different perspective on Fr Brian's views: Fr Brian D'Arcy: Tuam mass baby grave 'an incredible, awful, unchristian and unsocial thing'  Instead of Nazi Germany, he refers to "a bad regime" and then there is THIS:

He has called for those responsible to be brought to justice.

“It’s not just a sinful approach to life it’s also a serious crime. This seems to have been self-imposed and cruel and ruthless and therefore needs investigated. I presume some of the people from that era are still alive and need to be brought to justice for that. We cannot claim to be pro-life and allow that to happen to children. We need to establish the facts of what did happen but it seems to me that over a short period of life over 800 people weren’t even given recorded deaths, some of whom seem to have died from starvation."

Kevin Myers and J. K. Rowling

Kevin Myers and J. K. Rowling

Welcome to the world you created, J.K. Rowling

Online mobs are a threat to everyone’s freedoms

The Spectator, 18 July 2020 by Kevin Myers

[ QUOTE: But perhaps the most damning contribution came from J.K. Rowling, whose global influence is tectonic. She tweeted to her 13 million followers an utterly foul distortion of what I had said, namely: ‘Women and Jews deserve what they get. This filth was published in @thesundaytimes. Let that sink in for a moment.’ ]


Why does the most important writer in English, J.K. Rowling, haunt the sewers of the Twittersphere? Why try to deal with the many complexities of transgenderism in a medium that has bizarrely reinvented the brevity of the telegram, but without its Victorian culture of complexity, courtesy and calm? Indeed, Twitter prizes a quite different Victorian moral order, namely that of Jack the Ripper, as the baying muezzins of social media hourly pronounce the end of someone’s reputation in the merciless perpetuity of the internet.

This time three years ago, I was a well-known journalist in Ireland, with a modest profile in Britain. On the last weekend of July, on the basis of a poorly written column in the Irish edition of the Sunday Times about the pay differentials in the BBC, London social media vilified me. I was then denounced worldwide as a misogynistic, anti-Semitic Holocaust-denier. One of my most successful accusers was J.K. Rowling. And now it is her turn, as her entirely justifiable scepticism over the dogmas of transgenderism have rendered her into what she is clearly not, that mythical beast, a ‘transphobe’. So welcome to the world you helped create, J.K.

In Ireland, I had long been recognised for my unremitting hostility to the IRA, support for Israel and my many articles about the horrors of the Holocaust. Yet these easily verifiable points were ignored as some foul internet charlatan with my name but none of my beliefs briefly entered the global imagination. A tsunami of smears from other publications obliterated protestations from the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland that I had told the Irish people truths about the Holocaust that they would not otherwise have known.

But perhaps the most damning contribution came from J.K. Rowling, whose global influence is tectonic. She tweeted to her 13 million followers an utterly foul distortion of what I had said, namely: ‘Women and Jews deserve what they get. This filth was published in @thesundaytimes. Let that sink in for a moment.’

Deserve what they get? So women deserve to be paid less than men, and Jews merited the Holocaust? The former is bad enough, but the latter assertion is the most wicked representation even by Twitter’s sordid standards. Despite the proclaimed support for me from Jewish groups, plus two Israeli ambassadors as well as numerous women, their voices could not be heard above the cacophony of my enemies. When the fangs of Rowling’s Twitter followers close on their prey, there is only one outcome.

This was in 2017, and the personal lunacies foreshadowed the solar storms of 2020, as the Black Lives Matter and associated mobs revealed their enormous power in riots, sackings, cancellations and boycotts across the Anglophone world. In response to this madness, some 150 literary luminaries (including Rowling) last week signed a letter to Harper’s Magazine defending free speech, stating: ‘As writers we need a culture that leaves us room for experimentation, risk taking, and even mistakes.’

Mistakes, J.K.? As in forgiving yours, but never mine? But the courage of the signatories then left them — for the letter did not mention BLM, ‘left’ nor ‘liberal’, but managed to denounce President Trump, ‘the radical right’ and ‘right-wing demagogues’. Perish the thought that anyone on their side of the debate would be engaging in smears and character assassination.

Such cowardly equivocation is of course to be expected from mere scriveners. The great Thomas Sowell reported in his Intellectuals and Society that Bertrand Russell thought Britain should placate Hitler by disbanding all her armed forces, while George Bernard Shaw said of the 1939 Nazi-Soviet pact: ‘Herr Hitler is under the powerful thumb of Stalin, whose interest in peace is overwhelming.’ A week later, the state of Poland was extinguished, duly followed by most of its Jewish population. As the Nobel Laureate George Stigler said of his fellow intellectuals: ‘They issue stern ultimata to the public on almost a monthly basis, and sometimes no other basis.’

As then, so today. For J.K. Rowling accepts that online mobs (of the kind that did for me) are a threat to everyone’s freedoms, including those of the supine intelligentsia who seek refuge in cowardly equivalence. Unique duties come with her unique global status. These oblige her to warn her millions of followers of the totalitarian threats besetting our civilisation — not through the infantile telegraphy of tweets, but through the prose that conquered the world.

WRITTEN BY
Kevin Myers

MY NOTES

[1] According to the Irish Times  Sunday Times drops Kevin Myers and apologises for offensive article : In his 30 July 2017 column in The Sunday Times (Irish edition) headlined “Sorry, ladies - equal pay has to be earned”, 

Myers hit out at the “tiresome monotone consensus of the commentariat, all wailing and shrieking as one about how hard done by are the women of the BBC”

The article said: “I note that two of the best-paid women presenters in the BBC - Claudia Winkleman and Vanessa Feltz, with whose, no doubt, sterling work I am tragically unacquainted - are Jewish. Good for them. Jews are not generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest possible price, which is the most useful measure there is of inveterate, lost-with-all-hands stupidity. I wonder, who are their agents?”

