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 

Seminar on Tuam Children's Home (Online) - Transferred to Galway

This is a follow up to my article "Archbishop Diarmuid Martin and Cancellation of Seminar on Tuam Children’s Home" The Seminar originally scheduled for Dublin University Church on 30th August was cancelled by Archbishop Martin and eventually held in Galway on 4 October. I had intended to do an article on the subject but www.CatholicArena.com have done so much better than I could. This is a link to their article IRELAND'S MOTHER AND BABY HOMES: THE REAL STORY (After several postponements, Judge Yvonne Murphy is due to present the Report of the Commission on Mother and Baby Homes to Government on 30 October 2020).

At the conference in Galway, three historians (including my amateur self), Brian Nugent, Eugene Jordan and Rory Connor discussed the various inconsistencies in the prevailing public narratives of this period of Irish history. 

Brian Nugent: Did Home Rule equals Rome Rule in Independent Ireland?

SUMMARY: Brian Nugent (author of  @Tuam Babies: A Critical look at the Tuam Children's Home Scandal) spoke on the topic “Did Home Rule equal Rome Rule in Independent Ireland?” He endeavoured to show that the frequently repeated claim of a kind of Catholic dictatorship in Ireland can be shown to be false. Firstly by examining the attitude of the Taoisigh [Prime Ministers] of Ireland in those years, then from the pattern seen in a number of other important institutions, such as the Judiciary, Presidency, and Lord Mayoralties of Dublin, and sectors like healthcare and especially education, and finally by raising the surprising subject of anti-Catholic discrimination in the South of Ireland in those years

W.T. Cosgrove was effectively the first Taoiseach (Prime Minster) of independent Ireland - from 1922 to 1932. He was indeed very religious and a close friend of Frank Duff, the founder of the Legion of Mary. However in a letter to Archbishop Gilmartin of Tuam on 11 March 1931 he wrote (in relation to a dispute about the appointment of a Protestant librarian in Co Mayo):

"As I explained to Your Grace at our interview, to discriminate against any citizen - or to exercise a preference for a citizen - on account of religious belief, would be to conflict with some of the fundamental principles on which this State is founded."

A look at the career of Eamon de Valera (first became Taoiseach in 1932)  throws up three issues which are infrequently brought up: i) his excommunication, along with all the anti-Treaty side, during the Civil War. He and his colleagues didn’t modify their behaviour to accommodate the Bishops admonitions then, so surely that proves  their independence in political matters from the latter? ii) The angry reaction from many important Catholics to the lack of recognition of that religion in his constitution, including to a degree from the Pope and certainly from influential clerics like Fr Edward Cahill S.J. and Fr Denis Fahey C.S.Sp, who campaigned vigorously against his constitution on those grounds for many years. iii) The surprising fact, thrown up by modern research in archives in Dublin and Rome, that de Valera himself seemed to be most responsible for the appointment of Michael Browne to the Bishopric of Galway, and Dr McQuaid to Dublin. The State also influenced the Church as well as the other way around!

Sean Lemass (Taoiseach 1959-66 and de Valera's Deputy since 1932)

Extract from his taped Memoirs:

 "I think there was a political advantage in having a certain anti-clerical tinge.......The only time in my life that I ever got an enormous vote, the highest vote ever accorded to any candidate in a general election was when I was having a full-scale row with the bishop of Galway [Dr Michael Browne in 1944] and this was dominating the political scene and I found this on other occasions too – that having a good row with the bishop is quite a political asset and you do not suffer politically for it because there is an anti-clericalism in the Irish people."

First Four Presidents of Ireland

1. Douglas Hyde (1938 - 45)                     Protestant

2. Sean T. O'Kelly (1945 - 59)                   Catholic

3. Eamon de Valera (1959 - 73)                Catholic

4. Erskine Childers (1973 - 74)                  Protestant 

Lord Mayors of Dublin

Robert Briscoe (1956-57 and 1961-62)    Jewish

Maurice Dockrell (1960-61)                       Protestant

Judiciary

From the biography of Timothy Sullivan, first President of the Irish High Court (1924-36):

"Throughout his tenure Sullivan presided over a high court whose membership of six was equally divided between judges of a nationalist and unionist background."

Examples of non-Catholic judges of the time include:

 T. C. Kingsmill Moore, son of  a Protestant Minister, a Senator 1943-47, he was a High Court judge 1947-51 and on the Supreme Court 1951-66.

