The Reason Why: Brother Maurice Kirk and I [Part 1]

Brother Maurice Kirk, De La Salle Novice Master and Provincial 1966-74

Introduction

I have written about Brother Maurice before in the "About Me" section of my old website www.IrishSalem.com and what follows in this article is an edited version. Some months ago I came across a second hand copy of a book by the late Brother John Towey F.S.C. "Irish De La Salle Brothers in Christian Education" (Dublin, De La Salle, 1980) that includes a longish section on Brother Maurice when he was head of the Irish Province of the De La Salle Brothers from 1968 until his death in a car accident in 1974.I will quote extracts from this book in a second article - and especially the tributes paid to Brother Maurice by the then Minister for Education Mr Richard Burke and the then Provincial of the Irish Jesuits (from 1968-75), Very Rev. Cecil McGarry. I have a feeling that Brother Maurice was not an uncritical admirer of Fr. McGarry!

It is interesting that Brother John barely mentions Brother Maurice role as Novice Master from 1966 to 68 - the role in which he had such a huge influence on my life - and concentrates on his period as head of the Irish Province. But that's how History operates!

Also I note that, after his death, the executive of the Conference of Major Religious Superiors decided to establish a burse to provide educational opportunity for De La Salle pupils but were unable to decide exactly how the money should be used. Perhaps that was symptomatic of the end of an era for the Brothers, the Catholic Church  and a great deal more. 

I think of Brother Maurice as one of the last figures in a line of educators that began with Thomas Arnold headmaster of Rugby School from 1828 to 1841, where he introduced a number of reforms that were widely copied by other prestigious public schools. As per Wikipedia "His reforms redefined standards of masculinity and achievement." Arnold was made famous posthumously by one of his pupils Thomas Hughes whose semi-autobiographical novel Tom Browne's Schooldays  [1] was based on his own time at Rugby. I am no Thomas Hughes but then I am writing about the end of that age! . 

[ The founder of the modern Olympic Games Baron de Coubertin [2] visited English public schools, including Rugby in 1886. When looking at Arnold's tomb in the school chapel he recalled he felt, suddenly, as if he were looking upon "the very cornerstone of the British empire". We are living in an era of endings! ]

Rory Connor
21 September 2019. 

[1]  The novel was not primarily written as an entertainment. As Hughes said:
Several persons, for whose judgment I have the highest respect, while saying very kind things about this book, have added, that the great fault of it is 'too much preaching'; but they hope I shall amend in this matter should I ever write again. Now this I most distinctly decline to do. Why, my whole object in writing at all was to get the chance of preaching! When a man comes to my time of life and has his bread to make, and very little time to spare, is it likely that he will spend almost the whole of his yearly vacation in writing a story just to amuse people? I think not. At any rate, I wouldn't do so myself.

[2] As per Wikipedia, "Coubertin is thought to have exaggerated the importance of sport to Thomas Arnold, whom he viewed as "one of the founders of athletic chivalry". The character-reforming influence of sport, with which Coubertin was so impressed, is more likely to have originated in the novel Tom Brown's School Days than exclusively in the ideas of Arnold himself." 
Thomas Hughes himself was a first class cricketer rather than a great scholar, so the enduring myth of Rugby may be as much his creation as Arnold's BUT Arnold was his inspiration! However, I believe that the "character-forming influence of sport" was a central idea for Brother Maurice.

A) Letter to Lady who Asked Me About My Motives

22 April 2003

Dear Ms ......

Thank you very much. The questions are a little difficult to answer by E mail. I have been pursuing this kind of issue for some years now and what seems obvious to me, may be difficult for a "newcomer" to grasp because I may be unconsciously assuming that other people know things with which I am very familiar. For example did you even hear of Nora Wall before and if not have I supplied sufficient background data?(The key factor is that she is a former nun - if  people don't realise that, then I must appear to be speaking in riddles).

My Background and Reasons for Action

I was a member of the De La Salle Brothers from about September 1966  to about March 1969: I was aged 16 to 19 and spent most of my time in training though I taught for several months in 3 schools (mainly filling in for absent teachers). The training period in the Novitiate in Castletown  was the formative experience of my life and the Novice master,  the late Br. Maurice Kirk influenced me as much as my parents, if not more so. I doubt if he regarded me as one of his most promising students and I think he would be very surprised by my metamorphosis (He became Provincial of the Brothers and was killed in a car crash about 1974).

I would say that this is by far the most important factor in my present Crusade - if you want to call it that. I was always annoyed at the tone of sneering abuse which our "liberal" intellectuals adopt when referring to the Catholic Church. Over the past several years their blood libels and false allegations of child abuse have driven me to distraction (I am perfectly well aware that there are true allegations of abuse as well - but by the same token, not everything Julius Streicher ** wrote about the Jews is false.)

The second reason for my actions is that around Christmas 1994 (? I think) I came across a boy whom I thought might be the victim of child abuse (by his step-father). I helped him to some extent but then became afraid that I would be the target of a bogus allegation myself. So I dropped him though he was lonely and expected to see me again. In normal circumstances I would have had no problem in approaching the Social Services and asking for a discreet investigation. However hysteria was already in the air and I thought I could not possibly make an accusation on the very limited evidence I had. (Remember what Dr. Moira Woods did to Eddie Hernon?). Also because of the hysteria, I felt I could not investigate further. It was a vicious circle. I spoke to a number of friends about this at the time and everyone told me not to get involved.

Finally for 6 months or so in 1995 I was involved in an extremely ugly confrontation at work with a female member of staff who ended up by accusing me of sexual harassment. I fought this issue all the way to the top and became a delegate to the Annual Delegate Conference of the Public Service Executive Union (April 1996?) for the specific purpose of moving a Motion on bogus allegations of sexual harassment (i.e. no-one else wanted that job). The full time officials of the Union opposed my Motion but I got it passed anyway. In my speech to the ADC I insisted on referring to a bogus allegation of child abuse made against an Irish Bishop. This probably hindered my case rather than helped it but I was making certain connections (for example where did that lady get her ideas from?).

Oddly enough I believe that this last issue is the least important and I believe I would have pursued my current campaign even if it never happened. (I had a half reconciliation with the lady afterwards but do not anticipate any with the likes of Patsy McGarry and Co).

This is getting too long and I will answer your other queries separately.

Regards

Rory Connor

** Nazi editor of Der Sturmer who accused the Jews of being sexual perverts who murdered Christian boys. (He also said that there were Jews in the Mafia and among Stalin's hencemen - that part is true).

