Sex Scandals Rock the Catholic Church - and the Role of Pat Rabbitte

Pat Rabbitte Chair of Child Protection Agency Tusla

According to the website of  the Child and Family Agency Tusla 

 "Mr. Pat Rabbitte has served as a public representative for 30 years. He is a former Irish Labour Party politician who served as Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources from 2011 to 2014, Leader of the Labour Party from 2002 to 2007 and Minister for State for Commerce, Science and Technology from 1994 to 1997."

Tusla go on to expand on Mr Rabbitte's career in more detail and mention that he "was appointed Chairperson of Tusla by the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Dr Katherine Zappone". Dr Zappone was a member of the Irish Human Rights Commission in 2004 when they declined to investigate the journalists and broadcasters who were making false allegations of child murder against the Christian Brothers. (This is the subject of my article "Blood Libel in Ireland...") Tusla do not however mention Pat Rabbitte's role in the fall of the coalition Government headed by Albert Reynolds in 1994, following a grotesque allegation made by Rabbitte in Dail Eireann that targeted Cardinal Cahal Daly and Attorney General Harry Whelehan as authors of a non-existent conspiracy to protect a paedophile priest.

As Minister for Communications in 2014, Pat Rabbitte reacted to RTE's libeling of John Waters and other members of the Iona Institute as follows :

Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte is to relax the rules that require broadcasters to ensure nothing can be aired that can be regarded as “reasonably” causing offence.The move by Mr Rabbitte comes amid the continuing controversy over damages paid by RTÉ to six people including members of the Iona Institute and columnist John Waters.The payment of about €85,000 followed an interview on RTÉ’s The Saturday Night Show with performer Rory O’Neill, otherwise known as drag queen Panti Bliss, who accused certain named individuals of homophobia. 

While Mr Rabbitte said the defamation laws are outside his remit, he told the Dáil he intends to relax certain aspects of the Broadcasting Act.

Quoted in Irish Times article ‘I’ve been beaten, spat at, chased, harassed and mocked’ subheading Gay TDs tell Dáil of treatment as Rabbitte says broadcasting rules to be relaxed

So the then Government Minister's reaction to a successful libel action against the State Broadcasting Company was to try to make it more difficult to sue RTE in future. If RTE had libeled the above-mentioned Gay TD - Fine Gael's Jerry Buttimer - Pat Rabbitte's reaction would have been very different. It fact it would have been the opposite! 

The following discussion includes the views of the late UK cultural historian Richard Webster on Pat Rabbitte and his conspiracy theory concerning Cardinal Daly and Harry Whelehan. See Comment number 11.***  No Irish historian seems to have gone into that amount of detail concerning Rabbitte's antics - which is surprising because Webster didn't write that much about the affair!

*** It should have been number 1 but  the Moderators originally declined it. I was perhaps lucky that another person made a thuggish comment about the Church that was published and may have opened the door for me!

Rory Connor
9 June 2020

At the end of December 2009, BBC journalist and broadcaster William Crawley did a round up in his Blog of the Top Ten Religion Stories of the Year , the first of which was Sex scandals rock the Catholic church. He wrote:  

This was the most difficult year for the Irish Catholic Church for as long as anyone can remember. In May, the Ryan Report made headline news across the world when it revealed that rape and sexual molestation were "endemic" in schools and orphanages run by the Irish church over seven decades. Two months earlier, Bishop John Magee was forced to "stand aside" from the management of his Cloyne diocese, in county Cork, after an investigation, published the previous December, found that his diocese had put children at risk by failing to follow child protection guidelines.

Things got considerably worse for the church with the publication, in November, of the Murphy Report into the sexual abuse scandal in the archdiocese of Dublin. Judge Yvonne Murphy chronicled an organised cover-up of child abuse allegations in the diocese spanning a period of nearly four decades. In the wake of the report's publication, there were unprecedented calls for the Pope's diplomatic representative, the Papal Nuncio, to be expelled from Ireland, after it emerged that he failed to correspond directly with the Commission of Investigation. Four bishops named in the report resigned, many said belatedly. A fifth bishop, Martin Drennan of Galway, has so far resisted the growing clamour for him to also step down.

The archbishops of Armagh and Dublin visited Pope Benedict, who expressed his sense of shame and outrage at what was exposed in the report, and Ireland was promised an historic pastoral letter from the pontiff setting out in detail how the church proposed to deal with the crisis. At the end of the year, commentators were predicting the greatest organisational shake-up of the Irish Catholic church for centuries. 

COMMENTS: This is a selection from the 21 Comments the story attracted. I am Kilbarry1

Comment number 1. At 12:06 1st Jan 2009, Kilbarry1 wrote:
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.   [See Comments number 10 and 11]

Comment number 3. At 22:35 1st Jan 2009, LucyQ wrote:
.........   The #1 Irish story of last year and in fact the past few hundred is the ongoing, systemic abuse of children by Roman Catholic clergy. I simply cannot fathom how it is that anyone can so easily believe that gods, leprechauns, life after death or any aspects of magical enchantment that is the bases of religious belief is true other than in literary fiction. Any pope, priest or other clergy that claims to specific evidence of any of the above is lying. Reasonable, intelligent adults surely know better than to be emotionally bullied by such silly talk any longer.

Today is the day that the Irish Blasphemy Law comes into play. As if the cops don't have enough on their hands in dealing with serious crime now they have protect religious superstition from those who would shine the light of truth on the fantasies. Aren't people embarrassed by this? BTW it is impossible to blaspheme against something that doesn't exist.

Atheist Ireland Publishes 25 Blasphemous Quotes to counter the crazy new law.

Comment number 4. At 00:24 2nd Jan 2009, mccamleyc wrote:
Normally with petulant teenagers it's best to ignore them, but in Lucy's case I'll make an exception. Why do people who believe in nothing care so much what other people believe?

Except of course Lucy has her own little made up belief - "the ongoing, systemic abuse of children by Roman Catholic clergy", for which of course there is precisely no evidence.


Comment number 10. At 00:33 3rd Jan 2009, Kilbarry1 wrote:
There are now 9 comments. Mine was the first 2 days ago now but is still "referred to the moderators". In the meantime you published the patently ludicrous comment that there is "ongoing, systemic abuse of children by Roman Catholic clergy."