James Creed Meredith, President of Dail Supreme Court 1920-22, judge of the High Court 1924-37, on the Supreme Court and for a time President of it, 1937-42.

Gerald Fitzgibbon T.D. 1921-23, judge on the Supreme Court 1924-38.

Healthcare: Some Dublin Hospitals in 1959 (amalgamation was being considered)

The hospitals concerned are Sir Patrick Dun's; Mercers; the National Children's Hospital, Harcourt St; the Meath; Baggot St; Steevens and the Adelaide. With the exception of the Meath, they could all be referred to as Protestant Hospitals, controlled by Protestants and largely staffed by Protestant doctors.

Rotunda Hospital

The Rotunda Hospital, Dublin was founded in 1745 as a Maternity Training Hospital, the first of its kind. It got its first Catholic Master in 1995!

Education (1964 quote from Irish Senator)

"We in Ireland are justly proud of our school system, he continued. Scrupulous care is taken that Catholicism, Protestantism or Atheism are not imposed on any pupil against his will. Any denominational group can, at any time, set up its own school and the corresponding State support is immediately made available on the basis of the number of pupils in attendance"

At Independence in 1921, the new Irish State took over the education system set up by the British in the 19th century without making any major changes. There had been furious controversy between the Bishops and the British Government in regard to the setting up of the National Schools (primary) system and the Queens Colleges (university) system. This was largely settled in the 1870s when the British agreed that all religious denominations in Ireland could build and run their own schools, while the State would pay the salaries of the teachers. The curricula for the Primary Certificate, Intermediate Certificate and University entrance examinations were set by the State but apart from that, the school managers could create their own study programmes for Religion, History  etc. The Catholic Church and all major Protestant Churches established their own schools on that basis. A Jewish Primary School was set up in south Dublin in the 1930s and later a a Jewish Secondary School.

In more modern times Educate Together (or atheist) schools were set up on the same basis from about 1979 and a Muslim school in 1990.

Trinity College

 Ireland's first university established by the British Government in 1592 appointed its first Catholic Provost in 1991. Its reputation as a Protestant/Unionist stronghold was such that until 1970, Catholic students were not  permitted to attend without permission from the Archbishop of Dublin. After 1921 it continued to be subsidised by the State on the same basis as the other universities. Under the terms of the 1937 Constitution, graduates of Trinity College elect three Senators to Seanad Eireann.  

Guinness 

"It (Guinness) had no qualms about selling drink to Catholics but it did everything it could to avoid employing them until the 1960s ...the blatant discrimination continued far longer than it should have" (Irish Independent, 17 June 2013)

Bank of Ireland

Founded in 1783, the Bank of Ireland got its first Catholic Chief Executive Officer in 1991.

Irish Times

Founded in 1859, the Irish Times appointed its first Catholic editor in 1986

Brian Nugent stated that it is nonsense to talk about some kind of Catholic dictatorship and Home Rule did NOT equal Rome Rule in Independent Ireland!

Eugene Jordan:'Tuam Children's Home Story & Failure of Modern Irish Historiography'

SUMMARY: Eugene Jordan, recently the President of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, spoke on the question: “The Tuam Children’s Home story, a failure of modern Irish Historiography”. He described a lamentable pattern of how modern Irish historiography – the history of history –  unfairly runs down the Catholic Church, and frequently the good work of Irish people in general in the recent past. He spoke about the inferiority complex that seems very prevalent among Irish people in modern times, and to a degree among modern historians, and  questioned the sometimes intimidatory atmosphere created by feminism over some of these issues.

Regarding the limitations of Historiography in general (and the claim that the Catholic Church is hostile to Science) Eugene presented us with names of famous scientists few members of the public are aware of:

• Lazzaro Spallanzani: First person to perform In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) in 1786 meaning in the glass as opposed to in utero, in the womb. Pioneer into the study of echo location in bats.        
• Eugenio Barsanti: Inventor of the first practical internal combustion engine. 
• Giovanni Castelli: Inventor of the Fax machine       
• Jean Antoine Nollet: Discovered the osmosis of membranes        
• Giovanni Battista Venturi: The Venturi Effect is named after him   
• René Just Haüy: Father of Crystallography
• Georges Lemaître:  One of the most famous scientists in the world you have never heard of. First person to come up with the Big Bang Theory
  

All were Catholic priests! .......... So indeed was the anatomist Gabriele Falloppio, for whom the Fallopian Tubes and other anatomical structures are named. So feminists who talk about the female sexual organs are invoking the name of a priest!