(B) Extract from a Discussion on the Website www.reason.com

[ I recently copied this discussion into my blog article on Father Michael Sweetman. ]

Dear SR

You are absolutely right: The Black Internationale has got Tim! I was a De La Salle Brother from 1966 to 69 and it was the formative experience of my life. My novice master Brother Maurice Kirk was as important as my parents if not more so. (He became head of the De La Salle Order in Ireland and was killed in a car crash on 10 April 1974.)

In September 1967 at the end of our training a Jesuit priest Father Michael Sweetman gave us a 9 day Retreat (spiritual conference for you pagans). It's true what the Jesuits say: when they control a child's education they have him for life!

Rory

Comment by: Rory Connor at February 23, 2005 05:25 PM

[Actually this discussion to which this comment relates is HERE: The Reason Why - The Catholic Church and I (and Fr Paul Shanley) ]

(C) FATHER MICHEAL SWEETMAN SJ: Extract from Letter to Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC) 16 Feb 2004

For the record, I will say a last word about my own motivation. I already mentioned Brother Maurice Kirk who was my Novice Master in the De La Salle Brothers from about September 1966 to November 1967 (I entered outside the normal stream of candidates so the dates are unusual). I also recall with great affection the late Father Michael Sweetman S.J. who gave us an 8 day retreat in early September 1967. He told us a lot about his corresponence with an Irish criminal in England who knew he was destroying himself but could see no way out. However the message Fr. Sweetman was giving us was one of optimism and hope. Even if that man died a criminal he would still not be a failure as a human being. I went to see Fr. Sweetman in Ballymun not long before his death. He spoke of young drug addicts there and said that they were doomed. I had not heard a priest talk in that way before and I was upset by his despair. 

I am not capable of inspiring people or helping them in the way that Brother Maurice and Father Sweetman did, or tried to do. However I am very strong minded (largely thanks to them) and I will defend their legacy in my own way.

(D) Brother Maurice Kirk FSC and Father Michael Sweetman S.J.

This is from an article on the website of Alliance Support (which supported victims of child abuse) dated September 2006
http://www.alliancesupport.org/news/archives/001460.html

[ Explanatory Note: I was a novice in the De La Salle Brothers in Castletown, Co. Laois, Ireland in the year 1966/1967. It was the peak experience of my life and the main reason why I have been engaged in the fight against false allegations of child abuse directed against Catholic clergy .

My novice master was Brother Maurice Kirk. In August/September 1967 a Jesuit priest Father Michael Sweetman gave us our final Retreat" (spiritual conference) before we were professed as De La Salle Brothers.

I left the Brothers in March 1969. Recently I deposited some material in archives and the following is part of a covering note.

Rory Connor]

As to the wider significance of these events, I was in the [De La Salle] Novitiate in 1966-67 at the time when vocations to the Catholic Church were at their height. This was immediately after Vatican 11 and just before the student revolts of 1968. Brother Maurice was, I suppose, a modernising conservative. Among the main texts we studied were A Map of Life which was a classic from the 1930s and also the Grail Simplified Documents of Vatican 11. I'm sure that Brother Maurice was trying to forge a link between tradition and the modern world. Father Michael Sweetman was something of a "radical priest" so inviting him to preach the Retreat before our profession would have been a daring act.

Obviously Brother Maurice did not succeed. I briefly met with a former fellow novice years later - Brother ..... I think who left like most of us. He told me he thought that Brother Maurice had been an "intellectual bully". Maybe that is true and maybe most leaders have to be. Maybe the increasing secularisation (and increasing viciousness) of society could not be overcome by any means. I think that Father Sweetman felt that at the end of his life - although I did not know him at all as well.

Another historical point. I recently read a review of a book about Pope Pius X11 and the Nazis which was written by a Jewish Rabbi. The Rabbi said that the lies about Pius as "Hitler's Pope" came from 3 separate sources [1]

• Stalinist propaganda during the Cold War (1940s and 50s)
• The "New Left" in the 1960s
• "Liberal" Catholics after the Vatican Council who saw Pius X11 as the hero of "reactionary" Catholics and demonised him as a way of demonising them.

I think that our child abuse hysteria originated in somewhat the same way. Pat Rabbitte and Judge Pat McCartan are former members of the Workers Party that was Stalinist in the most literal sense - party officials went on cosy visits to Kim Il Sung's North Korea. Doctor Moira Woods (who slandered Eddie Hernon) was also a member of this Party. I think that Mary Raftery was a member (though I can't swear to it). Doctor Noel Browne was not in the Workers Party but his hatred of the Catholic Church really took off in the late 1960s. John Horgan mentions in his biography of Browne that a savage article by Browne in the Irish Times in 1970 drew criticism from Father Michael Sweetman [2]! The late 1960s really do seem to be a critical time.

Regarding "liberal" Catholics I know that the National Catholic Reporter in the USA has thrown its full weight behind the child abuse witch-hunt. It even sees nothing wrong with convictions on the basis of "Recovered Memory Syndrome". This is voodoo brain science and is almost unknown in Ireland. The NCR sees the scandal as a useful way of gutting the traditional church and advancing its own "liberal" agenda. - in relation to women priests, gay priests, the laity etc. I don't know if there is an equivalent group in Ireland - I am concentrating my fire on journalists.

Maybe I am exaggerating the importance of my time in the De La Salle Novitiate. But then again maybe not!


Rory Connor
September 2006

Notes:
[1] The book is "The Myth of Hitler's Pope" by Rabbi David G. Dalin

[2] The date should be 1968 not 1970 which tends to prove my point! In "Noel Browne, Passionate Outsider" John Horgan writes:

" In 1968 [Browne] had written a speech for a meeting in Trinity College which contained a number of harsh criticisms of the Church, but had thought better of it and deleted them from the remarks he eventually delivered. The original speech, however, was published in the Irish Times, and for this he was mildly chastised by another speaker at the meeting, the radical Jesuit Fr Michael Sweetman". [The Irish Times, 6 December 1968].

This seems to be the last time that Noel Browne entertained any doubts about the Catholic Church. After that, it was shrieking denunciation all the way, with the Church being blamed for every evil in Irish society. I think that 1968 was the year our Irish "liberals" started to go crazy!

Richard Webster, The Idea of Evil and Operation Midland

Carl Beech - sentenced to 18 Years for False Allegations of Child Abuse and Homicide

There is a lot in common between the hysterical allegations at the core of the London Metropolitan Police's "Operation Midland" (2014/16) and the similar hysteria on the island of Jersey in 2008. Both included prolonged investigation into the alleged murders of children decades before and in neither case was the identity of the supposed child victims ever established. The Jersey case (involving the former residential institution of Haut de la Garenne), must have been the first in British history where the police launched a homicide investigation in the absence of both a body and the identity of an alleged victim! 