[2] Regarding the role of Vanessa Feltz in this strange affair see my previous blog article "Kevin Myers, Vanessa Feltz and Anti-Semitism"  The companion article "Kevin Myers, Jews and False Allegations of Anti-Semitism" is also relevant even though it doesn't mention Vanessa Feltz by name. I suggested that "Jews and Circular Firing Squads" could be an alternative title for the latter article!

[B] J. K. Rowling Writes regarding Online Mobs!

"J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues"

[I'm quoting extracts from the above article dated 10 June 2020]

For people who don’t know: last December I tweeted my support for Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who’d lost her job for what were deemed ‘transphobic’ tweets. She took her case to an employment tribunal, asking the judge to rule on whether a philosophical belief that sex is determined by biology is protected in law. Judge Tayler ruled that it wasn’t.

My interest in trans issues pre-dated Maya’s case by almost two years, during which I followed the debate around the concept of gender identity closely. I’ve met trans people, and read sundry books, blogs and articles by trans people, gender specialists, intersex people, psychologists, safeguarding experts, social workers and doctors, and followed the discourse online and in traditional media. On one level, my interest in this issue has been professional, because I’m writing a crime series, set in the present day, and my fictional female detective is of an age to be interested in, and affected by, these issues herself, but on another, it’s intensely personal, as I’m about to explain.

All the time I’ve been researching and learning, accusations and threats from trans activists have been bubbling in my Twitter timeline. This was initially triggered by a ‘like’. When I started taking an interest in gender identity and transgender matters, I began screenshotting comments that interested me, as a way of reminding myself what I might want to research later. On one occasion, I absent-mindedly ‘liked’ instead of screenshotting. That single ‘like’ was deemed evidence of wrongthink, and a persistent low level of harassment began.

Months later, I compounded my accidental ‘like’ crime by following Magdalen Berns on Twitter. Magdalen was an immensely brave young feminist and lesbian who was dying of an aggressive brain tumour. I followed her because I wanted to contact her directly, which I succeeded in doing. However, as Magdalen was a great believer in the importance of biological sex, and didn’t believe lesbians should be called bigots for not dating trans women with penises, dots were joined in the heads of twitter trans activists, and the level of social media abuse increased.

I mention all this only to explain that I knew perfectly well what was going to happen when I supported Maya. I must have been on my fourth or fifth cancellation by then. I expected the threats of violence, to be told I was literally killing trans people with my hate, to be called cunt and bitch and, of course, for my books to be burned, although one particularly abusive man told me he’d composted them.

What I didn’t expect in the aftermath of my cancellation was the avalanche of emails and letters that came showering down upon me, the overwhelming majority of which were positive, grateful and supportive. They came from a cross-section of kind, empathetic and intelligent people, some of them working in fields dealing with gender dysphoria and trans people, who’re all deeply concerned about the way a socio-political concept is influencing politics, medical practice and safeguarding. They’re worried about the dangers to young people, gay people and about the erosion of women’s and girl’s rights. Above all, they’re worried about a climate of fear that serves nobody – least of all trans youth – well...........

The fourth [reason for worry about new Trans activism] is where things start to get truly personal. I’m concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning (returning to their original sex), because they regret taking steps that have, in some cases, altered their bodies irrevocably, and taken away their fertility. Some say they decided to transition after realising they were same-sex attracted, and that transitioning was partly driven by homophobia, either in society or in their families.

Most people probably aren’t aware – I certainly wasn’t, until I started researching this issue properly – that ten years ago, the majority of people wanting to transition to the opposite sex were male. That ratio has now reversed. The UK has experienced a 4400% increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment. Autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers.

The same phenomenon has been seen in the US. In 2018,  American physician and researcher Lisa Littman set out to explore it. In an interview, she said:

‘Parents online were describing a very unusual pattern of transgender-identification where multiple friends and even entire friend groups became transgender-identified at the same time. I would have been remiss had I not considered social contagion and peer influences as potential factors.’

Littman mentioned Tumblr, Reddit, Instagram and YouTube as contributing factors to Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, where she believes that in the realm of transgender identification ‘youth have created particularly insular echo chambers.’

Her paper caused a furore. She was accused of bias and of spreading misinformation about transgender people, subjected to a tsunami of abuse and a concerted campaign to discredit both her and her work. The journal took the paper offline and re-reviewed it before republishing it. However, her career took a similar hit to that suffered by Maya Forstater. Lisa Littman had dared challenge one of the central tenets of trans activism, which is that a person’s gender identity is innate, like sexual orientation. Nobody, the activists insisted, could ever be persuaded into being trans.........

[C] Dictionary Definition of 'Woman is 'Hate Speech' (and JK Rowling)

Change.org faces legal action after removing 'hate speech' petition that defended dictionary definition of 'woman'

The site’s owners have been accused of breaching its own terms and conditions as well as infringing the right to freedom of speech

The Telegraph, by Camilla Turner,  EDUCATION EDITOR

30 October 2020 

 Within hours of publishing her petition on the site, Kellie-Jay Keen received an email from Change.org

Change.org is facing legal action after removing a “hate speech” petition that defended the dictionary definition of a woman.