Deaths at the Tuam Children's Home have been compared to a "Holocaust" and explicit references have been made to the Nazis. So let's compare the statistics for the 36 year period from 1925 to 1960 inclusive) when the Home was open to a recent 36-year period from 1982 to 2017. 

The number of births between the two 36 year periods is remarkably similar with a figure of close to 2.2 million. Points to note. A mere 12,632 infants (less than one year old) died in the 1982 to 2017 period representing a massive drop from the 145,818 infant deaths in the earlier period. This means that 4,166 babies died on average in Ireland each year in which the Tuam Home was open. That figure has dropped in recent decades to an average of 361 infant deaths per year - or less than one tenth the number. This is in line with the drop in infant mortality that has taken place over the developed world - although the drop in Ireland lagged behind the rest of the world for  a few years due to the continuing economic deprivation.

There were 64,290 illegitimate children born in Ireland between 1925 and 1960 of which 13,431 children died but that figure is dwarfed by the deaths of 132,387 legitimate children, a figure nearly 10 times greater. Nearly all of these infants and children died from birth defects and diseases, which could not be inoculated against and were incurable at the time.

Compare Deaths by Age Groups THEN and NOW. According to a CSO graph (that compared 1916 to the present day), in 1916 slightly over 8,000 children under the age of 5 died in Ireland - compared to a few hundred in 2014. However in 2014 a little over 8,000 people died in the Age Group 75 - 84 i.e. similar to the number of infants in 1916!  Where children are concerned the pattern of deaths has to an extent been reversed in the last century! This can also be seen in the age group 5 to 14 where close to 2,000 children died in 1916 compared to a tiny number in 2014

Eugene stresses the connection between poverty and childhood death rates, that continues to the present day - and not just in the Third World. He quotes a Newsweek headline from May 2015 "Washington's Poorest Infants are Ten Times More Likely to Die Than Richest" He discusses the claim that Catholic nuns (and the Protestant women who ran Bethany Home) allowed  children to starve to death. 

"The primary evidence put forward for abuse and starvation is the appearance of the word Marasmus. Marasmus found on Death Certificates is what is chiefly used to accuse the nuns and the Protestant women of murder. 

Only 14 out of 796 death certificates from the Tuam home record the cause of death as being due to marasmus (10 as the primary cause) with a further 156 recording debility as the primary and contributory cause of death. It would appear that the journalists sensationalising the murder claims could not find the term debility associated with starvation on Wikipedia, even though it was classified alongside marasmus as ‘wasting disease’ thus they missed the opportunity to increase the number of ‘starved to death’ by tenfold!

"Looking at an extract from the Registrar General's Report for 1919, you can see what the medical profession think Marasmus is. It's a developmental and wasting disease and the three of them are there Atrophy, Debility and Marasmus. THIS is significant. Marasmus was also a killer of infants in Maternity Hospitals outside of Mother and Baby Homes. 

"Here is a Certificate with Marasmus on it. It's from the Adelaide Protestant Hospital (now amalgamated with Tallaght Hospital). Here we have evidence of Murder, Slaughter! [3 month  old infant died of Marasmus 25 July 1935]

Here we have Marasmus again. It's at Temple St Children's Hospital - murder taking place there! [10 week old infant died of Marasmus 21 May 1942] 

Here is another case of Marasmus where the child died at home and death has been certified by a medical professional. A doctor visited the home, certified that a child suffered from Marasmus and subsequently when the child died of Marasmus.[6 months old child, died of Marasmus, 26 November 1942, Ashtown

"Here is the famous Rotunda Hospital. Two cases of Murder there as well! [One infant died on 13 May 1942 aged 15 days and the second on 14 May 1942 aged 7 weeks, both from Marasmus]

"Here is an advertisement entitled "CURE OF MARASMUS: At seven months, she weighed under nine pounds". If Marasmus is Starvation as they are trying to make out, why is there a cure for it? Surely it's food or adequate food? [The Evening Herald, 3 March 1902]

"Here is a newspaper article from 1925 headed Death of Nurse Child. It states that Death from Marasmus was the verdict returned at an inquest held at Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital on the body of a 9 months old nurse child of Thorncastle St., Ringsend. The coroner said that because of the condition of the child when it was brought to the hospital, the house surgeon was of the opinion that it had died from starvation but the post mortem showed that death was due to natural causes. The child had been under treatment for six months  in the Children’s Hospital, Harcourt St. and did not seem to improve. Dr. Hogan, house surgeon, stated death was due to marasmus, the child not being able to assimilate the nourishment given it. The jury found in accordance with the evidence."

i.e. the child did not die from starvation!