However the Jersey case was not the first such in the British Isles. Beginning about 1996 there were a series of media charges - and resulting Garda investigations - that Irish children had been murdered by the Christian Brothers, Sisters of Mercy or Passionist priests. Many of the allegations related to periods when no child dies of ANY cause - so I coined the phrases "Murder of the Undead" and "Victimless Murders". By 2008 many of these homicide claims had been shown to be nonsense and that aspect of our child abuse witch-hunt seemed to be fading away. In fact I wrote an article in 2006 that (wrongly) assumed the whole lunacy was at an end. An updated version - that includes the original 2006 text - is here: Blood Libel In Ireland - directed against Catholics Not Jews!

Accordingly when the Jersey scandal broke on 23 February 2008 I wrote an online comment to an article in the Times (UK) on 26 February and also emailed Richard Webster with whom I had corresponded regarding his 2005 book "The Secret of Bryn Estyn: The Making of a Modern Witch-Hunt". He agreed with me that the Jersey allegations (featuring the former juvenile detention centre, Haut de la Garenne) were a reprise of the Irish ones and equally nonsensical. For the next 6 months he was very active in debunking the Jersey hysteria using his blog and also his journalist connections (that I sadly lack). The whole lunacy collapsed in late 2008 and the following are two comments that I made to Richard's article dated 16 November 2008 "Something evil had happened . . . I had to go on' - Jersey in the Sunday papers"

I'm pleased to see that I quoted my first comment to The Times article - made just 3 days after the scandal broke - as it's no longer available otherwise. 

Richard Webster died of a heart attack in June 2011 aged just 60. If he were alive today, I believe he would be surprised and distressed that the kind of child abuse hysteria he helped to demolish in 2008, is still very much with us. OR perhaps the demise of "Operation Midland" and the jailing of Carl Beech has at least discredited the homicidal aspects of the Witch-Hunt?

I have an article on my old website (not blog) "In Memory of Richard Webster"


Rory Connor
20 August 2019


These are my two reactions to Richard Websters article dated 16 November 2008

Kilbarry1   21 November 2008 
It was obvious from the beginning that these allegations were based on hysteria. In a comment on a TimesOnLine article dated 26 FEBRUARY ("Beast of Jersey Paedophile...") I wrote the following:

In Ireland between 1999 and 2004 we had a large number of allegations that children had been killed in industrial schools run by the Christian Brothers. These included accusations in a major Sunday Newspaper of mass killing ("a Holocaust") at Letterfrack in Co. Galway. Not a single claim has proved to be correct. This is not surprising as several relate to periods when no child died of ANY cause. (I call these "Murder of the Undead" allegations). **

One body was exhumed and proved to be a death from natural causes but the resulting publicity resulted in dozens of child abuse claims within a couple of weeks against the institution.

The child killing allegations were not made by isolated nutcases but by major newspapers and by leading members of child abuse organisations. They have now ceased but the people responsible have not been called to account.

What is happening in Jersey looks like a repeat of our Irish witch-hunt.

Rory Connor, Dublin, Ireland

Richard feels that the response of the British media to the latest revelations is inadequate. In Ireland the media simply buried the scandal since they were almost 100% responsible for it. At least your UK journalists can cast the blame on Lenny Harper (who is from Derry by the way) and so they are prepared to give LIMITED coverage to the collapse of this witch-hunt. We should be so lucky in my country!

Rory Connor, Dublin 

** I also coined the phrase "Victimless Murders"!



Kilbarry1    21 November 2008 
Further to comment above, while I support (nearly) everything Richard has said and done to combat this witch-hunt, I am a bit uneasy about his treatment of the concept of "Evil". I don't believe that the underlying cause was an unhealthy obsession with evil. In Ireland the cause was definitely anti-clericalism - and specifically hatred of the Catholic Church. The hysteria has now spread to encompass the whole of our society but it started as a hate-filled attack on the Church - with journalists being the main offenders.

I suspect that in Jersey, the cause was Hatred of Authority. One prominent Jersey politician seems to be consumed with loathing of his colleagues. Also Jersey is a small island with a number of rich people who seem to dominate the economy and politics. Nobody is starving but I suspect there are lots of relatively unsuccessful people who are prepared to use any means whatsoever to bring down the local elite.

Many journalists also loathe authority and tradition and are very destructive types. It's not that they are obsessed with evil but that they are prepared to (literally) demonise any person or institution they don't like. When Lenny Harper made a foolish and premature announcement last February about finding "part of a child's skull", these journalists descended on Jersey like a pack of wolves, determined to discover a vile conspiracy of child abusers among the elite. Their behaviour made it very difficult for Mr. Harper to backtrack and he pressed on regardless of the mounting evidence that his original decision was wrong. In my opinion THAT would explain a great deal of what happened in Jersey - and it ties in with our experience in Ireland!

Rory Connor

UPDATE: 22 August 2019

Eight years after the death of Richard Webster, I wonder why I partially disagreed with his article "Something Evil had Happened" - and specifically his use of the concept of "Evil". I corresponded with him on and off for  a few years and I supplied him with the Irish section of his book "The Secret of Bryn Estyn" - about 5 pages out of 600. He published that section online under the title "States of Fear, the Redress Board and Ireland's Folly". I see that in my second comment above I wrote "It's not that [journalists] are obsessed with evil but that they are prepared to (literally) demonise any person or institution they don't like. Is it the case that I was actually agreeing with him while using slightly different language?

Actually we had a theological dis-agreement concerning the role of Christianity and specifically Original Sin!  I wrote about this in a previous article "Satanic Ritual Abuse in Ireland (and the Shortage thereof) vs "Normal" False Allegations". 

"The late cultural historian Richard Webster suggested to me that the reason Ireland had practically no Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) cases was the influence of the Catholic Church and its strong opposition to Freudian ideas. The Church opposed Freudianism because of the implications for Catholic doctrines regarding sin, free will and personal responsibility. Richard Webster was an atheist (NOT of the Dawkins persuasion) but he was also a major critic of Freud and and believed that SRA was a logical development of his ideas.

"Based on what Richard Webster suggested, I developed my own theory that false allegations of child murder in Ireland are our equivalent of SRA - except that in OUR case Freudian delusions are replaced by open lying. (I am thinking in particular of the cases where no child died of ANY cause during the period in question). However I don't know enough about Freud and he didn't know enough about Ireland to prove anything of the sort. It could be a useful subject for a law graduate looking for a doctoral thesis!"