The site’s owners have been accused of breaching its own terms and conditions as well as infringing the right to freedom of speech.

Within hours of publishing her petition on the site, Kellie-Jay Keen received an email from Change.org saying that it had been “identified as hate speech” and taken down from the site.

Her petition had stated that the “dictionary definition of the word ‘woman’ to mean ‘adult human female’ is under threat”.

It went on to say: “We would like to send a clear message to the Oxford English Dictionary that the word woman means Adult Human Female, and will never include men, males or boys. The very minimum a woman has to be is female.”

Her petition added that activists are “seeing to include men in the definition of women” and said that preserving the definition of the word woman was important because is “allows us to be protected in law and in our communities”.  

Mrs Keen said she had published her petition in response to a separate petition – also published on Change.org – which called on the Oxford English Dictionary to update its definition of “woman” to include “examples of representative minorities, for example, a transgender woman, a lesbian woman, etc”.

Mrs Keen, a 40-year-old mother of four from Wiltshire who founded an organisation called Standing for Women, said she believed Change.org was enforcing a partisan approach.  

“I didn’t say anything offensive or inflammatory,” she said. “Time and time again, what I have recognised is that the word ‘woman’ is in itself seen as offensive.”

Earlier this year, Mrs Keen paid for an advertising poster which said  "I love JK Rowling" at Edinburgh's main railway station which was removed for being too "political" and potentially offensive.

Rowling, 54, was accused of being transphobic after writing on Twitter that she was puzzled by a headline on an article which referred to "people who menstruate", adding: "I'm sure there used to be a word for those people," she wrote. "Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?"

Toby Young, general secretary of the Free Speech Union which has been supporting Mrs Keen, said that Change.org has launched a “pernicious assault” on her freedom of speech.

“It is extraordinary that when dealing with a question of such present public importance, Change.org would apparently apply its discretion in favour of silencing one side of an ongoing public debate and that, in doing so, would choose to adopt a stance contrary to the law of the country in which the relevant user was based,” he said.

“It undermines the public debate on gender identity in the United Kingdom. It also brings into question whether Change.org is a genuinely neutral platform when it comes to these important public debates or has its own political agenda it is seeking to promote.”

Change.org declined to comment.

Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, the Sisters of Charity and the National Maternity Hospital [2]

Attack on Sisters is "Elder Abuse"

The hysteria about the Sisters of Charity and the National Maternity Hospital is underway again. Predictably the Sisters capitulation to an anti-clerical mob in May 2017 failed to satisfy said mob and they are having another go. I posted comments regarding the controversy on two articles on the Association of Catholic Priests website last year and this seems a good time to reproduce them.
["Catholic Ethos and Other Mysteries" AND "The New National Maternity Hospital and The Religious Sisters of Charity" ]

Much of what I had to say was a response to a statement by Fr Gabriel Daly OSA (Order of St Augustine) whose attitude to the attacks on the Sisters of Charity was that the critics were "wise and persuasive" and also "temperate and convincing". 

In the present crisis the bishops, together with the Sisters of Charity, had little to say on what was happening. Most of them may understandably have felt that the least said the soonest mended. There was, however, a surprisingly belligerent atmosphere among the people interviewed by the media.  The prevailing opinion among those interviewed was that under no circumstances should the new hospital be handed over to a religious body like the Sisters of Charity, because of its alleged failures in the past. Those with more considered reasons feared that there might be interference with medical decisions on religious grounds.  This was a fair point, usually made by professionals like Dr. Peter Boylan, who had the grace to argue temperately and convincingly.  I find myself convinced by his wise and persuasive arguments.

In Father Daly's view the REAL problem is traditionalists in the Catholic Church who are engaged in "a relentless and heavy-handed creation of laws and the heartless prescriptions for their infringement" And the difference between "Traditionalists" and Reformers": 
Traditionalists are concerned about law, control, discipline and punishment.  Infringements against marital law, for example, are punished by canon law by forbidding the offenders to receive Holy Communion.   The Gospel is ignored and there is no mention of mercy or forgiveness as a grace.  ‘Reformers’, on the other hand, following Pope Francis, prefer to dwell on God’s mercy.  This distinction is vitally important for attitudes towards the question of ownership and ethos of hospitals and schools....

 Revelation has little to say about sex; and nothing at all about reproduction.  It is time for Catholics to think theologically about these matters rather than allowing traditionalists away with imposing their own narrow and authoritarian views in the name of church teaching.

"Black Hats" and "White Hats" in the Church
Father Daly states: The plain fact is that there are two very different parties whose values seriously conflict in their view of their church. One group claims that the church is charged with legislating for the whole body and is greatly concerned with how these rules are carried out, with suitable punishments for those who offend.  The other, following the example of the present pope, Francis, prefers to emphasise mercy, understanding and forgiveness. It believes in the need for constant reform.  These two views stem from two very different attitudes to God, Jesus, the church and the world.

When we speak of the relationship between church and state, we are not speaking about abstractions.  Whatever about the state, it matters which party in the church is conducting the matter in dispute.  The fear of interference by the church is a live possibility in a maternal hospital – a point that takes us back to Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae and is closely relevant to the present dispute.