Rory Connor: False Allegations of Child Abuse Against the Catholic Church, including Homicide

SUMMARY: My talk is based on my Blog article "Blood Libel in Ireland - Directed Against Catholics not Jews!".  I had originally intended to make limited reference to the Tuam Home itself BUT I had come to realise that it also included references to the Nazi Holocaust and claims that the Bon Secours Sisters had starved children to death (an issue highlighted by Eugene Jordan in his talk). Accordingly Tuam assumed a higher profile than I first thought necessary. In the above-mentioned article I assumed that Ireland's Blood Libel hysteria had come to an end in 2010 when the Gardai informed the then Minister for Justice that their year long inquiry into the murder of Bernadette Connolly in 1970, had disclosed NO evidence of involvement by the Catholic Church. But of course, anti-clerics - like anti-Semites - are immune to rational considerations and an article by Emer O'Kelly in the Sunday Independent on 8 June 2014 "Tuam Babies Cry Not For Justice But For Vengeance" 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.

[I could also have pointed out that Emer O'Kelly twice denounces the Good Shepherd Sisters in her Sunday Independent article  i.e. the wrong nuns!]

I date the start of my present "Crusade" to 25 September 1999 when the Irish Times published an article by Patsy McGarry quoting a leading member of Survivors of Child Abuse Ireland who claimed he had attended the funerals of boys in Artane who died after being punched by a Christian Brother. No boy died of ANY cause while this gentleman was in Artane Industrial School! There were numerous such allegations published and broadcast between about 1997 and 2010. As indicated in "Blood Libel in Ireland" the first and last related to the deaths of real children - reinterpreted to blame the Catholic Church - but in between hysteria reigned in the media and there were a number of articles and broadcasts in which the Christian Brothers were accused of killing non-existent boys. I coined the phrases "Murder of the Undead" and "Victimless Murders" to describe the latter. 

About 2000 and again in 2001, I approached the Gardai (Irish police) about two of these Murder of the Undead claims (by the Irish Times and TV3 respectively) as I felt they must be in breach of the Prevention of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989. The Director of Public Prosecutions declined to prosecute - perhaps on the basis that false allegations of child killing do not PROVE that the media are motivated by hatred!  In 2004 I approached the Irish Human Rights Commission who were no help at all. (One reason they gave me for refusing to look into the issue of false allegations of child murder, was that it wasn't in their Three Year Plan!) However my dealings with the IHRC inspired me to summarise the allegations of child murder against the Catholic Church into one document. The above-mentioned article "Blood Libel in Ireland - directed against Catholics not Jews" is an updated version of that 2004 document.

Tuam Mother and Baby Home: The REAL Story (Brian Nugent)

SUMMARY: The Tuam controversy alleges that babies were buried in a septic tank. This arises from no other source than the coincidence that the area of the current graveyard of the Children's Home, corresponds with old maps referring to a 'cesspool' attached to the old workhouse, as discovered by Catherine Corless. But this can be easily disproved as insignificant, for example:

- the cesspool corresponds to about a quarter of the area of the current graveyard, but that graveyard was condensed drastically around 1980 and was a much bigger area when the nuns were there which therefore makes it unlikely that they buried bodies at that exact spot;

- the large old cesspool, was only an over ground structure where manure was temporarily placed before being sold off to use on farms, therefore it isn't very significant to say that the same area could be used for burials some 100 years later;

- and it can be easily proved that the bones discovered by recent excavations are reburials by the County Council during c.1970-1981, creating a dedicated structure, an Ossuary, to house bones thrown up by their development of the site during that period. This of course is long after the nuns had left.

 A Discussion about Tuam and other topics

SUMMARY: The seminar ended with a discussion among the three speakers. Rory described some of the atmosphere in the Irish religious orders and congregations when these scandals broke. One congregation of nuns went from naivete, in cooperating and apologising enthusiastically with sometimes unfair allegations, to terror, as they realised to what extent it was a witch hunt against the Catholic Church. Hence his blog is called irishsalem.blogspot.com (with reference to the original Salem Witch-hunt).

[I also spoke of my Novice Master in the De La Salle Brothers, Brother Maurice Kirk, a conservative who nonetheless invited the "radical priest" Fr Michael Sweetman SJ to give us our 8-day Retreat at the end of the novitiate - August/September 1967. I suppose I am a relic of that long ago era that might have been a historical Turning Point - but History failed to turn and the world is as it is now!].   