Gordon McKenzie asked me to clarify what Richard meant and I replied:

"I find the theory behind his thesis difficult to understand. I think he is saying that modern society thought it had dispensed with the concepts of Sin, Evil and the Devil but that Freud was a kind of secular Messiah who brought them back in secular form. One of my difficulties with Webster's THEORY is that he emphasizes that Freud re-established the Christian doctrine of Original Sin. However that doctrine states that evil is a basic - although not dominant - element in human nature and that therefore we are all sinful. I would have thought that this doctrine works AGAINST the modern tendency to see child sex abusers as sub-human vermin. Evil is within us and we are not going to eradicate it by transferring our guilt and demonizing any section of humanity no matter how nasty their behaviour."

I have since read more (although not enough) of what Richard wrote on this subject and he had a different take on "Original Sin":

"The dream according to which human irrationality is finally defeated and replaced by the reign of reason has always been at the heart of Christian apocalyptic fantasies. It was Christianity which fostered the view that human irrationality and human viciousness, though part of our ‘fallen’ nature, were not part of our essential spiritual and rational identity. In the eternity of God’s kingdom which was to be established at the end of history, they would be banished for ever. It is religion, in other words, which has encouraged us to believe in an unrealistic version of human nature according to which all human unreason (traditionally personified as ‘the Beast’, the ‘Whore of Babylon’, or ‘Satan’) can be bound for a thousand years (the ‘millennium’) or somehow permanently excised from human nature. ‘Rationalism’ is, in this sense, the greatest of all the irrational delusions which has been promoted by our religious tradition.

"The muddle we have managed to get ourselves into by our failure to recognise this does not only have intellectual consequences, it is also potentially (and, indeed, actually) dangerous...."

Richard believed that the hysteria surrounding allegations of Satanic Abuse, child sexual abuse and rape  stem from this "secularised Christian" view of human nature whereby human irrationality will be finally defeated and excised from our nature. It's a theory that would be very difficult to prove but we do need to discuss what is the basis of these world-wide witch-hunts.  

The reason why I didn't fully agree with Richard's 2008 article "Something Evil Had Happened.." is probably that I was aware of the implications for Christianity of his theory. I have no difficulty in accepting his view that our current witch-hunts are related to those of early modern Europe (16th and 17th centuries). BUT I see the later as an aberration not as something intrinsic to Christianity! 
   

Mary Raftery and Blood Libel

Mary Raftery - "They were calling me a Nazi, citing blood libel"

The late Mary Raftery has been in the news against recently so I am republishing my correspondence with former Irish Times editor Geraldine Kennedy in 2005. 

According to an RTE report on 29 April 2019 Dublin City University "launched an exhibition on the award-winning journalism of the late Mary Raftery. The event coincides with the 20th anniversary of the airing by RTÉ television of her three-part documentary series, States of Fear. The broadcasts prompted the then taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, to issue an unprecedented apology to survivors of institutional child abuse, primarily in Catholic-run industrial schools."

RTE goes on to confirm that the university has also unveiled a new journalism industry award, The Mary Raftery Prize, which will be awarded annually to an individual or small team responsible for journalistic work produced on the island of Ireland which, in the view of the judges, combines the rigorous analysis and commitment to social justice which characterised Mary Raftery's journalism and resulted in a significant impact on society.

This "rigorous analysis" and "commitment to social justice" included a blood libel against the Christian Brothers while her States of Fear series on RTE was a major factor in the false rape convictions of former Sister of Mercy Nora Wall and of a homeless schizophrenic man Pablo McCabe. Ms Raftery had very little to say about Nora Wall following the overturn of the convictions and nothing about Pablo.[Note 1] He was accused in order to make a rape allegation against a nun look more plausible and his abuse by the two accusers and the State, was of no interest to Ms Raftery. (He was the wrong type of victim!). [Note 2]

Once Again - Mary Raftery and Blood Libel 
"They were calling me a Nazi, citing blood libel, a whole stable of them," she continues. "But there's absolute silence from those quarters since the Ryan Report." (Mary Raftery in Sunday Independent on 4 September 2011). Two weeks later I wrote on my website
Actually I am the only person who ever used the term "blood libel" in relation to Mary Raftery and I also commented - with reference to her - that the Nazi pornographer Julius Streicher also used to accuse Jews of murdering Christian children. I have certainly not remained silent since the Ryan Report.[published May 2009] However Mary Raftery is a sacred cow among Irish journalists and feels -with some justification - that they will allow her to get away with any lie!

They still are!


Rory Connor
26 June 2019

NOTES:
[1] For Mary Raftery's grossly inadequate account of the trial of Nora Wall in her book "Suffer the Little Children" see "Mary Raftery and Nora Wall" She leaves out nearly all the relevant facts and makes it sound like an acquittal on a technicality!

[2] The only detailed account of Pablo McCabe's role in this tragedy is Breda O'Brien's article in the Jesuit Review Studies in Winter 2006
Miscarriage of Justice: Paul McCabe and Nora Wall

CORRESPONDENCE WITH IRISH TIMES EDITOR, GERALDINE KENNEDY

1) LETTER TO EDITOR

17 April 2005

Geraldine Kennedy

Editor, Irish Times

Dear Ms. Kennedy,

I am enclosing some articles which I have written concerning Mary Raftery and her accusations of child killing and child abuse directed against the Catholic Church.

In summary:

The Death of Patsy Flanagan

Mary Raftery has accused the Christian Brothers of being responsible for the death of the boy Patsy Flanagan who died following a fall from a staircase in Artane in February 1951. When her "witness" produced three contradictory accounts of the incident (one of which got the date wrong by 5 years), Ms. Raftery tried to square the circle by claiming that a few boys had died in this manner! She produced not a scrap of evidence to support this allegation.

There was an inquest which found the death of Patsy Flanagan to be an accident. Mary Raftery does not mention this in her book. Did she not know about it or did she deliberately conceal this evidence?

Sister Stanislaus and Sister Conception

Mary Raftery has, on several occasions, accused Sister Stanislaus Kennedy of failing to act when she was informed of child abuse in the 1970s in St. Joseph's orphanage, Kilkenny. The social worker who is supposed to have informed her, wrote to the Irish Times to say that he himself was unaware in 1977 that sex abuse was involved and that he only became aware of this in 1995 i.e. nearly 20 years after he is supposed to have informed Sister Stan (Letters page 22 December 1999). This precisely matches what Sister Stan said when Mary Raftery first made her allegation (in the States of Fear series and the book Suffer the Little Children). Yet Ms. Raftery repeats the accusation in her article on 3 March last. She makes a similar accusation against Sister Conception and the late Bishop Birch, in spite of the fact that on 1st March the President of the High Court Mr. Justice Finnegan, specifically exonerated them in his judgment in the case of R. Noctor-v.-Ireland, The Attorney General and Others. (Mary Raftery does not dispute his judgment concerning this issue; she ignores it).