HOWEVER there was no sign of "mercy, understanding and forgiveness" in the behaviour of the politicians, journalists and media mob that denounced the Sisters of Charity. In fact their behaviour quite closely resembled that of the Traditionalists condemned by Father Daly - relentless, heavy-handed,  heartless, narrow, authoritarian, emphasis on " law, control, discipline, punishment".  In addition one specific allegation - that the Sisters "owed" €3 million to the State sounds much more like a bare-faced lie than even 'sincere' bigotry. Yet Father Daly lets these people off rather lightly. His heart-felt criticisms are directed at the nuns and at the Hierarchy!

"Catholic Ethos and Other Mysteries" - Fr Gabriel Daly and the National Maternity Hospital 

[ For ease of reading, I have renumbered Comments made by myself and others]

[1] Padraig McCarthy
May 9th, 2017 at 9:17 pm
I know nothing about the running of a hospital, nor about the complexities of getting two hospitals working in close cooperation. I do know that when I was in that parish (Westland Row) in the 1970s, and we used to be called at any time of day or night to a child whose life was in danger, even then there was talk of the difficulties of the present premises of the National Maternity Hospital.

I do not understand why the decision was made to give ownership of the new Maternity Hospital to the St Vincent’s Hospital Group, even when the land belongs to them. Perhaps there are practicalities of ensuring smooth administration of the conjoined hospitals, or perhaps, as some suggest, there are some financial considerations which make it necessary.

In the present dispute, both the National Maternity Hospital (NMH) and the St Vincent’s Hospital Group (SVHG) have given categorical assurances that the new maternity hospital will be clinically independent to perform any procedure which is permitted in law. I do not know whether that has been copper-fastened in law at this stage. It seems clear, however, that if that independence were not respected in any way, there would then be strong grounds for serious action against SVHG.

In the light of that, it seems to me that the fears of Dr Peter Boylan and others are unfounded. Gabriel finds himself “convinced by his wise and persuasive arguments.” I find myself nowhere near convinced. Dr Boylan seems to speak more from his fears than from clear argument. He clearly cannot bring himself to trust the judgment of the rest of the board of the NMH. I cannot say at this stage whether his fears will turn out to be justified; if that proves to be the case, there will be an almighty row. Gabriel says that “interference by the church is a live possibility in a maternal hospital.” Is it “interference” when the Sisters are faithful to their medical ethics in such matters, but not interference when those same ethics led them and other congregations to fill “this serious gap”, as Gabriel describes it?

The fears of Dr Boylan and others seem to arise from strong resentment against the Sisters of Charity, as Gabriel says, pointing to how the sisters are being “execrated in such hostile and sometimes vitriolic terms.” I suspect that this is heightened by the proximity of the debate on abortion. As reported in the media, it seems at times almost a frenzy. A petition with 100,000 signatures against ownership of the new NMH by SVHG sound impressive. The population stood at 4,761,865 in April 2016, so that petition represents 2.1% of the population, but they are well organised. If someone versed in these matters were to initiate a petition in support of the present proposals, I wonder could it surpass it?

There is something seriously contradictory if we are about to invest 1 billion Euro in a new Children’s Hospital, and at the same time to invest €300 million in a hospital which will include in its programme of “services” the termination of the lives of unborn children. There are better ways. The recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly lack rationality and leave serious questions. No person has an abortion just for the sake of having an abortion: there are always other reasons. If those reasons are non-medical, for example “socio-economic”, as is the case in a large majority of abortions elsewhere, then those same reasons need to be addressed, rather than apply a medical “solution” to a non-medical problem. If the reasons are medical, then it is quite clear that the mother may always receive whatever treatment is necessary to save her, even if, sadly, it is not possible to save the child.
There is an internal anomaly in Gabriel’s essay. He writes of “traditionalists”, with whom “the Gospel is ignored and there is no mention of mercy or forgiveness as a grace.” And yet he writes in relation to the Mother and Child Scheme that it was “opposed, perhaps understandably, by the medical profession, and unforgivably by the Catholic Church.” The church has indeed many failings; but why should any of these be unforgivable?


[2] Rory Connor
May 13th, 2017 at 5:25 pm

I find Fr Gabriel Daly’s arguments very strange and I can’t see the relevance of many of them so I will concentrate on one. Fr Daly finds himself convinced by the “wise and persuasive arguments” of Dr. Peter Boylan who feared that there might be interference with medical decisions on religious grounds. In summary I wonder why he is convinced by Dr. Boylan but not by Master of the National Maternity Hospital Dr Rhona Mahony, deputy chairman Nicholas Kearns, or the overwhelming majority of the board members (25 out of 28) who approved the agreement brokered by Kieran Mulvey in November last year?

I suppose the argument that Fr Daly agrees with is the one contained in the text message sent to Dr Mahony and (former president of the High Court) Mr Kearns on 23 April: [Irish Daily Mail, 26 April 2017]
I’m sorry it’s come to this but I did try to warn you. The way out for both of you is to make it clear that you were misled by SVHG [St Vincent’s Hospital Group]. You accepted their bona fides and assurances and were effectively lied to. Both you and the minister are inextricable linked in this and you’ll either sink or swim together.

The way to get the hospital is to insist on CPO of Elm Park golf club land on periphery and establish links to via tunnels/corridors. Minimal design alterations needed.

Does Fr Daly consider these to be “wise and persuasive arguments” or “temperate”? Is he really surprised by the immediate response Dr Boylan received from Mr. Kearns that included the following:
”Both the Master and I have received and read your text sent to us at 13.47 today.