Eugene pointed out that when the Ryan Commission expanded its remit to include physical abuse, rather than just sexual, then any teacher – and maybe parent – of that time could have fallen foul of their criticisms because corporal punishment was widespread everywhere at the time, not  just among the religious orders.

Meanwhile Brian pointed out the too trusting attitude that the modern Irish Church has to the State with respect to these inquiries. The Church overdoes its cooperation with the inquiries expecting justice, whereas some in the State see the advantage in discrediting the Church in the eyes of the populace, to assist in their various referenda campaigns etc

My Conclusion 

An article by Alison O'Reilly in the Irish Daily Mail on 8 April 2017 is headed "We Want Inquests Into All Deaths, Tuam Victims Tell Zappone" and begins

The families of the children buried in a mass grave in Tuam have told the Minister for Children, 'We want an inquest into all the children's death', the Irish Daily Mail can reveal.. It follows a two-hour meeting which took place yesterday between the Minister for Children Katherine Zappone and local Government Minister Simon Coveney as well as Kevin O'Kelly, chief executive of Galway County Council  and survivors of the home as well as relatives....

Those in attendance included local historian Catherine Corless who uncovered the names of the 796 children who died in the home, as well as Tuam resident John Rodgers, PJ Haverty, Walter Francis and and Michael O'Flaherty....During the meeting, Ms Zappone was given a brief submission by solicitor for some of the residents Kevin Higgins. In it he asked that the Government 'act with urgency' and to hold  a proper coroner's inquiry. The submission also said 'the failure of the Attorney General to invoke 24 of the Coroners Act as early as 2014 represented a serious failure of judgement'. It also urged against carrying out inquests into 'unidentified infants', and sought individual post mortems for each body....

Catherine Corless said: 'I am quite pleased, I expected an hour but they gave us a good bit of their time. It was good. They were fairly challenged and everyone got a chance to talk. They need an inquest, there's no point in moving them into a big grave.'.[my emphasis]

Regarding Inquests and Inquest reports, Citizen's Information states that: 

If a person dies and the death cannot be explained, an inquest may be held to establish the facts of the death, such as where and how the death occurred. An inquest is an official, public enquiry, led by the Coroner (and in some cases involving a jury) into the cause of a sudden, unexplained or violent death. An inquest is not usually held if a post-mortem examination of the body can explain the cause of death. [My emphasis]

 So it seems we are back where it all began more than 20 years ago with claims that Catholic nuns - in 1997 it was the Sisters of Mercy - were criminally responsible for the deaths of children in their care. All deaths in the Tuam Home were certified by doctors appointed by Galway County Council so it is clear that the reputations of those doctors are also being trashed!

Perhaps Catholic activists like myself should respond in kind? I noted above that a doctor at the Rotunda Maternity Hospital certified two infant deaths from Marasmus on consecutive days in May 1942. Compare the Tuam Home where doctors certified 14 Marasmus deaths over a period of 36 years (1925-1961)! Moreover the Rotunda, founded in 1745, did not get its first Catholic Master until 1995! Is not this deeply suspicious? Perhaps we should have a series of inquests on all Catholic children who died in the Rotunda from the foundation of the State until 1995. To reduce the size of the task, we could include only cases where the Death Certificate for a Catholic child was signed by a Protestant doctor! The resulting investigation should be of no greater size than holding inquests into the deaths of the 796 children who died in Tuam.

Rory Connor

30 October 2020

Cardinal Pell and Royal Commission Report: Myself and Ryan Commission Report [3]

"Abuse Survivor" John Kelly reading Ryan Commission Report May 2009

[1] Cardinal Pell - Acquitted by High Court, Denounced by Royal Commission

As per the Wikipedia article on Cardinal George Pell, on 7 April 2020, the High Court of Australia  on a unanimous verdict of 7 to 0, quashed Cardinal Pell's convictions for the sexual abuse of two boys and determined that judgments of acquittal be entered in their place. The court found that the jury, "acting rationally on the whole of the evidence, ought to have entertained a doubt as to the applicant's guilt with respect to each of the offences for which he was convicted".The court agreed with the minority judgment in the Court of Appeal, finding that the majority might have effectively reversed the burden of proof; the majority had been so impressed with the accuser's evidence that it had gone on to ask only whether, despite the testimonies of the "opportunity witnesses", there was a "possibility" that the alleged assaults had taken place and not, as was required by the test of reasonable doubt, whether there was a reasonable "possibility" that they had not. In their judgment, the judges said with respect to all five charges that, “Making full allowance for the advantages enjoyed by the jury, there is a significant possibility ... that an innocent person has been convicted.”