Mary Raftery claimed that Sister Stanislaus had denounced a civil servant on the Kennedy Committee for failing to give credit to the Church for its social work. The three civil servants at the relevant meeting told journalist Breda O'Brien that no such episode had occurred. (One also wrote to the Irish Times to confirm this). This is by no means the most serious allegation made by Mary Raftery. It is important because it can be easily shown to be a lie. And the lie is obviously linked to other tales told by Ms Raftery about Sister Stan and about the Catholic Church.

Brother Joseph O'Connor

A far uglier lie is Mary Raftery's attack on the late Brother Joseph O'Connor who was the Christian Brother responsible for the Artane Boys Band. She claims he was a vicious child abuser. She alleges that a man abused by him was so distraught that he hung around the Mater Hospital for days when Brother O'Connor was dying. He then went into the hospital and lifted the sheet from his body to confirm that Brother O'Connor was dead. BROTHER JOSEPH O'CONNOR DID NOT DIE IN THE MATER HOSPITAL. (The same question arises as with the inquest on Patsy Flanagan - did Mary Raftery not bother to check this extraordinary story or did she conceal evidence?)

I assume that Mary Raftery tells lies about Brother O'Connor for the same reason she tells lies about Sister Stanislaus i.e. they are both well known Catholics and demonising them is a way of getting at the Church.

Nora Wall

Mary Raftery's treatment of the Nora Wall scandal in her book is grossly misleading. She fails to state that Nora Wall's two accusers had made a string of rape allegations against various people. Above all she fails to mention the main reason for the collapse of the trial i.e. a man read an article about the case in The Star newspaper and recognised one of the women as the person who had made a false allegation against himself!

I was told by one of Nora Wall's defense team (Sean Costello of Frank Ward and Co. Solicitors) that she had been convicted because of a climate of hysteria created by the media and SPECIFICALLY BY THE STATES OF FEAR SERIES!

Anti-Semitism and Anti-Clericalism

In his book "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", William Shirer has this to say about Hitler's favourite anti-Semite Julius Streicher:

"A famous fornicator he made his fame and fortune as a blindly fanatical anti-Semite. His notorious weekly Der Stuermer thrived on lurid tales of Jewish sexual crimes and Jewish "ritual murders"; its obscenity was nauseating even to many Nazis".

Ms. Kennedy, if even some Nazis were nauseated by Julius Streicher, what is Mary Raftery doing writing for the Irish Times? Do you believe that anti-clerical hatred is morally superior to the Nazi variety? You will note that they both involve lying allegations of sexual crimes and of child killing.

I intend to distribute this material as widely as possible. If yourself or Mary Raftery feel that any of it is mistaken, please let me know within the next week and I will take your views on board. In the meantime I will send this to the National Union of Journalists only.

Yours sincerely,

Rory Connor 

11 Lohunda Grove 

Dublin 15

Appendices:

(1) Mary Raftery and The Death of Patsy Flanagan - Debate Raftery vs Breda O'Brien -Nov 1999 to Jan 2000

(See also) The Death of Patsy Flanagan: Blood Libel and The Christian Brothers - Debate in Sun Independent Nov/Dec 1999

(2) Mary Raftery and Sister Stanislaus Kennedy(1) AND Mary Raftery and Sister Stanislaus Kennedy (2)

(3) Mary Raftery, Sister Conception and Bishop Birch - April 2005

(4) Mary Raftery and Brother Joseph O'Connor - March 2005

(5) Mary Raftery and Nora Wall - March 2005

2) REPLY FROM EDITOR

THE IRISH TIMES 

The Irish Times Limited, 10-16 D’Olier Street, Dublin 2 

Telephone: 6758000. Fax: 6719407 

Email: edsoffice@irish-times.ie 

EDITOR'S OFFICE 

Mr. Rory Connor 

11 Lohunda Grove 

Dublin 15 

April 21st 2005 

Dear Mr. Connor, 

Thank you for your letter of April 17th and its attachments. 

I note from your letter your accusation not just that Mary Raftery has been mistaken in much that she has written but that she has written as fact things that were untrue and that she knew to be untrue. 

As you are also seeking a response from her, I will pass on a copy of your letter to Ms. Raftery but I will not be responding myself to the points you have made because the allegations are clearly defamatory. 

Yours sincerely, 

Geraldine Kennedy 

Editor

3) MY RESPONSE TO EDITOR

29 April 2005 

Geraldine Kennedy 

Editor 

Irish Times 

Dear Ms Kennedy 

Thanks for your reply dated 21 April which I received on the 26 th. 

I actually sent all of the material to Mary Raftery by registered post on 18 April. I also copied it to the National Union of Journalists as I believe that Ms. Raftery must have breached every article of their Code of Conduct. I have not yet received a reply from her and I am now distributing this material as widely as possible. I understand that the NUJ will only accept a complaint if it comes from another journalist so I am concentrating on journalists. 

Yes I believe that Mary Raftery is not just mistaken but is telling deliberate lies. A blatant example is when her "witness" to the death of Patsy Flanagan tells three contradictory stories (one of which gets the date wrong by 5 years). Instead of withdrawing her allegations Mary Raftery tries to square the circle by claiming that more than one boy died in this way in Artane (i.e. by falling from a staircase)! 

Mary McCarthy once said about the Stalinist Lillian Hellman : "Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'." That neatly sums up my attitude to Mary Raftery. 

Yours sincerely,

Rory Connor

The Reason Why - The Catholic Church and I (and Fr Paul Shanley)

Father Paul Shanley as a young priest, c 1970

Paul Shanley, released from prison July 2017

This is a discussion I had with Tim Cavanaugh of the online American libertarian magazine  Reason.com  ("Hit and Run" blog) in 2005. Mr Cavanaugh (presumably of Irish extraction?) was defending a liberal - or renegade - Catholic priest Father Paul Shanley who was initially adored by secular anti-clerics for flouting traditionalist Catholic values - until it suited them to use his anything-goes sexual antics to demonise the Church. The article entitled False Witness is dated 23 February 2005; I wrote to Tim Cavanaugh and an interesting discussion followed that drew in other readers including Jon Ihle.