“We are now asking for your immediate resignation from the Board of Holles St – both because of your public intervention to criticise and oppose the overwhelming majority decision of the Board taken in November last to approve the agreement reached with SVUH for the transfer of Holles St to Elm Park – a vote on which you abstained – and in addition because of the content of your text sent today.

“It’s intimidatory tone is most regrettable.” ……

Would Father Daly consider that an “intemperate” response to a “wise and persuasive argument” from Dr. Boylan?

The National Maternity Hospital also issued a statement .
“Dr Boylan was a member of the NMH Board at all times during the six month period of mediation which resulted in the agreement of 21 November 2016 to co-locate the National Maternity Hospital with St Vincent’s University Hospital. The Board was kept fully briefed on all developments by the negotiating team during that period,” the hospital said in the statement.

The decisive final meeting of the board overwhelmingly supported the agreement with 25 in favour, two abstentions (including Dr Boylan) and one vote against. [My emphasis] 

Thereafter the agreement was approved by government and planning permission was lodged.Last week, some five months after the agreement was approved, Boylan, without warning, consultation with or notification to the Board, its chair or the master of the hospital, went public in attacking the agreement. Board members have a duty of loyalty to the Board on which they serve and for this reason his resignation has been sought.

I see that Dr.Boylan’s proposed solution is a Compulsory Purchase Order of land belonging to Elm Park golf club. So what’s wrong with a CPO? Well Health Minister Simon Harris has pointed out that using a CPO would not have been “the ideal solution by any means” because it would have meant the project getting “caught up in some potential legal difficulty for a large number of years.” Shane Phelan in the Irish Independent on 25 April gave an illustration of this difficulty. One just has to look at the case of Thomas Reid who resisted efforts by IDA Ireland to compulsorily purchase his land in 2011. The matter went all the way to the Supreme Court where Mr. Reid won his case in 2015. In the scenario suggested by Dr. Boylan, Elm Park Golf Club would be VERY likely to win a legal battle. They could point out that their land is “on the periphery” (as Dr Boylan states) and that for ideological reasons, the National Maternity Hospital had rejected the offer of a more central site from the Sisters of Charity!

FINALLY I see that Dr Boylan seems to accept that a CPO of the Sisters of Charity land is not possible. Veteran negotiator Kieran Mulvey said (in the Mail on Sunday 30 April) that it was not possible for the nuns to give up ownership of St Vincent’s because of intertwined loans. He said St Vincent’s Healthcare Group had large borrowings connected to the hospital site and ‘the idea that you can just separate a piece of land is just not legally possible at the moment… There are large borrowings by the St Vincent Healthcare Group which will have to be met.’

Unfortunately Dr. Boylan’s proposed solution appears to involve equal – if not greater – legal difficulties and delays!


[3] Rory Connor
May 15th, 2017 at 7:35 pm
There seems to be two separate – although related discussions – going on here, one of which is the general issue of a “Catholic Ethos”. I believe that the latter issue is peripheral; it’s being used by anti-clerics as an excuse to launch savage attacks on the Sisters of Charity and I suspect that the rational and respectful discussion between Kevin and Joe etc is beside the point!

I see the main issue as that stated in the recent statement by the ACP in the article entitled “National Maternity Hospital”
..In fact, if some of the things being said publicly about nuns today were being said about any other minority group, they would be clearly seen as highly inflammatory and viewed as being in violation of the laws against discrimination...

Specifically I suggest that they are in violation of the Prohibition against Incitement to Hatred Act 1989 which makes it an offence to publish or broadcast material that is threatening, abusive or insulting and is intended, or is likely, to stir up hatred. (This includes hatred directed against a group of persons on the basis of their religion.)

I recall media articles relating to the controversy in which people claimed they were experimented on for vaccine trials while in a Mother and Baby Home, or subjected to “atrocities”. And a letter in which a lady claimed that the words “nuns” and “maternity hospital” in the same sentence are enough to make an Irish female shudder. The latter comment is rather strange because according to a (very hostile) article in the Irish Times last year (28 April 2016)
http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/catholic-church-s-influence-over-irish-hospital-medicine-persists-1.2626856
..The running of the Irish health service was largely undertaken by religious orders in the past. Orders of nuns were responsible for the setting up of many of Ireland’s hospitals in the 19th and 20th centuries…

Indeed St Vincent’s Hospital was founded by Mother Mary Aikenhead foundress of the Sisters of Charity and established at St Stephen’s Green in 1834 to care for the sick poor. Did the Sisters prevent the State from establishing a secular equivalent in pre-Famine Ireland?

One extraordinary feature was the repeated claims by politicians and journalists that the Sisters of Charity had failed to pay the balance of €3 million “compensation” that they “owed” the State. Health Minister Simon Harris said that the two matters should be considered separately. What two matters? On 23 April [2017] the Mail on Sunday (journalist Valerie Hanley) reported:

“The Department of Education has confirmed to the MoS that that the nuns’ legal costs for the Ryan Commission will be offset against the €3 million of payments for abuse victims that are outstanding. While these costs have not been finalised, media reports that were based on briefing documents have estimated them at €5 million, a sum that would more than wipe out the outstanding bill that they owe.

Crucially, the department has confirmed that the reason for the delay in resolving the problem is nothing to do with the nuns, but is down to its own officials figuring out the final costs of the congregation’s legal representation at the Ryan Commission…..”