However on 7 May 2020 Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse revealed its findings on Cardinal  Pell concluding that he knew of child sexual abuse by clergy by the 1970s, but did not take adequate action to address it. The Cardinal responded that the commission's views "are not supported by evidence".

There seems to be a strong resemblance between the behaviour and attitude of Australia's Royal Commission and the Irish Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse ("Ryan Commission") that produced its report in May 2009. Both appear to have accepted as true any allegation that accused parties could not prove false and largely ignored the issue of false allegations. In Ireland these included claims of child murder made against the Christian Brothers and Sisters of Mercy - many relating to periods when no child died of any cause. (Accordingly I coined the phrases "Murder of the Undead" and "Victimless Murders"). Leaders of four "Victims'" Groups made the child-killing claims, all of which have long been discredited but the Report of the Ryan Commission drew no conclusions regarding the credibility of these leaders! 

Australia seems to have avoided the Blood Libel aspect of child abuse hysteria!  However as per Andrew Bolt: 
Bear this in mind, police have tried 26 times to jail George Pell using nine different alleged victims that it advertised for to come forward, a process that is highly suspect in itself. Every single one of those cases failed. And not because the organs of the state were defending Pell, they were against him, but because those allegations turned out to be so ludicrous, so poorly investigated, so weak that every one of them crumbled in the police’s hands.

As in Ireland, the Australian Royal Commission draws no conclusions from this farrago of anti-clerical lies!

The following are two letters published in the Irish Examiner in November 2011 regarding the Ryan Commission and the omission of many clearly false stories from its final Report. (Tom Hayes was then Secretary of the Alliance Victim Support Group).

[2a] Ryan Report Did Not Deal With False Allegations

Irish Examiner Monday, November 07, 2011

I REFER to the letter from Mr Tom Hayes published on November 2 regarding the Ryan Report on child abuse, and in particular the following:

Referring to “victims having been portrayed as guilty of exaggeration”, surely Mr Justice Ryan does not include those who gave evidence to the investigative part of the Child Abuse Commission and whose well-publicised, loud and exaggerated claims (so exaggerated as not to have been suitable for inclusion in his final report) were not proven when challenged under oath?

“What are we to make of these claims and those who made them? Can all survivors claim that ‘Ryan vindicated them’?... [Authorities] must be prepared to separate childhood abuse experiences, given confidentially and recorded within Mr Justice Ryan’s report, from some of the many clearly false stories that were omitted and which were challenged in the investigative part of the report.”

In the period 1996 to 2003, leading members of four victims’ groups made allegations that the Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy were responsible for the deaths of children in their care. Some of these claims relate to periods when no child died of any cause.

Accordingly I coined the phrases “murder of the undead” and “victimless murders” to describe them.

I made representations to the Ryan Commission both personally and as a member of a delegation from Let Our Voices Emerge — a group representing those falsely accused of child abuse — during an official meeting with representatives of the Commission.

We requested them to investigate those allegations.

The report of the Ryan Commission published in May 2009 makes no reference to these claims of unlawful killing. Originally I thought that the commission had ignored them completely. It now appears that the commission did investigate the allegations in private session, found no evidence to support them and took a deliberate decision to omit them from its published report. I find this reprehensible.

Allegations of child abuse, made decades after the alleged events, cannot be properly investigated. Claims of unlawful killing can be investigated and their truth or falsehood determined. This is especially true when no child actually died at the time the accusation refers to.

When the people who made those claims also allege that they were sexually abused, then we can also judge the credibility of the latter allegations.

The Ryan Report is gravely deficient by failing to include the results of the Commission’s investigation of these claims.


Rory Connor
11 Lohunda Grove
Clonsilla
Dublin 15

[2b] Ryan Report Must Be Put to Real World Test

Irish Examiner, Wednesday, November 02, 2011

IN Mr Justice Sean Ryan’s address in Cork about the ‘Protection of Children Post-Ryan Report’, he talks about "knowledge of abuse". We have such knowledge of abuse again, this time in relation to HSE childcare.

What effective action is being taken? Having been subjected to all of the failures that brought about Mr Justice Ryan’s report, many of us today cannot be confident that the State, and its many agencies working in support of children, has fully grasped its responsibilities. Children are suffering, and will continue to suffer. A third generation of children from the institutions in all of the major cities, both here and in the UK and further afield, are subject to social services monitoring.