That is the kind of attitude dealt with by Richard Webster in "The Secret of Bryn Estyn: The Making of a Modern Witch-Hunt" which was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2005. It is the kind of hysteria that enables people to conjure up child abuse conspiracies - and even use them to bring down a Government, as happened in Ireland in 1994.

Since the late Cardinal Daly figured in that conspiracy theory, this is a good time to consider how it could have happened.

Comment number 11. At 00:45 3rd Jan 2009, Kilbarry1 wrote:
Perhaps my original comment (no 1 above) was simply overlooked? If so here it is again:

The life and death of Cardinal Cahal Daly provide a link between your first and last stories of the year. In his article on child abuse panics "States of Fear, the Redress Board and Ireland's Folly" UK cultural historian Richard Webster also recognised the importance of the Cardinal's story. The following is an extract:

Another country which has developed a particularly intense and dangerous crusade against child abuse is the Republic of Ireland. Here, as in almost every modern instance, the collective fantasy which has been progressively developed has a core of reality. The beginnings of the story go back to 1994 when the authorities in Northern Ireland sought the extradition from the Republic of Father Brendan Smyth, a Catholic priest who was facing a number of counts of child sexual abuse to which he would eventually plead guilty. It would appear that he had previously been protected against allegations by his own Norbertine order, which had moved him from parish to parish as complaints arose, and failed to alert the police.

Perhaps because of the age of the allegations, which went back twenty years, there was a delay of several months during which the Irish attorney general took no action in relation to the extradition request. Unfounded reports began to circulate in Dublin that the process was being deliberately delayed in response to a request made at the highest level by the Catholic Church. An Irish opposition deputy, Pat Rabbitte, then referred in parliament to the possible existence of a document that would ‘rock the foundations of this society to its very roots’. He apparently had in mind the rumoured existence of a letter written by the Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Cathal Daly, to the attorney general in Dublin. In this letter the Cardinal had supposedly interceded on behalf of Father Brendan Smyth and requested the delay in his extradition which had in fact taken place.

No evidence has been produced that any such letter ever existed. Yet, as a direct result of the rumours which now swept the country, confidence in the ruling establishment was undermined and the Fianna Fail government of Albert Reynolds fell, amidst talk of a dark conspiracy involving politicians, members of Opus Dei, the Knights of Columbus and others. This conspiracy was allegedly seeking to cover up the activities of paedophile priests.

Webster's essay is taken from his book "The Secret of Bryn Estyn" about a child abuse witch-hunt in North Wales in the 1990s. This was directed at LAY child care workers not religious. However Webster - who is probably an atheist - sees the connection with the anti-clerical hysteria that has torn this country apart since 1994 and of which the late Cardinal Daly was one of the first victims.

(Actually the consequences for Albert Reynolds and the then Attorney General Harry Whelehan were worse. In general the fact that someone could use false claims of a child abuse conspiracy to bring down a Government, set a ghastly precedent for our society).

Comment number 12. At 01:33 3rd Jan 2009, romejellybeen wrote:
LucyQ Please!!!

"The ongoing sytematic abuse of children by Roman Catholic clergy."

How dare you smear the good name of priests in this manner. You have absolutely no proof what so ever that the abuse is "ongoing." MCC and Kilbarry1 are absolutely correct to jump to the defence of poor, innocent clergy (in the exact same way that they didnt jump to the defence of victims of that abuse. In the same way that they didnt want fair play and a fair hearing for the abused.)
Please correct your statement to, "The ongoing systematic COVER UP of the abuse of children by Roman Catholic clergy."

You have absolutely no way of providing proof that sexual abuse by clergy is either 'ongoing' or 'systematic.' No one has.

However, the cover up by the Bishops and the Vatican is much easier to prove. You'll find plenty if you just google any combination of - abuse, Vatican, cover up. MCC and Kilbarry1's moral indignation may then be tempered.

I know what was whispered at Deanery and Diocesan meetings over the gin and tonics 20 years ago, 10 years ago and five years ago. I know how many priests knew.... and, through fear, said nothing. I was there. [My emphasis - RC]

They do not need apologists or self perceived Knights in shining armour to jump to their defence. They need to confess to their people that they share the guilt, to admit that they were frightened and to ask forgiveness FROM THEIR PEOPLE.

Their people WILL forgive, and then the Church can begin to be healed.


Comment number 16. At 03:03 5th Jan 2010, Kilbarry1 wrote:
romejellybean wrote: I know what was whispered at Deanery and Diocesan meetings over the gin and tonics 20 years ago, 10 years ago and five years ago. I know how many priests knew.... and, through fear, said nothing. I was there.

I was there myself 40 years ago in a religious congregation of Brothers that ran industrial schools. (Diocesan priests would rarely be involved in that work.) It is true I was only there for 3 years and not involved in residential institutions. However I lived in a few different houses of the congregation, including one very large one, and I was with Brothers who had been teaching all their lives in every type of institution. I can assure you that I never heard such conversations.

I have been out of touch with my former colleagues for a very long time now but I understand that the situation is similar to that of the Christian Brothers i.e. practically every Brother who ever worked in a residential institution was accused of child abuse. In Artane allegations were made against about 75 Brothers. After a 3 year investigation involving 10 Gardai, ONE prosecution was approved and one Brother was eventually convicted of indecent assault. (See article in Irish Independent on 4 September 2003
Ten gardai, a three-year inquiry . . . but only one prosecution )

Assuming the proportions were similar in my own congregation, it is hardly surprising that we did not whisper the stories over our gin and tonics, or even Guinness.

Comment number 17. At 09:29 5th Jan 2010, graham veale wrote:
I think it's important to remember that abusers wouldn't be uniformly distributed across the Church. That's like saying 3 in 100 people have Swine Flu, then assuming that there are 9 pupils in my School with Swine Flu as it has 300 pupils. Some groups of 100 will have more than the average, some less.

So Kilbarry and RJB's experiences are both noteworthy. But neither can extrapolate out to the whole Church from their own experience.

(It's also worth considering that abusers would be drawn to, and survive in, areas were their risks were low. That may mean that we are more likely to find them in certain diocese compared to others.)

Comment number 18. At 01:03 6th Jan 2010, mccamleyc wrote:
I only ever heard rumours about one priest and that was about a month before it became public and obviously the complainant was in legal discussions at that stage. Perhaps there were loads of people who knew about these things but the great majority of priests I know weren't aware of them. And RJB I'm not saying you are a liar before you conclude that - I'm just agreeing with Graham that it wasn't my experience.