In February 2005 Paul Shanley was convicted of the 1980 rape of a male minor, a conviction based entirely on "Recovered Memory" evidence. One blogger wrote that the opinion on the Catholic blogosphere appears to be that Shanley is a scumbag who was convicted on the only occasion on which he was innocent. That was certainly my view at the time. However others - like Catholic League president Bill Donohue - believed Shanley to be guilty although it appears that Donohue now accepts he was in fact innocent of that particular charge. [1]

The following extract from the  Wikipedia article on Paul Shanley helps to explain why "liberals" (both Catholic and secular) admired the man and traditionalists loathed him.

Shanley first gained notoriety during the 1970s as a "street priest", ministering to drug addicts and runaways who struggled with their sexuality. His writings included Changing Norms of Sexuality.During the 1980s, Shanley served as pastor of St. Jean the Evangelist Parish in Newton. In 1990, he was transferred to St. Anne's in San Bernardino, California. While there he and another priest, John J. White, co-owned "a bed-and-breakfast for gay customers 50 miles away in Palm Springs".

Shanley had earned "the nickname the hippie priest for his long hair and outspoken views, including his public rejection of the church's condemnation of homosexuality." He attended a conference on sexuality where the founders of NAMBLA, the North American Man Boy Love Association, conceived the idea of such an organization. However, Shanley was not a part of the 32 individuals at the meeting who caucused to form the group, according to a Catholic priest and Protestant minister who were.

The article False Witness and associated comments from the "Hit and Run" blog follow.

Rory Connor

16 April 2019

http://reason.com/blog/2005/02/23/false-witness

Hit and Run Blog

False Witness 

Tim Cavanaugh 

Feb. 23, 2005 3:53 pm

Dear Mr. Cavanaugh,

The attached is from the "Gay" magazine The Guide. Its not that it is the best account of your country's Salem Witch-Hunt (I will send you details of better ones). Its just that they cannot possibly be accused of making excuses for the Catholic Church. (I see they also have an article this month).

Will you defend this lunacy or (more likely) will you ignore it and the questions is raises about anti-clerical "liberals"?

Regards

Rory Connor

[above link is to a May 2005 article from The Guide by Jim D'Entremont as earlier one not available. There is a further article by D'Entremont dated March 2008 here ]

Dear Mr. Cavanaugh,
Summary follows. Plenty of material for an article on the effects of anti-clericalism. It's not so much that I expect journalists like yourself to disagree. What I expect is that you will remain silent and let the Witch-Hunters run riot. You don't actually believe what they are saying but they are attacking your enemies and that's all that counts.

Is that correct?

Rory Connor

[Reply from Tim Cavanaugh]

I never turn down a challenge, Rory! The articles you refer to can be be found  here, and though they're a bit out of date, Slate's Dahlia Lithwick (whose article on this topic I came across just before I got your email yesterday—divine intervention?) covered some of the same ground in covering the actual case against Paul Shanley.

So, in case anybody out there doesn't know, Shanley,  recently sentenced to 12-to-15 years in prison for child rape, was convicted solely on the basis of  recovered-memory testimony; three of his four accusers were dropped as unreliable, and the one remaining accuser had ample opportunity to coordinate his tale with the stories of at least two of the others (boyhood friends of his); no witnesses were able to corroborate any of the accusations, in whole or in part, and to the degree that there was forensic evidence, it would seem to clear Shanley (for reasons too complicated to go into here, and which did not involve Shanley at all, one of the boys actually had his cloacal region examined by a doctor at the time of the alleged crimes, and no evidence of abuse was found); Shanley appears to have had an active and varied sex life, which was widely distorted and misreported in press accounts; he was not actually a member of NAMBLA; nothing in Shanley's 1,600-page personnel file from the Boston Archdiocese supports any of the claims made about him prior to and during his trial... For more information, read JoAnn Wypijewski's  coverage of the case, [2] and since on the internet a thousand-word screed is worth a million pictures, don't miss Alexander Cockburn's post-sentencing hit.

For what it's worth, I have consistently believed, and written, that the real scandal here has been about management; what made the RCC sex-abuse story of 2002 take off wasn't the behavior of accused priests but the loony personnel decisions high-ranking church officials seemed to be making. That applies here as well: If they didn't think Shanley was guilty they should have defended him instead of shuffling him around and then throwing him to the wolves when he got too hot. However, I didn't pay any attention to the details of the Shanley case beyond noting that he had "multiple accusers" and a "30-year history" of allegations, both of which turn out to be largely chimerical.

But hey, way back in 2002 I was warning about the possibility of a witch hunt: When a priest in Baltimore was shot by a guy who claims the priest had molested him, a New York Times reporter astoundingly referred to the shooter as the "victim," and I called bullshit on that. And as it turns out, that Times reporter's name was...Jayson Blair?

And now you know...the rrrrest of the story!

TIM CAVANAUGH

MY NOTES:
[1] This is Bill Donohue's reaction to Paul Shanley's release from prison in July 2017 -"Catholic Left Goes Mute on Paul Shanley"

[2] For a Catholic traditionalist view on Jo Ann Wypijewski, a left wing journalist who defended Paul Shanley when most of her colleagues abandoned him to the Witch-hunters, see article by Phil Lawler "Strange Ally: a left-wing journalists unconvincing critique of Spotlight"

VIEW COMMENTS (33) 33 Responses to “False Witness”

SR 
 23 May 2005 @ 5:02PM
 [anti-Catholic evangelical] Obviously the Black Internationale has gotten to you, Tim. [/anti-Catholic evangelical]


mojoe 
23 May 2005 @ 5:21PM
 Tim,
 I live in the Boston area, and know 2 guys that absolutely, positively swear that this guy molested them also. They aren't interested in testifying because of the embarrassment involved. They've put it behind them (not a pun). And have seen what it's like to testify in these proceedings.

 Also, the media hereabouts reported that the other 3 accusers decided not to testify for the same reason, not that they had been disqualified as unreliable.

 There was another case locally where recovered-memory testimony was used to put away the owners and workers of the Fells Acres Daycare, only to have most of those convictions overturned some time later.

WSDave 
23 May 2005 @ 5:30PM|
I thought all that recovered memory, sex abuse, "satan ate my baby" stuff went out in the 80's. Is everything old really new again?

gaius marius
 23 May 2005 @ 5:40PM
 "I live in the Boston area, and know 2 guys that absolutely, positively swear that this guy molested them also."
 which is fine, mr mojoe. but that doesn't mean the trial of shanley as it happened was not a horrible miscarriage of justice.