Our voluntary efforts working for survivors and our experiences within the institutions count for nothing among the professional bodies who regard academic qualifications as more important than life experiences.

Referring to "victims having been portrayed as guilty of exaggeration," surely Mr Justice Ryan does not include those who gave evidence to the investigative part of the Child Abuse Commission and whose well-publicised, loud and exaggerated claims (so exaggerated as not to have been suitable for inclusion in his final report) were not proven when challenged under oath?

What are we to make of these claims and those who made them? Can all survivors claim that "Ryan vindicated them"?

The Ryan Report has yet to be fully understood. Government, and other professional bodies, have yet to implement its main recommendations. Social scientists, religious scholars and other professionals and learned persons must be prepared to separate childhood abuse experiences, given confidentially and recorded within Mr Justice’s Ryan Report, from some of the many clearly false stories that were omitted and which were challenged in the investigative part of the report.

There is a need to challenge the Ryan Report if we are to fully benefit from its findings.

Tom Hayes
Richhill, Co Armagh

[3] Royal Commission and Journalist/Pell Critic Paul Bongiorno

In 2015 high profile  journalist Paul Bongiorno spoke to ABC Radio National presenter Fran Kelly about the Royal Commission in an interview published in The Standard on 22 May 2015 

Bongiorno related his shock and disgust over the actions of disgraced priest Gerald Ridsdale, whom he worked alongside in Warrnambool in the diocese of Ballarat . The Channel Ten personality served as a Catholic minister in Warrnambool during the early 1970s before leaving the priesthood to pursue a career in journalism.
 
Bongiorno outlined his memories of Ridsdale, who was moved to Warrnambool by then Ballarat Catholic bishop Ronald Mulkearns in the early 1970s.

 “I know Gerald Ridsdale, I lived in a presbytery with him in Warrnambool,” he said. “I’ve had the victims approach me to appear for them in court cases. Let me tell you this Fran, I had no idea what he (Ridsdale) was up to. And when people look at me quizzically, I say ‘let me tell you this — there are married men and women now that sleep with their husbands and wives that don’t know their husband or wife is having an affair’. “Let me tell you that Ridsdale never came into the presbytery in Warrnambool and said: ‘guess how many boys I’ve raped today.’ They (paedophiles) hide it, it was certainly hidden from me and when it came out after I left the priesthood, I was shocked and I was ashamed."

The Royal Commission found that Cardinal Pell was aware of general allegations that children were being abused in the Ballarat diocese from 1973. It also found that he was told that paedophile priest Gerard Ridsdale was being moved because of his alleged sexual abuse of children at a meeting with then Bishop Ronald Mulkearns in 1982 when Pell was one of the Bishop's advisors ("consultors"). The Cardinal denied that he was told any such thing and the other then advisors told the Commission the same. Nevertheless Paul Bongiorno has no problem in accepting the damning findings of the Royal Commission!

Witness to Royal Commission Said He Told Bongiorno about Ridsdale

On 10 May Andrew Bolt commented in an article in The Herald Sun If Pell knew, why not Paul?
 No one could understand better than Paul Bongiorno this blindness and culture of silence. That’s because he, as a priest, once shared a house with this same Gerald Ridsdale. What’s more, a witness to the royal commission claimed he’d told Father Bongiorno in 1970 or 1971 that Ridsdale had offered to watch him masturbating, but he’d done nothing. To be fair, Bongiorno said this alleged conversation did not happen because he’d have remembered it......"

Bolt goes on to say: Let me be clear: I believe Bongiorno. The royal commission believed Bongiorno. The ABC believes him. The media also believes he knew nothing. But why won’t they also believe George Pell? Is it because Bongiorno is of the Left and Pell of the Right? Because Bongiorno left the church, but Pell became a symbol of it?  

Bolt gave a more detailed account of this episode in a article in The Herald Sun 4 years ago (27 May 2016) entitled Why is Bongiorno not vilified as was Pell? Why is Pell the scapegoat?

Gerard Henderson and I accept the word of both Pell and Bongiorno that they had no idea of what Ridsdale was up to. Now, what I've said so far has been reported before, including on this blog. But now Henderson has uncovered an even more incredible example of double standards - of Pell being hounded for what seems excused in Bongiorno, and, moreover, not even reported.

Henderson: It’s a matter of record that the media has not reported some statements made to the Royal Commission with respect to Paul Bongiorno while, at the same time, covering George Pell’s appearances in extraordinary detail. 