As for "they didnt want fair play and a fair hearing for the abused" - you have no basis for that statement. If the abused had simply got "fair play and a fair hearing" then we wouldn't have heard about most them because the normal judicial process would have excluded the vast majority of these cases. The normal fair approach is you go to the police with your complaint, they investigate, assess the evidence, present to the DPP who decides whether to bring a prosecution. The great majority of victims whether in the Ryan Report, Ferns or Murphy would never have had a day in court. If the Church had simply dug in its heels and stuck with the sue me approach most of these victims would never have been heard.

Appendix 1

Author, journalist and somewhat unconventional feminist Victoria White wrote about Pat Rabbitte's antics - and their long-term consequences - in the Irish Examiner on 25 April 2013. This is an extract from her article Labour is Paying the Price for Unrealistic Coalition Expectations [emphasis is mine]

It was Nov 16, 1994, and I was so excited that I made an excuse to get off work and cycled home to watch telly. There was a motion of “no confidence” in Fianna Fáil Taoiseach Albert Reynolds amid controversy relating to his appointment of Harry Whelehan as President of the High Court.

There was an allegation that Whelehan had delayed the extradition of Fr Brendan Smyth to the North to face child sex abuse charges. In fact Whelehan had never been made aware of the case. It was further alleged that Cardinal Cathal Daly had put pressure on Whelehan to delay the extradition. Pat Rabbitte, then of Democratic Left, suggested in the Dáil that there could be a letter to this effect in the Attorney General’s office which would “rock the foundations of this society.”

No such letter has ever been found. We are talking George W Bush looking under the desk for the weapons of mass destruction here. But I didn’t really care if the allegation was true or not. It felt true. The Left was doing battle with a nasty conspiracy between Fianna Fáil and the Catholic Church, as far as I was concerned.

Wasn’t Whelehan as attorney general responsible for seeking the extradition of Ms X when she travelled to the UK for an abortion? Matter a damn that it was his job to defend the Constitution on which we, the people, had voted. He should have ignored the Constitution, that’s what he should have done, but word was out he was a practising Catholic.

I’ll never forget the speech Labour leader and Tánaiste Dick Spring gave that day. Well actually, I remember nothing about it except its oratorical structure, the build-up to the sudden explosion when he said his party was withdrawing from Government. It helped that Spring was tall and handsome. I was quite sick with excitement and I remember friends calling over so we could crow over it together.

I never stopped to think about the progressive Programme for Government which Labour had put together with Fianna Fáil: the establishment of the Department of Equality and Law Reform, of the Department of Arts and Culture, provision for decriminalising male homosexual acts, provision for a referendum on divorce. I only cared about the optics. Did the Labour leadership feel the same? They’d just had a bruising bye-election result and one of their candidates had lost to then-Democratic Left member, Kathleen Lynch. Were they looking for an out? Albert Reynolds mishandled the situation badly. But what was the point of Labour throwing the whole government down the swanney? Alright they entered a Rainbow Coalition with Fine Gael and DL, but their Spring Tide went right out in the election of 1997...........

 I neither understand nor accept Labour’s refusal to discuss Coalition with FF since Spring’s dramatic departure in 1994. I put it down to the fact that their vote is in the middle class just like Fine Gael’s. But a politician friend suggested it was because FF and Labour have so much in common that Labour would lose its identity in coalition with them. THESE are selfish reasons. What we need in politics now, and have needed since 1994, are courage and generosity.....

What the Labour Party is likely to get in the NEXT election is a Sinn Fein government with the Antifa thugs who attacked us as their street-fighters AND Labour (possibly) as a junior partner!

 Appendix 2

This is based on on an article on my old website (not Blog) entitled The Fall of the Government of Albert Reynolds (1994)  AND on Shane Coleman's book "Foot in Mouth" published in September 2006.

Historians have practically ignored the role of Pat Rabbitte in the fall of the Fianna Fail-Labour Coalition Government led by Albert Reynolds in November 1994. Yet it was the first time in the history of the State that a Government fell because of mindless hysteria. It was also the first Government to fall as a result of religious bigotry - involving a false claim that the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland had conspired with a Catholic Attorney General to block the extradition of a paedophile priest. Is this why historians don't like to deal with the issue?

Oddly enough you can get more useful information from journalistic fluff like Gene Kerrigan's satirical opus "This Great little Nation" (1999) and lately Shane Coleman's book on famous Irish political gaffes "Foot in Mouth" (Sept. 2006). It's not that these gentlemen are sticking their necks out and risking the wrath of their liberal colleagues. The books are aimed at the mass market of people who like silly stories. This defuses the effect of the scandals related but it also gets around the ideological blinkers worn by more "serious" writers.

The following is from the chapter in Coleman's book entitled ROCKING THE FOUNDATIONS - PAT RABBITTE

"It was the 16 November 1994 and the Dail [Parliament] was experiencing one of its most dramatic days since the Arms Trial almost a quarter of a century before. The Fianna Fail-Labour Government had been under strain for some weeks over Taoiseach [Prime Minister] Albert Reynolds move to appoint his Attorney General (AG) Harry Whelehan as President of the High Court, despite opposition from Labour. Now the Government was on the verge of collapse over the handling of the Father Brendan Smyth extradition case. there had been a delay of seven months in processing the extradition warrant in the office of the AG. Wild and unsubstantiated rumours swept through Leinster House as to the reasons behind that long delay. One of the unfounded rumours was that the AG's office had received a letter from a senior figure in the Catholic Church which contributed to the delay in the Smyth case.

THE GAFFE

"Pat Rabbitte, then a member of the Democratic Left Party, got up to speak in the Dail during a procedural discussion on the Order of Business. He asked: "Will the Taoiseach and the Tanaiste [Deputy PM] say if. in respect of the recent discovery of documents in the Attorney General's office, there is another document that ought to be before this house that will rock the foundations of this society to its very roots?" Rabbitte added: "If there is such a document its contents should be before this House before Deputy [John] Bruton moves his motion [of no confidence in the government] and we should know now whether the Labour Party has rowed in behind the Taoiseach following the discovery of this document".

THE IMPACT

"The effect on what was already a highly charged atmosphere was sensational. Rabbitte's dramatic use of vocabulary and the suggestion that the very foundations of society would be rocked, suggested scandal at an unprecedented level.