Yet, as Ms. Hanley pointed out, the claim that the Sisters owed €3 million, had been repeatedly cited by politicians from Fianna Fail, The Greens, Labour and the Social Democrats and the media as justification for outraged comments about the agreement brokered by Kieran Mulvey. Did the Minister for Health not liaise with his Education colleague? Or did he decide to sidestep the issue – on the basis that discretion is the better part of valour when faced with anti-clerical hysteria?


[4] Kevin Walters
May 16th, 2017 at 8:11 am
Reply to Rory Connor 
Thank you Roy for your comment, the article by Gabriel incorporates an attack on the moral authority of the church’s teachings, especially Humanae Vitae as it is sited six times often disparagingly.

I realize that you want to focus on injustice in regards to the Nuns but that same injustice is undermining their ethical belief in the Churches teaching in regards to the sacredness of human life, from conception to death, which many have given their lives in service to.
I believe that there is plenty of space on this web page to search for the Truth of “related discussions”

kevin your brother
In Christ

[5] Rory Connor
May 18th, 2017 at 8:02 pm
Reply to Kevin 
I tend to agree with you regarding Humanae Vitae. Also some anti-clerics who were alienated from the Catholic Church because of the encyclical, probably see it as justification for ANY kind of hate-filled attack on clergy or nuns. “Ecrasez l’infame” and all that.

However the CURRENT issue is the controversy about the National Maternity Hospital and it is due to come to a head again at the end of this month – after the cooling-off period suggested by the Minister for Health. I suspect the ONLY result of the “cooling-off” is that journalists and politicians will no longer repeat the lie about the Sisters “owing” €3 million to the State. However this won’t be because of a new-found devotion to the truth but because THAT particular lie is no longer sustainable! Otherwise it will be back to business as usual and the Church needs to prepare itself.

I do indeed want to “focus on injustice in regards to nuns” but as I stated in a previous discussion, this has major implications for the laity – and for teachers most of all. See in particular comment # 4 in “The Oblates, the Minister and the Redress Board”

If the Sisters of Charity manage to handle the present crisis properly, namely by refusing to make concessions in the face of hysterical attacks, then it could discourage such attacks in future. And that will benefit lots of people apart from clergy or religious.

In that respect I was pleased to read the following in Valerie Hanley’s article in The Mail on Sunday on 23 April [2017]:
A source revealed: ‘The nuns are adamant that they have fulfilled all their obligations under the redress board. When something is repeated enough it becomes fact. There has been an awful lot of vitriol loaded on the nuns. There has been a nonsense argument going on all week and there is no basis for some of what has been said. Some of what has been said is prejudice for things that happened historically. It’s band-wagonism and politicians are running after it. The politicians should be doing better.

The nuns are annoyed and they consider some of the comments that have been made as being defamatory. I think their attitude now is ‘let the State go off and build their hospital on their own land’. [My Emphasis]

That’s all very well and I couldn’t agree more BUT the Sister’s comment is being made anonymously. My own fear is that – under pressure – the Sisters of Charity will cave in and authorise an amendment to the National Maternity Hospital Agreement approved in November 2016. In that case, their critics will rejoice and declare themselves victorious and vindicated. In previous comments I have detailed how the Sisters of MERCY were savaged because of their constant attempts to ingratiate themselves with people who hated them. I also have an article on the subject here:
Sisters of Mercy

I hope that the Sisters of Charity now understand the dangers of Appeasement – defined by one British newspaper in 1939 as “A clever plan of selling off your friends in order to buy off your enemies”.
(For the Sisters of Mercy, that worked the same way it did for Neville Chamberlain!)

[6]   Eddie Finnegan
May 19th, 2017 at 3:16 pm
The Leadership [of the Association of Catholic Priests]  very balanced statement on ‘The National Maternity Hospital’ on 10 May unfortunately diverted any comments to this discussion thread, thereby losing the importance of the points it made in four of its five paragraphs. Only Pádraig McCarthy referred to the statement [1] above, though Rory Connor@[5] once again returned to the wider question at greater length.

The statement’s Paragraphs 2&3 rightly pointed out: “In the current debate . . . . we consider some of the language and expressions being used about the Sisters, and indeed nuns in general, both in the media and by some public representatives, to be both distasteful and unfair.

“In fact, if some of the things being said publicly about nuns today were being said about any other minority group, they would be clearly seen as highly inflammatory and viewed as being in violation of the laws against discrimination.”

The excellent letter from Sr Una Agnew SSL in today’s Irish Times [‘Time to reject caricatured view of nuns’] deserves to be reproduced within this discussion on the ACP forum. http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/time-to-reject-caricatured-view-of-nuns-1.3088148

As Sr Una puts it: “The derision with which the word ‘nun’ has been spoken on Irish television has cut to the heart of many who have put their lives on the line for values that are foundational to human flourishing . . . It is not nun-like to blow one’s own trumpet, yet no one is likely to do it for us, though many in high places have reason to be grateful.”


[7] Rory Connor
May 23rd, 2017 at 11:44 pm
Reply to Eddie 
I agree it’s a pity that the ACP Leadership diverted discussion on their National Maternity Hospital (NMH) statement to this thread. The “cooling-off” period called for by Health Minister Simon Harris, will come to an end shortly and we will probably face another barrage of hate-filled rhetoric directed at the Church and the Sisters of Charity. The discussion re Humanae Vitae is of limited relevance in this context.