On 29 October 2015 an anonymous victim of Ridsdale – given the title “BPL” by the Royal Commission – made a statement to the Royal Commission. It reads in part: 

9. I first came into contact with RIDSDALE on three or four occasions in 1970 and 1971 in or around Warrnambool. 
10.  I was sexually abused by RIDSDALE on three or four occasions in 1970 and 1971 in or around Warrnambool. 
11. Around the time of the abuse I went on a boys’ camp just outside of Warrnambool, to a little place I think was called Crossley. I went with some other boys from my class. It was organised though the school, I think as a sort of sex-education camp. They showed us a film about the birds and the bees. 
12. Father BONGIORNO, who was a priest in the parish at the time, came on the camp. There were also a couple of Christian Brothers at the camp, but I can’t remember which ones. 
13. When we were at the camp, I talked to Father BONGIORNO. It was only a brief conversation. I told him how RIDSDALE had approached me one afternoon in the bathroom of the presbytery after I had served at a wedding service. RIDSDALE had asked me how much I ejaculated and had said that he would get a teaspoon to measure it and check if it was “normal”. 
14. I also told Father BONGIORNO that I believed that similar things had happened with my younger brother Michael, who was also an altar server. Father BONGIORNO said, “Look, it’s a real problem. Me and Father BORPHY have talked to Monsignor FISCALINI about it and he is sorting it out with the Bishop”. Father BONGIORNO said he couldn’t do anything further and told me to talk to Monsignor FISCALINI about it. 
15. Father BONGIORNO was the first person I told about the abuse. He left the priesthood shortly after that camp…. 

On 24 November 2015, Paul Bongiorno made a statement to the Royal Commission.... Paul Bongiorno stated that he lived in the Warrnambool Presbytery with four other priests – one of whom was Ridsdale... Paul Bongiorno’s statement reads in parts: 

15. I have a vivid recollection of how shocked I was when I learned that Father Ridsdale had appeared in court and what he had been charged with. I had had no idea... 
19. I have been shown a statement made by BPL identified by the number [STAT.0738.001.0001">. The BPL name is vaguely familiar to me. There were BPLs in Warrnambool, however I cannot put a face to that name. 
20. At paragraphs 11-15 of that statement, Mr BPL sets out a conversation that he alleges he had with me in 1970 or 1971. The conversation did not happen with me. I would remember it. I would have been deeply shocked by the alleged substance of that conversation… 
26. At no time during my two years at Warrnambool did Monsignor FISCALINI discuss any allegations of RIDSDALE’s sexual abuse with me, and I never raised any issues of this nature with him... 
27. At no time during my three and a half years serving as a priest in the Ballarat Diocese did anyone make any report or complaint to me about the sexual abuse of minors by any priest or brother, and I was not in any other way made aware of these matters. I had no knowledge that these things were happening in the diocese at this time in my life...

Again, Henderson accepts Bongirono's word, as do I. Maybe BPL mistook him for another priest. Maybe he misremembered completely. Who knows? But why has one young priest of that time (Pell) been disbelieved, vilified and cross examined endlessly and denied - while another young priest of that time (Bongiorno) was not even required to appear as a witness to the royal commission, and has not had these claims against him reported? Different rules for conservatives?

ANNEX: 
STATEMENT  FROM  CARDINAL GEORGE PELL 
7 May 2020

Cardinal Pell said he was surprised by some of the views of the Royal Commission about his actions. These views are not supported by the evidence.

He is especially surprised by the statements in the report about the earlier transfers of Gerald Ridsdale discussed by the Ballarat Diocesan Consultors in 1977 and 1982.

The Consultors who gave evidence on the meetings in 1977 and 1982 either said they did not learn about Ridsdale's offending against children until much later or they had no recollection of what was discussed. None said they were made aware of Ridsdale's offending at these meetings. 

The then Fr Pell left the Diocese of Ballarat and therefore his position as a consultor at the end of 1984.

As an Auxiliary Bishop in Melbourne 1987-1996, Bishop Bell met with a delegation from Doveton Parish in 1989 which did not mention sexual assaults and did not ask for Searson's removal. 

Appointed Archbishop of Melbourne on 16 August 1996, Archbishop Pell placed Fr Searson on administrative leave in March 1997 and removed him from the parish on 15 May 1997.


ENDS.

quoted in George Pell 'surprised' by royal commission finding he was told of Ridsdale abuse ABC News