"Rabbitte's party leader Proinsias de Rossa also waded in. "It seems that we are dealing with one of the most sleazy events in Irish parliamentary history. Is it true that a memorandum has been found in the Attorney General's Office which indicates that there was outside interference in the decision by the Attorney General not to proceed with extradition for seven months?

The problem for Rabbitte and Democratic Left was that it quickly became apparent that there was no evidence that any such letter or document existed or had ever existed.

In his immediate response to Rabbitte in the Dail, Taoiseach Albert Reynolds said his efforts to get to the root of complaints about "documents that are supposed to exist in the Attorney General's office" had drawn a blank. " I understand that one of the stories doing the rounds - this is what I was told when I made inquiries- is that there is supposed to be in existence a certain letter which cannot be traced. I requested my office to contact Deputy Rabbitte to see if he could assist us in accelerating our inquiries and he was not in a position to give us much help......All the staff in the Attorney General's office available in the country have been interviewed about this matter and each and every one of them have said that they have no knowledge whatsoever in this regard...No member of the staff who have been interviewed can assist in this regard. They say they have no knowledge of any such letter."

"Such was the level of speculation sweeping Leinster House that day, that the Catholic Primate, Cardinal Daly, was moved to dismiss as "utterly absurd, untrue and a total fabrication" the rumours that he had made representations to the AGs office on behalf of Fr Smyth. "I can't speak for everyone but I am quite certain that nothing is known to me about any approach whatsoever to anyone connected with this case", he said adding: "It is incomprehensible to me how anyone could have invented such a story".

"The strength of Cardinal Daly's comments left little room for doubt and history has shown them to be entirely accurate....."

Shane Coleman goes on to describe the collapse of the Reynold's government  and concludes his article as follows:

"While Rabbitte unquestionably gaffed by going over the top in his comments, it did nothing to stop his rise in Irish politics. Within five years of his party merging with Labour, Rabbitte had become leader of the new party - his robust and colourful debating style [!!] was clearly a factor in his victory."

MY COMMENT in 2007:

This was the real beginning of the Child Abuse Witch-hunt in Ireland. It became clear, first that you could slander the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland with impunity and second that you could profit mightily from so doing. Pat Rabbitte has often claimed that the Catholic Church has not paid enough into the compensation scheme for "victims" of child abuse. For him nothing would be enough. He has helped to create a Compensation Culture that is fueled by a heady mixture of greed, anti-clerical bigotry and blind hatred. It is not only the Church that is suffering from this mania and it will long outlast Pat Rabbitte and his political ambitions.

And today 14 December 2020, I see no reason to change my views. After the next General Election we are likely to have a Government headed by Sinn Fein. The Labour Party may be junior partners in such a Government but they have gutted their integrity and are incapable of reining in their masters even if they want to.

Appendix 3 The Dismissal of Matt Russell

(from article on my old website  Pat Rabbitte and 'The Passion of Nora Wall' )

Matt Russell was the senior civil servant in the Attorney General's office who had the extradition warrants for Brendan Smyth on his desk for seven months. He later explained "I did not give it special priority because I did not identify it as a case which required that priority over other priority work". He told the Dail Committee on Legislation and Security: "In dealing with the volume of work priorities have to be applied.... I worked on the Smyth file at intervals when there was an opportunity to do so." He agreed that in retrospect his judgement was wrong but he did not offer to resign. "I was not made aware of any reason that I should." Matt Russell stayed in place when Harry Whelehan resigned.

What did for Matt Russell was his failure to respond to two letters written by a solicitor on behalf of the victims of Brendan Smyth. The letters were received in November 1994 and January 1995. On the face of it they were ridiculous. They demanded compensation for the victims because of the suffering caused by the original extradition delay. In the light of the reigning hysteria Matt Russell should have taken them more seriously but he favoured the logical approach.

"Furthermore...many more actions are threatened are threatened by solicitors letters than are commenced, and in view of the tenuous nature of the claim I thought this might well occur in this case."

Matt Russell was perfectly logical and perfectly correct in his view of this claim. However such considerations are irrelevant in a witch-hunt and he was forced to tender his resignation to Taoiseach John Bruton on 29 May 1995.

In the Dial on 31 May John Bruton gloated over his success in removing Matt Russell. "Compulsory retirement, although legally provided for has never been successfully achieved. Whereas Mr. Russell was not prepared to go quietly or otherwise under the previous administration, my actions have resulted in his immediate retirement from the civil service. That speaks for itself."

It certainly did. John Bruton, a decent and honourable man, was boasting about the results of a process that caused the fall of a Government, the resignation of a High Court President and the forced retirement of a senior civil servant. Unprecedented events caused by hysteria alone........

Since some people may still be reluctant to attribute these events to hysteria it is useful to check on how the authorities in the UK viewed the issue. After all, they were the ones who wanted to extradite Father Brendan Smyth. If there was a conspiracy between Church and State in Ireland, then the judicial authorities in the UK were the target of said conspiracy.

The following are extracts from the House of Commons Hansard Debates for 21 November 1994:

Mr. Mackinlay: To ask the Attorney-General what representations his Department received from the Catholic Church in respect of Brendan Smyth; and if he will make a statement.

The Attorney-General: None.

..........

Opus Dei

Mr. Mackinlay: To ask the Attorney-General what is his policy in relation to employing members of Opus Dei in his Department.

The Attorney-General: There is no specific policy in relation to the secondment of Opus Dei members to my Department. The civil service does not discriminate on grounds of religion.

If it were not so politically incorrect, one might imagine the Whitehall mandarins being quietly amused at the antics of their ridiculous ex-colonial subjects.

"New caught sullen peoples, half devil and half child" indeed - should they ever have let us go?

CONCLUSION:

This is an extract from an essay on my old website "The Passion of Nora Wall"

Epilogue: Harry Whelehan and Nora Wall

These extraordinary events have received rather cursory treatment from historians of modern Ireland. In particular the role of Pat Rabbitte has been air-brushed from the story. However in his book "The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000" Diarmaid Ferriter makes this significant comment:

"Some became angry when that when Harry Whelehan was questioned and denied the existence of a Catholic conspiracy within the Attorney-General's office, he felt the need to defend his right to be a practicing Catholic."