Tim Cavanaugh 
23 May 2005 @ 5:42PM
 WSDave, that's why I figured there must really be something to the charges against Shanley. You know: There's no way they'd convict a guy on the basis of voodoo brain science just for the sake of the children! That would be unreasonable!

 What was I thinking?

Rory Connor 
23 May 2005 @ 6:25PM
 Dear SR
 You are absolutely right: The Black Internationale has got Tim! I was a De La Salle Brother from 1966 to 69 and it was the formative experience of my life. My novice master Brother Maurice Kirk was as important as my parents if not more so. (He became head of the De La Salle Order in Ireland and was killed in a car crash on 10 April 1974.)

 In September 1967 at the end of our training a Jesuit priest Father Michael Sweetman gave us a 9 day Retreat (spiritual conference for you pagans). It's true what the Jesuits say: when they control a child's education they have him for life!
 Rory

Jeff
 23 May 2005 @ 6:30PM
The Catholic church scapegoating somebody for the sake of convinience? Unheard of!

Gary Gunnels 
23 May 2005 @ 6:37PM
 Rory Connor,
 I am a heathen thank you very much.

crimethink
23 May 2005 @ 7:00PM
 Gary Gunnels,
 Was he talking to you?

 Or do you have a new housemate? ;-)

SR 
23 May 2005 @ 8:14PM
I'm very gratified that someone recognized the "Black Internationale" reference.


Gary Gunnels
23 May 2005 @ 8:43PM
 crimethink,
 If you read his comments you'll see he was referring to anyone reading his comments who happened to be rational enough not believe in Christianity.


James Kabala 
23 May 2005 @ 9:06PM
A number of people in the Catholic blogosphere take the same position as mojoe: This was a scumbag who got caught by a rare case in which he was innocent. I don't know enough details to say whether that's true or not.

 As for the Jayson Blair anecdote, all I can say is, "Wow."


Gary Gunnels 
23 May 2005 @ 9:18PM
 Sometimes it is very difficult to keep the outside world from invading the jury room. Does anyone know if the NAMBLA claim arose at trial? I doubt the prosecution would raise it (its not in their interest to dispel this rumor), and if the defense didn't, then that claim could have tainted the entire jury pool. Even voir dire might not have rid the jury of this notion if the prosecution or defense avoided or didn't think of it.

The Wine Commonsewer 
23 May 2005 @ 10:09PM
 I'm also too lazy (busy) to go looking but to my recollection the denial of the NAMBLA connection turns on a technicality. He was involved but it wasn't NAMBLA yet because the organization was just getting off the ground. It ultimately evolved into NAMBLA. A nice bunch of folks I'm sure.

 I don't doubt that Shanley is guilty. I also think the evidence was thin. Too thin for a conviction if it was anything else but a sexual assault case.

The Wine Commonsewer 
23 May 2005 @ 10:11PM
 Meant to also say that (from memory) the Archdiocese of Boston has written records connecting Shanley with NAMBLA around 1979 or 1980 so, no, it didn't arise at trial for the first time.


Tim Cavanaugh
 23 May 2005 @ 11:08PM
Gary and TWC: This claim was not in evidence at the trial, but according to the Wypijewski story, the jury pool showed close to 100-percent awareness of Shanley and the media reporting on the case, so it's a good bet at least a few of the jurors knew about the claim. I'd say his non-membership was more than just a technicality, though he wasn't pure as the unsunned snow either. From the story:

 "By 1977 anyone wanting to report molestation could call an anonymous tip into a hotline instituted by the Boston D.A. Innuendo poured in about hundreds of gay men. It was a year of panic that set the stage for Shanley to articulate his most "deviant belief." In nearby Revere, a police dragnet implicated 25 men and 64 youths in an alleged sex ring. Police detained the young people, or enlisted psychiatrists and priests, to coerce them into cooperating. A group called the Boston/Boise Committee was formed to defend civil liberties. Ultimately none of the men did time, and the district attorney responsible for the scandal was swept from office. Afterward, the committee held a conference to discuss sex between men and teenage boys. Shanley was among the clerics, ethicists, lawyers, activists, and psychologists invited to speak. He told the story of a gay teenager, rejected by his family, who took up with an older man. When the boy's parents found out, they called the police and the man was imprisoned. "He had loved that man," Shanley said of the boy. "And when he realized that the indiscretion in the eyes of society and the law had cost this man perhaps 20 years . . . the boy began to fall apart. We have our convictions upside down . . . the 'cure' does far more damage."

 "At his 2002 PowerPoint show, MacLeish projected a sentence from a 1979 account from Gaysweek that read, "At the end of the conference, 32 men and two teenagers caucused and formed the Man Boy Lovers of North America." The suggestion or assertion that Shanley was among the 32 has been repeated in the press many times since. But Shanley wasn't part of that group, say a Catholic priest and Protestant minister who were."


martin
 23 May 2005 @ 11:10PM
 Repressed memory syndrome or RCC discussion aside, my feeling is, what convicted the guy was the sole witness sobbing and breaking down on the stand. After decades of indoctrination, no juror wants to feel that the obviously terribly affected victim did not get justice and a potential molester might be allowed to roam freely.

 The child sex abuse hysteria should serve as a textbook case of subverting important foundations of justice, such as assumption of innocence, retroactive legislation, due process rights and more. All to the great enhancement of power of prosecutors, social service groups, NGOs and ably pushed along by an often gullible and uninformed media. Sex sells.

 Ending the WOD will be magnitudes easier than halting the sex abuse hysteria train.


martin
23 May 2005 @ 11:23PM
 PS:  Even if Mr. Shanley ever was a member of NAMBLA, that is not what he was at trial for. To all advocating it should make a difference to a jury, you need to seriously check the consequences if such thinking takes hold in practice. Undeniably, especially in molestation cases, it already has.

 Just because a guy was a sympathiser or even a member of the KKK, doesn't mean he is criminally liable for the atrocities committed in their name.

 Looks like Government mind control to me.



TWC
 24 May 2005 @ 12:16AM
 Thanks Tim....
 Certainly this stuff is troubling. But the entire legal system is insane, and when it comes to sex crimes, it's a crap shoot.


Gary Gunnels 
24 May 2005 @ 12:19AM
 martin,
 Having now had some experience with trial work I can tell you that I have a very jaded attitude toward juries. A talented trial attorney can manipulate the fuck out of them.