Anyway I have just re-located Breda O’Brien’s article in the Irish Times regarding the abuse being hurled at the Sisters of Charity. Dated 6 May, the heading is “Mob Mentality Over Religious Orders Has Gone Too Far”. She quotes Professor Roy Greenslade regarding the way the McCann parents were treated after the disappearance of their daughter Madelaine (and the current hysteria is similar):
"It was like being in front of a mob – and you realized there is no wisdom in the mob. And it’s been terrible since”.

Ms O’Brien compares the atmosphere to that which led to the false conviction for rape of (former Sister of Mercy) Nora Wall who was accused of holding down a 12 year old girl so that the equally innocent Paul (Pablo) McCabe could rape her. She reminds us that both were convicted in the immediate aftermath of RTE’s broadcast of Mary Raftery’s “States of Fear” programmes in 1999. She could well have added that both were accused shortly after the broadcast by RTE of the “Dear Daughter” programme in 1996.

Nora Wall was the first woman in the State to be convicted of rape, the first person to receive a life sentence for rape, the first to be convicted of evidence given after “recovered memory”. These are “firsts” but there is also an “only”. There were TWO rape allegations against Wall and McCabe, one supposedly having occurred on the “victim’s” 12th birthday. Pablo McCabe was a homeless man but by an extra-ordinary chance there WAS an official record of where he was on that that particular day – and it was nowhere near the site of the “rape”. No problem for the jury. They acquitted the two defendants of that rape but convicted them of the second one for which no specific date was given! I think I can safely state that this is the ONLY time in the history of the State in which such an event has occurred – or will ever occur. An accused person is supposed to be “innocent until proven guilty” and if an accuser tells an obvious lie, then that should be the end for the prosecution. In fact the Prosecution were able to overcome that obstacle because Nora Wall had been a nun and anti-clerical hysteria trumped every rational consideration!

Anti-clerical hysteria continues to triumph over reason and morality in “liberal” secular Ireland. Breda O’Brien also refers to RTE’s libeling of Fr Kevin Reynolds in May 2011 by accusing him of impregnating and abandoning a young Kenyan woman. Fr Reynolds offered to take a DNA test but RTE ignored the offer and went ahead with the broadcast anyway – thus exposing themselves to a huge libel payout. Note that a NORMAL conman (i.e. one motivated by the desire for money or fame) would have seen the alarm signals and backed out at that stage but people motivated by ideological hatred (in the form of anti-clericalism) behave differently.

Am I being too strident? Well an earlier Irish Times article by Breda O’Brien regarding Judge Harding Clark’s report on the Symphysiotomy “scandal” is also relevant here. How many people still recall this fake scandal that occupied media headlines for a mere 17 years – prior to the publication of the judge’s report in November 2016?
http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/breda-o-brien-why-did-so-many-women-say-they-had-symphysiotomies-1.2882141
Why Did So Many Women Say They Had Symphysiotomies?
Sensationalist consensus may overlook one third of applicants who never had procedure.
……But medical experts proved that a third of those who made applications, including some very vociferous and active campaigners, had never had the procedure at all.

Other applicants claimed to have had it in hospitals that were not yet built, or to have had it carried out by doctors who were not there, and “in several statements the applicant claimed being held down by nuns (in hospitals where there were no nuns) while she was being ‘assaulted’.”…..

Again this has an obvious link to the false allegations against Nora Wall and Pablo McCabe. It also helps to explain the thuggish rhetoric being directed at the Sisters of Charity today.

[8] Rory Connor
May 25th, 2017 at 12:13 pm
I see there are two articles in the Irish Medical Times on the National Maternity Hospital controversy – both significant in their own way and I commented on the one by Doctor Ruairi Hanley “Minister Build That Hospital”. http://www.imt.ie/opinion/minister-build-that-hospital-10-05-2017/#comment-15258

You have to register (although there is no charge) so I will quote what I see as the most important section:
….Regrettably, there is another factor in this dispute that has taken us beyond mere clinical disagreement. Over the past month, a baying liberal cyber mob has entered the fray and all sense of perspective has been lost. Please note, I am not referring here to those colleagues who have genuine concerns about this project. As already stated, I disagree with these people, but I respect their view.

No, the group that I find beyond parody are the extreme liberal, Catholic-hating online brigade who appear to think that a giant abortion clinic is the most important priority for South Dublin. I suspect some of these people will not be satisfied until a few nuns are imprisoned and the Catholic Church is effectively eradicated from any involvement in Irish society.

Liberal outrage
The vicious, obnoxious tone of some members of this new mob is truly appalling. They have turned on Dr Rhona Mahony, an outstanding and dedicated obstetrician who is a role model for Irish women. But, let’s be honest, the cool gang could not care less about the facts. Once they heard mention of nuns the red mist descended and it was then we moved to a classic liberal outrage contest.

For these individuals, online perception is always more important than clinical outcome. In their world it is apparently acceptable for this project to be sabotaged, with negative consequences for women and children, so long as a few elderly nuns get a good cyber-kicking.

Naturally, if the mob gets their way the hospital will be delayed at a cost of tens of millions of euro to the taxpayer. In my opinion, this would undoubtedly be the most expensive act of online ‘virtue signalling’ in human history. [My emphasis]

As an aside, I make no apologies for pointing out that the Catholic Church has done enormous good work in healthcare for the poorest in society over the past century, even if I am one of the only doctors in Ireland willing to say this publicly. …..