This issue had never before arisen in Irish politics. The first President of Ireland was a Protestant. During the de Valera era, Jews played a prominent role in Fianna Fail (whose founder Dev, had been a close friend of John Charles McQuaid when the latter was President of Blackrock College) and there had been Jewish Lord Mayors of Dublin and Cork. The disgusting attacks on Harry Whelehan indicated that religious hatred was making its opening debut in Irish public life. The fact that it took the form of anti-clericalism rather than anti-Semitism made it acceptable to many liberals.

The Decadence of the Sisters of Mercy

 

Catherine McAuley - founded Sisters of Mercy 1831

AND Sister Helena O'Donoghue (Alpha and Omega)

"Hitler's Table Talk" Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure. (Adolf Hitler, 10 October 1941) 

And in fact Hitler had a point. Christian Churches have often been accused of being tools of the ruling class, "The Conservative Party at prayer" in the UK, preaching "Pie in the Sky when you die" to fool the lower classes and keep them in their place. Unfortunately there is a more dangerous and repulsive heresy i.e. The Culture of Victimhood which does indeed have roots in the Gospel.

 "Christianity, according to Nietzsche, exalted the weakling, the underling, the mediocre man, over against this magnificent man. It caused the slave to resent his superior, to envy him, and to wish to overthrow him with his own inferiority. Christianity exalted the sniveling victim, and gave honor to criminals, prostitutes, beggars, and worthless throw-aways ..."  

I take the above to be a perversion of Christianity but it appears to be the ideology practiced by the leaders of the Sisters of Mercy today when they endorse false allegations of child rape and murder against their own innocent colleagues! They appear to believe that even when accusers tell transparent lies (up to and including Blood Libel), those unfortunate "victims"  must have suffered at the hands of the Patriarchal Church to make them behave in such a way. Blaming the "Patriarchy" or "Clericalism" is a bit like like blaming Nietzsche's "magnificent man".  It's true our male clergy and bishops repudiated Nietzsche and his Ubermensch. However they did see themselves as a type of spiritual aristocracy  and Nietzsche would appreciate how their authority has been undermined by victim-mongering mediocre nuns!

Rory Connor

20 February 2020

The Reasons for "The Apologies of the Sisters of Mercy"

This is a follow-up to my article "The Apologies of the Sisters of Mercy". Before I wrote the former article I attempted to contact the Sisters of Mercy in Ireland (where they currently lead The Association of Missionaries and Religious - AMRI) and then in the USA.  I didn't want people hostile to the Catholic Church to take comfort from what I proposed to write. Of course I was unsuccessful in contacting the Sisters but the problem with giving aid and comfort to anti-clerics doesn't  arise for a curious reason. The Irish journalists and broadcasters who published obscene lies about Sister Xavieria and Nora Wall (formerly Sister Dominic) have no wish to revisit their long since discredited libels. They cannot denounce the Sisters' betrayal of innocent nuns without calling attention to their own vicious behaviour! 

(A) The Death of Baby Marian Howe in 1955

In 1996 the producer and director, Louis Lentin, made a television documentary about abuse in children’s homes which was shown by RTE, the main public service broadcasting station in Ireland. It focused on the brutal regime which was said to have been operating during the 1950s at the Sisters of Mercy industrial school at Goldenbridge, Dublin. The documentary told the supposed life story of Christine Buckley and featured her allegations against one Mercy nun in particular, Sister Xavieria Lally. Her claims were transparently false. On one occasion, she said she had been caned by Sister Xavieria so severely that the entire side of her leg was split open from her hip to her knee. She says she was treated in the casualty department of the local hospital and believes that she received 80 to 120 stitches. "No medical evidence has ever been produced to substantiate this bizarre claim" (Richard Webster in "States of Fear, the Redress Board and Ireland’s Folly" )

 After the broadcast of ‘Dear Daughter’, the Sisters of Mercy issued their first public apology, in February 1996. This stated:

In the light of recent revelations regarding the mistreatment of children in our institutions

we the Mercy Sisters wish to take this opportunity to sincerely and unreservedly express

our deep regret to those men and women who at any time or place in our care were hurt

or harshly treated. The fact that most complaints relate to many years ago is not offered as

an excuse. As a Congregation we fully acknowledge our failures and ask for forgiveness.

Aware of the painful and lasting effect of such experiences we would like to hear from

those who have suffered and we are putting in place an independent and confidential help

line. This help line will be staffed by competent and professional counsellors who will

listen sympathetically and who will be in the position to offer further help if required. In

this way we would hope to redress the pain insofar as that is possible so that those who

have suffered might experience some peace, healing and dignity.

Life in Ireland in the 40s and 50s was in general harsh for many people. This was reflected

in orphanages, which were under funded, under staffed and under resourced. It was in

this climate that many Sisters gave years of generous service to the education and care

of children. However, we made mistakes and irrespective of the passage of time as a

Congregation we now openly acknowledge our failures and ask for forgiveness.

Regretfully we cannot change the past. As we continue our work of caring and education

today we will constantly review and monitor our procedures, our personnel and our

facilities. Working in close cooperation with other voluntary and statutory agencies we are

committed to doing all in our power to ensure that people in our care have a protective

and supportive environment.

We were founded to alleviate pain, want and misery. We have tried to do this through our

work in health care, education, child care, social and pastoral work. Despite our evident

failures which we deeply regret we are committed to continuing that work in partnership

with many others in the years ahead.

Richard Webster commented "In the wake of the broadcast, atrocity stories about Goldenbridge and other industrial schools began to proliferate." It would have been more correct if he had written "In the wake of the Apology by the leaders of the Sisters of Mercy that failed to refer to the obvious falsehoods in the documentary or to defend their own innocent colleagues". 

The main atrocity story to emerge was that Sister Xavieria had been responsible for the death of an infant child Marian Howe in 1955. When it became evident that the Sisters were not prepared to defend Xavieria against THAT lie, the accusation quickly escalated to one of deliberate murder!

HOWEVER in the beginning some journalists and broadcasters who recognised the absurdity of the claims, were prepared to say so:

"Medical View 'Inconsistent' with Goldenbridge Abuse" - extract from article in The Sunday Times (Irish Edition) 28 April 1996

One of the more chilling allegations to surface was that an 11-month-old baby died four days after she was put into Goldenbridge. When the infant's father, Myles Howe. returned from England and went to St Ultan's hospital, he was told by a nurse that his baby had burns on her knees but the staff had got her too late to save her. The postmortem said the child died of dysentery.

The Howes have never been satisfied by the official response.

[Doctor] Prendiville [1] recalls that St Ultan's was established largely for dealing with bowel complaints such as dysentery or gastroenteritis, a common illness among children which at that time could reach epidemic proportions in Dublin. He speculated that Marian Howe was more than likely admitted to St Ultan's with a bowel complaint. "I wouldn't say that burns of that size on a child's legs would have been the cause of death. They didn't treat burns in St Ultan's. If the baby died from a burn, there would have to be an inquest. But failure to communicate information is a defect in many hospitals," he said.

But if the burns were not the cause of Marian's death, asks Howe, why was he told by Xavieria that it was an "accident" and not dysentery that killed his child? Why, on his arrival at St Ultan's to see his dead child, did a nurse indicate to him that his daughter had died of burns? And why could nobody explain to him the large burn marks on the sides of her knees?

The outrage that followed the Prime Time programme [2] was directed as much at Xavieria's denials of abuse as at an apparently "soft" line of questioning. The allegation that a baby in her charge died of burns was not put to her on the programme. The reason was that after researching the allegation, the Prime Time team could find no evidence to support it. according to an RTE source. [my emphasis] The reporter did ask Xavieria about the incident, he said, but her response was edited out of the programme.

Both Buckley and Dear Daughter producer Louis Lentin, regard the Prime Time report as an effort by RTE to undermine the documentary. "Sister Xavieria is perfectly entitled to any right of reply, but this programme bent over backwards to be reverential," said Lentin. "The facts were not put to her in a strong, investigative manner."

References:

[1] Doctor J. B. Prendiville was a senior surgeon who worked at the hospital where children from Goldenbridge  were treated during the 1950s.

[2]  A Prime Time special broadcast by RTE in April 1996 highlighted some discrepancies in the tale of horror

When the Sisters paid £20,000 and made a "qualified apology" to the Howe family who accused them of being responsible for the death of baby Howe, 42 years before, it was a game changer - and the media responded accordingly.

The Death Of Baby Howe

Irish Times, Saturday, 11 October, 1997 

The fate of baby Marion Howe in Goldenbridge orphanage 42 years ago will have disturbed many people in the past two days. Some of these people are members of the Sisters of Mercy order. They will wonder what happened to transform a healthy, 11 month-old baby, within a few days of her arrival at Goldenbridge, to a child dying of dysentery and with an unexplained burn on her leg.

It would appear that this week's settlement by the Mercy order has done nothing to reduce the pain of the Howe family - at least in the short term. In the settlement, the order agreed to pay £20,000 to the family but without admission of liability. The order also issued a qualified apology in which it said it was sorry "if there was any lack of courtesy and compassion at that time."

It is hardly surprising that this statement has brought little relief to the Howes or to others who suffered in Goldenbridge and elsewhere. Indeed, it is quite breathtaking that what happened to baby Howe could be equated with a "lack of courtesy and compassion." It is breathtaking that the acts of cruelty and bullying recounted by many former inmates of Sisters of Mercy orphanages, here and abroad, could be explained away by a phrase - which has about it the ring of the public relations agency.

But what really hurts those who suffered at the hands of some of the Mercy nuns is the inclusion in the statement of the word `if'. Is the order saying that it does not believe what the Howes have told them? Is it saying that it does not believe the Irish women who told their stories in Louis Lentin's Dear Daughter documentary last year? Is it saying that it does not believe the men and women in Australia who have recounted similar experiences at the hands of members of the order there?

Why then has the order issued qualified apologies? Why has it paid compensation to the Howes, albeit a relatively meagre sum? Is there not a tacit admission here that what these people say happened did happen? Or are we to believe that the Sisters of Mercy have taken to paying compensation and issuing apologies for things that didn't happen at all?  [My emphasis] .............

An escalation of the allegation to one of child murder was a natural follow up to the decadent behaviour of the leaders of the Sisters of Mercy. The allegation that Sister Xavieria had used a hot poker to burn holes in the baby's two legs was highly libelous but Mirror editors correctly believed that Mercy leaders would do nothing and would allow their colleague's reputation to be trashed. 

The headline 

HOT POKER WAS USED ON LITTLE MARION.. NO CASH WILL GET HER BACK; I THINK MY BABY WAS MURDERED AT THE ORPHANAGE, SAYS PAYOUT MUM

appeared in the tabloid newspaper The Mirror on 11 October 1997 under the byline of Neil Leslie.

The article began:

The elderly mother of tragic Goldenbridge baby Marion Howe claims her daughter's death at the hands of nuns was "nothing short of murder". Distraught Christina Howe has revealed for the first time that she believes her 11-month-old toddler was assaulted with a hot poker.

She was speaking after receiving a pounds 20,000 payout from the Sisters of Mercy and an apology over the death of baby Marion. But she said the payout was no substitute for an explanation of her child's mystery death. It is 42 years since Marion died but pensioner Mrs Howe sobbed: "I just can't forgive them."

Speaking at her home in Dublin last night, she said: "What they did was murder, that's my view of it anyhow. I am still very angry and I still don't know the truth. That was all I wanted to know, the truth. Money didn't matter. But now we will never know because there are no witnesses. It's an awful burden. I will never get over it."

She revealed that the nuns had initially offered pounds 7,500 for her and her husband Myles to drop court action against them. "They offered us that money a few months ago. It was an insult really. But we didn't want the money, we just wanted to know what happened to our lovely little girl. She was such a beautiful baby. I had 16 children and 10 are alive and I just look at them now and wonder which one would she have been like. It's heartbreaking. We will try to put it behind us now. My husband is still too upset to speak to anyone about it."

Christina wept again as she recalled why her little girl was taken from her all those years ago. She said: "I was sick. She was only supposed to be there for two weeks but she was dead in four days. Some of my older daughters remember. Mary, who was around four or five, recalls her being taken away in the pram and saying 'Day Day'. Little did we know it would be the last 'Day Day' we ever saw her alive.

"We are still angry. The nuns never even told me what happened at the time. They rang my husband who was in England and told him not to bother coming home, that they would look after everything. They wondered why we were so upset and told us: 'It's only a baby'. But our little girl was lucky because she had parents. What about all the little ones that didn't. How many more have been buried like that?"