[9] Rory Connor
May 26th, 2017 at 6:53 pm
The second article in the Irish Medical Times “A Complicated Delivery” (by editor Dara Gantly) is equally significant – although for slightly different reasons.
http://www.imt.ie/opinion/editorial/a-complicated-delivery-10-05-2017/

In relation to the ownership issue Dara Gantly writes that
…..Talk is now of a possible long-term lease (999 years anyone?) at a nominal or ‘peppercorn rent’.

It’s a curious development, given that the terms of agreement between the Holles Street and the St Vincent’s Hospital Group (SVHG) clearly stated that both hospitals realised this mediation process represented “the final opportunity to reach agreement on the project”, and that the Minister previously didn’t want to renegotiate it. …..

Indeed and if the Sisters of Charity are so foolish as to agree to this further re-negotiation of the Agreement, the “baying mob” referred to by Doctor Ruairi Hanley [comment #[8] will declare themselves vindicated and victorious. And let not the Sisters suppose that the mob will be content with their victory!

Mr Gantly concludes his article with the following:
…What is of further interest now is that the Minister [for Health] wants to begin a “broader conversation” about the structure of our health service, including the role of voluntary hospitals and the interest religious congregations have in them. This has been happening in education (slowly mind), so we should not be too surprised to see it start in Health.

“That is a good thing and I want to separately put in place a process to facilitate that broader conversation which is long overdue and which will, rightfully, take some time,” Minister Harris has noted. ..

And what will be the nature of this conversation IF Minister Harris sees that the Sisters of Charity and the Church will not stand up for themselves but will attempt to conciliate the mob? When politicians and the media claimed that the Sisters owed €3 million in “compensation”, it was not the Minister for Health, but a Daily Mail journalist who queried the Department of Education and discovered that the Sisters owed nothing and in fact had over-paid! [See comment # [3]]

If the Sisters of Charity attempt to appease the mob in relation to the National Maternity Hospital, then reason and logic will NOT feature in the future “broader conversation” referred to by Simon Harris!

CONCLUSION

An article on the ACP website called The New National Maternity Hospital and the Religious Sisters of Charity features a Statement by Sister Mary Christian that details the Sisters' self-abasement before the mob. It begins:
The Religious Sisters of Charity will end our involvement in St Vincent’s Healthcare Group and will not be involved in the ownership or management of the new National Maternity Hospital...
I commented as follows:

[10] Rory Connor
June 2nd, 2017 at 9:13 pm
I had a number of comments on a previous ACP article “Catholic Ethos and Other Mysteries” including numbers [8] and [9] that referred to articles in the Irish Medical Times. I am reproducing #[9] here. It is very relevant as the Sisters of Charity have not just caved in to vicious and lying allegations; their Statement does not even refer to such allegations. Is anyone really deceived as to their motivation?

[I then repeated the previous comment above which ended with a prediction:
If the Sisters of Charity attempt to appease the mob in relation to the National Maternity Hospital, then reason and logic will NOT feature in the future “broader conversation” referred to by Simon Harris! ]

[11] Rory Connor
June 5th, 2017 at 6:50 pm
In a previous comment (#57 in the “Catholic Ethos and Other Mysteries” discussion #[8] above) I quoted from an article by Doctor Ruairi Hanley in the Irish Medical Times entitled “Minister Build That Hospital”. Doctor Hanley refers to “a baying liberal cyber mob”, their “vicious, obnoxious tone” and continues
“as an aside, I make no apologies for pointing out that the Catholic Church has done enormous good work in healthcare for the poorest in society over the past century, even if I am one of the only doctors in Ireland willing to say this publicly.“[My emphasis]

One reason why other doctors are unwilling to say this publicly, is that they will be undermined by the craven response of the Catholic authorities whose sole concern is to abase themselves before their slanderers. Last year, I corresponded with a man who had done good work in the past in defending falsely accused clergy and religious. However his response in 2016 was that he would not stick out his neck on behalf of people who were not prepared to defend themselves; naturally my request had related to nuns! His attitude – and that of other fair-minded people – can only be reinforced by the recent Statement from the leadership of the Religious Sisters of Charity.

I wonder what would have been the attitude of Jews if they had been attacked in similar fashion? Suppose that a Jewish group had offered to donate land for a hospital under precisely the same conditions as those agreed in November 2016 between Holles St and St Vincents. Suppose that the media and politicians erupted with hate-filled lies – including claims that the Jewish group committed “atrocities” against children, “experimented on [a child] for vaccine trials” and owed the State €3 million. Suppose that the Government Ministers responsible failed to defend the Jewish group against the lies and it was left up to a Daily Mail journalist to find out – via a Freedom of Information request – that the Jewish group owed nothing and had actually overpaid!

Of course, one reason that this would never happen is that the Jewish group would immediately defend its slandered members and take legal action against those responsible. Anti-Semites know this and are very mindful of the risks they would be facing. (For a recent illustration of this process at work try googling the names of the late Lord Greville Janner and his son Queen’s Counsel, Daniel Janner. One article you will find in ‘Police Professional’ on 30 May 2017 is headed “Historical Abuse Accusers Drop Claims against Lord Janner.”)

So Anti-Semites have to be very careful – but NOT anti-clerics and in particular not anti-clerics who tell lies about nuns. There have been a few occasions in which MALE clergy have successfully sued false accusers but the leaders of female religious congregations have always preferred the Appeasement approach. This has worked for the Catholic Church in much the same way it did for Neville Chamberlain in the 1930s i.e. it encourages further attacks from people who recognise moral cowardice when they see it. I wrote an article on this topic a few years ago and little has changed since then:
Sisters of Mercy