Christina believes horrendous burns to her baby's legs were caused with a hot poker. "I always said it was a poker because of the shape of the holes. She was only 11 months old. It's really awful what they did. Marion had burns on both her legs, not just one which was reported. You could place your fingers right through the hole in her little leg. How could anybody do that to an 11-month-old baby. It is frightening to think such things could have happened to a little infant. And these people had the cheek to say they would bury our baby. They were covering up. Do they think we are fools?"

Mrs Howe and her husband visited the orphanage near Dublin three weeks after Marion was buried in an attempt to find out what happened. She recalled: "The nun who answered the door shut it in our face. We were devastated. There was no any investigation, yet we told the Guards. We were left thinking, year after year, day after day, what ever happened to our little Marion. We never got the truth. No money will ever replace her. When my husband reported it to the police they should have looked into it. Think what we could have done to save other orphans from torture?"

The court victory has opened the door for a flood of similar settlements against the Sisters of Mercy who ran a cruel regime in Goldenbridge 40 years ago. The scandal was uncovered after orphan Christine Buckley exposed the brutal life in her television documentary Dear Daughter last year. Christine told of the reign of terror in which kids were beaten, placed in tumble dryers and forced to sit on potties for hours. Christina Howe saw the moving film and was horrified."It was then we realised that if all this had happened to this woman, what had happened to our little girl," she said.

Christine Buckley last night offered her sympathy to the Howes. She said: "It must have been like burying their baby again. If they had got a million pounds it would have been nothing because they did not get an honest explanation as to what happened."

She said it was time for an independent public inquiry. "The state has let us down badly. Had one of us been the daughter of a VIP this would never have gone so far. The Howes have waited 42 years for the truth. Someone knows the answer to their question."

"Christina Howe saw the moving film [Dear Daughter] and was horrified."It was then we realised that if all this had happened to this woman, what had happened to our little girl," she said." 

So the Sisters paid her €20,000 and she promptly accused them of deliberately murdering her baby - AND she was supported by Christine Buckley the star of "Dear Daughter".  It should have been a moment of revelation for the Sisters but not at all!

DEATH OF BABY AT GOLDENBRIDGE

 Dail Eireann – Volume 481 – 21 October, 1997

Mr. Neville [Dan Neville, Fine Gael TD for Limerick West]

Mr. Neville asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if he will have investigations made into the alleged abuse of a child at Goldenbridge Orphanage which may have resulted in her death.

 Minister of State at the Department of Justice,  Equality and Law Reform (Miss M. Wallace):

The Minister has been informed by the Garda authorities that a comprehensive investigation was carried out into allegations of child abuse at Goldenbridge Orphanage and the death of a child there. A file in the matter was forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutions who directed that there should not be a prosecution against any person mentioned in the file.

The Gardai (Irish police) will not have appreciated having their time wasted on carrying out a ludicrous inquiry. This should mean that their interests would align with those of the Sisters in ensuring that these vile claims be discredited  and not repeated. In fact the Sisters' continued for years and decades with apologies and payouts and made themselves ridiculous in the eyes of the authorities and fake victims alike!

(B) Nora Wall and Pablo McCabe

There is a Wikipedia article on former Sister of Mercy Nora Wall and an article by Breda O'Brien in the Jesuit quarterly review "Studies" (Winter 2006)  entitled:Miscarriage of Justice: Paul McCabe and Nora Wall

Paul (Pablo) McCabe was a homeless schizophrenic man who was targeted by two false accusers - women in their twenties -  because prior to 1999, no woman had been convicted of rape in Ireland. The two sociopaths Regina Walsh and her "witness" Patricia Phelan hence claimed that McCabe was the main rapist of Regina Walsh while Nora Wall (then Sister Dominic) held her down. He was the ultimate victim - targeted not in his own right but as a means of extracting money from the Sisters of Mercy. And they were to betray him in a repulsive fashion. 

There were two rape allegations. In relation to the first that was alleged to have occurred on "victim" Regina Walsh's 12th birthday party, the defense showed that McCabe could not possibly have been there on the date in question - 8 January 1990. No problem for the jury! It acquitted both accused on that count, and convicted them on the second rape charge for which no exact date or even year was specified. As per Wikipedia 

"Like Nora Wall, [Pablo McCabe] was never questioned on the second allegation that he had also raped Regina Walsh two years previously in 1987 or 1988, again with Wall present. In fact, neither McCabe’s nor Wall’s defense teams received notification of this second charge until 28 May 1999, only six days before hearings began, and two years after they were initially charged."

It is reasonably clear that the second rape charge was cooked up (and no exact date specified) because the Prosecution became aware that McCabe had a cast iron alibi for the date of Regina Walsh's 12th birthday. It is also notable that Nora and Pablo were first arrested in 1996 just a few months after the broadcast of "Dear Daughter" and the first apology by the  Sisters of Mercy. Their trial in June 1999 took place just after RTE broadcast Mary Raftery's 3-part documentary "States of Fear" that demonised the religious congregations. I was told by one of their defence team that they were convicted in a "climate of hysteria" created by States of Fear - and Nora Wall herself said this to Breda O'Brien. 

Nora Wall's family in Co. Waterford stood by her after the conviction - but not, of course the leaders of the Sisters of Mercy.  The fact that one of the two allegations was clearly a lie did not bother them in the slightest. As per Wikipedia

Reaction of Sisters of Mercy

After their conviction, the Sisters of Mercy issued a statement, which read:

We are all devastated by the revolting crimes which resulted in these verdicts. Our hearts go out to this young woman who, as a child, was placed in our care. Her courage in coming forward was heroic. We beg anyone who was abused whilst in our care to go to the Gardaí.

Even after the collapse of the case against the two accused, the Sisters of Mercy made no effort to apologise to Wall or to withdraw their statement of support for Walsh. One commentator remarked: "The young woman their hearts were going out to, was the false accuser, not their own innocent nun. Our absolutist system had seduced them into identifying with the accuser and betraying their own sister."

On 23 July 1999 Judge Paul Carney sentenced Nora Wall to life imprisonment and Pablo McCabe to 12 years. Having been the first woman to be convicted of rape in the history of the Irish State, Nora now became the first person to receive a sentence of life imprisonment for that crime. The Wikipedia article also records that

The director of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, Olive Braiden, welcomed the imposition of a maximum sentence, and said it would ensure that Nora Wall would be monitored for the rest of her life to prevent recurrence.

 There was no comment from Olive Braiden after the collapse of the rape convictions. Coming from a feminist, her silence doesn't surprise me. But why did the Sisters of Mercy say nothing? Why didn't they withdraw their apology to the sociopath Regina Walsh who was prepared to wreck the lives of two innocent people so that she could sue the Sisters of Mercy for "compensation"? If they were not prepared to go that far, why couldn't they at least express sympathy for their former colleague AND for Pablo McCabe whom they had glorified when he could be depicted as a victim of the Patriarchy?

Regarding Pablo, Breda O'Brien's article in Studies Review in Winter 2006 focuses on him and indicates how the very Merciful Sisters originally favoured him:
Paul McCabe addressed a Diocesan Gathering of Mercy Sisters in Gracedieu in Waterford in 1988. His account tells of being born in Dublin in 1949 to a single mother. She struggled on until Paul was three, but she ‘had great difficulty in working, paying for accommodation and paying someone to look after me.” Thus he came to live in what was to become known as the “ old St. Michael’s”, a junior industrial school run by the Sisters of Mercy in Cappoquin. His memories of that time are “very happy ones of caring and interested women.” He then went to the Industrial School at Artane, Dublin, which he found traumatic, as it had “over nine hundred boys in a very strict set-up.”.....
So when Pablo could be presented as a symbolic victim of the Patriarchy, the Sisters allowed him to  address one of their annual meetings. But when he fell victim  to anti-clerical fanatics and feminists, they threw him to the wolves!

(C) Sisters of Mercy in the USA

When Catholic teenage boys from Covington High School, Kentucky  were savagely slandered by the US media in January 2019, The US Sisters of Mercy were quick to comment - on the side of the slanderers of course!

https://twitter.com/sistersofmercy/status/1086689015334617088

Sisters of Mercy  @SistersofMercy  Jan 19, 2019
Racism and intolerance in all forms go directly against Catholic social teaching.

The disturbing videos being shared of this incident showcase a bigoted disrespect of indigenous peoples and remind us how urgent our work for racial justice remains.

Covington Catholic faces backlash

Their denunciation of innocent boys who were being subjected to vile media abuse was repeated 888 times and got 2.9 thousand 'Likes' and 392 Replies.  I replied myself quoting Andrew Sullivan

Rory Connor @hallisseypat Jan 26, 2019
Replying to @SistersofMercy

Andrew Sullivan "The same liberals who fret about “micro-aggressions” for 20-somethings were able to see 16-year-olds subjected to worst racist garbage from [black] religious bigots & then express  desire to punch the kids in the face"
The Abyss of Hate Versus Hate by Andrew Sullivan

Any apology Sisters?

plus a second tweet from me

Rory Connor @hallisseypat Jan 25, 2019
Replying to @SistersofMercy

You approved a media lynch mob attack on Catholic students, without bothering to check the evidence. Your IRISH colleagues did the same when they endorsed false allegations of child abuse AND murder! See "The Apologies of the Sisters of Mercy" 
and a third
Rory Connor @hallisseypat Jan 27, 2019
Replying to @SistersofMercy

Near 1000 Retweets; 3000+ Likes. One retweeter said he was "amused by the irony of nuns joining a twitter mob dogpile". You know u have  a duty to the Catholic schoolboys u slandered & your social justice campaigns are worthless if u can't see this?
@JamesMartinSJ @RuthDE

No reply from the Merciful Sisters. I think it is significant that the Bishop of Covington Roger Joseph Foys and the very liberal Fr James Martin SJ did apologise for originally joining in the media condemnation of the boys. To a significant extent, this is  a problem with members of female Religious Congregations - although male clergy and Religious have not covered themselves with glory either! 

(D) The Sisters of Mercy and Their Accusers - Eloi and Morlocks

[ The Irish Sisters of Mercy currently lead the Association of Missionaries and Religious in Ireland (AMRI). A few years ago I asked former colleagues of mine in De La Salle Brothers if they could approach the Sisters and tell them they had a moral obligation to withdraw their apologies to the accusers of Nora Wall and Sister Xavieria. I was told it is futile and the nuns are beyond redemption!  I also spoke to the retired world-wide head of a male religious order who felt that the Sisters were originally naive, and later became terrified of the malignant accusers and the media that broadcast their fantasies. No doubt there is something to this explanation. However I note that from the very beginning, the nuns' "naivety" consisted of bowing down before the powers-that-be and sacrificing their own innocent colleagues who had no power. That form of "naivety" is unfamiliar to me - and probably to most other members of the human race. Decadence is probably a better description - which is why I think of H.G. Wells and his picture of a dystopian future in The Time Machine ! ]


In 1895, H.G. Wells’ published The Time Machine a science fiction novel that presents a very interesting look at what our future could be (and arguably has become). The time-traveler jumps many thousands of years into the future to find two types of beings roaming the Earth, the Eloi and the Morlocks.  While the time-traveler aligns himself with the Eloi, especially through his relationship with Weena, an Eloi he rescues from drowning, his attitude to them is ambivalent.

The Eloi are happy, carefree people who live above the earth’s surface, eating fruit and basking in the sun, while the Morlocks lurk in the underground and shadows, hiding from light and only venturing out of their dark habitats to capture and feed on the Eloi race.

The time-traveler’s describes saving Weena from drowning.  “The main current ran rather swiftly, but not too strongly for even a moderate swimmer.  It will give you an idea, therefore, of the strange deficiency in these creatures, when I tell you that none made the slightest attempt to rescue the weakly crying little thing which was drowning before their eyes” 

In her essay "The Eloi and the Morlocks" part of a Georgetown University blog  "The Other Victorians" English Literature student Mary Burgoyne writes: The dependency of the Eloi frustrates me as these people seem to do nothing to fight against the Morlocks.  In this state, they appear more like animals, and thus, position themselves as prey in the predator/prey relationship the time-traveler ultimately discovers to exist within this environment. 

The time-traveler also goes on to explain, “The Upper-world people might once have been the favoured aristocracy, and the Morlocks their mechanical servants: but that had long since passed away.  The two species that had resulted from the evolution of man were sliding down towards, or had already arrived at, an altogether new relationship.” 

Like the relationship between the Sisters of Mercy and the sociopaths before whom they abase themselves, and whom they try to appease by sacrificing their own innocent colleagues! [Mary Burgoyne concludes that "as a reader, I feel more inclined to sympathize or at least try to understand the Morlock’s cruel point of view because of the action and strategies they employ in their daily lives where I think the Eloi exercise none." ]