Rory Connor 
24 May 2005 @ 4:17AM
From my reading of the case Paul Shanley may well have been guilty of sex with underage but ADOLESCENT boys. Consensual sex with a 16 year old youth is a crime, but very different from raping a 6 year old. So why wasn't he charged with his (possible) real crimes?

 In the 1970s Paul Shanley was a Gay and Liberal icon. He was part of the Church's outreach to the Gay community and reached out so far that he swallowed their agenda hook, line and sinker. When he was removed from that ministry about 1980, Cardinal Madeiros (?) was denounced as reactionary.

 Part of the Gay agenda was (and is?) to reduce the age of consent. If Shanley was prosecuted for consensual sex with teenage youths, the trial might have focused on the issue of homosexual priests. Instead the prosecution brought vile and fantastic charges in order to demonise Shanley and the Catholic Church.

 Just a suggestion!

 Rory


Douglas Fletcher 
24 May 2005 @ 4:39AM
What the hell is in the water up there, anyway?


Jon Ihle 
24 May 2005 @ 6:49AM
Everyone here - especially Tim - should know that Rory Connor's aim here is to exonerate the Catholic Church's complicity in widespread sexual abuse by drawing attention to exceptional miscarriages of justice. He's been bombarding my blog and email for over a year now trying to get me to write about this stuff, too. He contacted me because I'm a Jew who occasionally writes about anti-Semitism and he sees the sex abuse allegations, trials, etc. as an anti-Catholic campaign. As you can see from his last comment, his paranoid exculpatory fantasy involves a conspiracy theory about an organised attack by homosexuals on the Church. From what I can tell, his group, Voices Emerge, is struggling with the complete loss of Catholic authority in Ireland, where not only has clerical sex abuse been revealed, but also a widespread longstanding system of virtual slavery for orphans, unwed moothers and other moral undesirables. This is an institutional problem with the Church, but Connor wants you to pay attention to an individual case so that you forget that.


Rory Connor 
24 May 2005 @ 10:25AM
 Jon Ihle is right. I have been bombarding journalists trying to get them to write about a gross miscarriage of justice that bears comparison to the (Jewish) Dreyfus case in France over a century ago. The evidence against Dreyfus was forged but it was not ludicrous. The accusers of Dreyfus had more respect for the intelligence of their audience than the advocates of Recovered Memory which is more like voodoo brain science.

 I know a lot more about the witch-hunt in Ireland than in the USA. However I do know that Shanley was one of the chief whipping boys of the anti-clerical child abuse lobby. Since Shanley is innocent of the charges against him (as even Jon Ihle seems to accept), it is a reasonable conclusion that the entire scandal in the USA is fake.

 I know for certain that our Irish scandal is a fake and a witch-hunt. I have been in contact with a number of the chief accusers and leaders of "victims" groups. One of them told me on the steps of the Catholic Cathedral in Dublin, that there are mass grave in Artane and other institutions run by the Christian Brothers. (This encounter took place in front of journalists and TV crews and was - briefly- reported in the media. His group was picketing the Cathedral after Mass).

 Another gentleman told the Irish Times that he attended the funerals of boys who died after being punched in the stomach by the Christian Brothers. No boy died of any cause while this gentleman was in Artane. I had a sharp E-Mail exchange with him in which I invited him to name the dead boys. Of course he produced no names. I know of several other accusations of this type. I call them "Murder of the Undead" allegations and they seem to be the Irish equivalent of Recovered Memory Syndrome.

 I am not talking about isolated individuals who jump on the bandwagon of a genuine scandal. These allegations come from the leaders and spokes-persons for "victims" groups in my country.

 The Irish Minister for Justice and the Gardai (police) have confirmed that they are unaware of a single murder.

 It is impossible to disprove allegations of child abuse, decades after the alleged events. You cannot prove a negative. However when the people who allege systematic child abuse are also making "Murder of the Undead" type claims, then you know that we are dealing with a new Salem.

 Rory


Gary Gunnels
24 May 2005 @ 11:32AM
Rory Connor,
 I've known many, many gay people in my life; I don't ever recall any of them having a burning desire to lower the age of consent laws.

 Even if Shanley is innocent, that hardly undermines the numerous other cases of sexual abuse of children (and nuns for that matter) by RCC priests. Of course, its not like the RCC doesn't have a long and inglorious history of persecuting or victimizing people; thus, the latest revelations are just par for the course.

 Jon Ihle,
 Thanks for the heads up.


dhex 
24 May 2005 @ 12:19PM
 i have to say i was heartened at recent protests at Catholic school closings by parents in carroll gardens and other parts of brooklyn. the direct connection between hush money payouts and budget woes was being addressed directly. (not that there's much of a solution there, unless these parents could somehow double their tuition fees, which is, ahem, unlikely)

dhex
24 May 2005 @ 12:24PM
"it is a reasonable conclusion that the entire scandal in the USA is fake."

 yes, well...we all have to hold onto something.


Altar Boy 
24 May 2005 @ 1:02PM
I went to catholic school for 12 years and had a lot to do with priests, nuns, and brothers. I'm from a very Irish part of town and know hundreds of others who had similar upbringings.

 In all that time and all those people I've heard of 1 case where something sexual might have happened.

 Sure, they were willing to hit you for punishment, but at the time (1960s to 1980s) this was not considered abuse. A lot of them were assholes, and had some other issues, but that doesn't mean they were abusers.

 I understand people who are not Catholics and who only hear the horror stories of catholic school (which I too was all too happy to share with friends at the state college I went to) don't understand the culture and assume all members have the same failings when there are well publicized allegations. The same can be said for any fringe group, such as the Jews or Mormons.

 I would think of all the blogs out there, folks on this one would understand how the actions of a wacky few can unfairly tarnish the reputation of the moderate majority. (e.g. Badnarik)


James Kabala 
24 May 2005 @ 3:12PM
Rory:
 Most of the sexual abuse claims in the U.S. have not been based on recovered-memory syndrome. On the contrary, in most of these cases diocesan archives show that the bishops were notified of the abuse at the time and chose to hush it up.

 The stories you report from Ireland do sound outlandish and Maria Monkish. (For starters, why would dead children be buried in a mass grave instead of returned to their parents? Was this Artane school you mention for orphans?) However, we are talking about two different countries and two different scandals.


The Wine Commonsewer 
24 May 2005 @ 3:13PM
Altar, we do understand that this is a few bad apples in a whole bag full. With the knowledge of the good apples, the gorcery store left the bad apples on the shelf. They even disguised them by putting them in brown shopping bags filled with good apples. They then sent them home to unsuspecting shoppers, some of whom ended up with a rotting bite of the apple containing a worm.

 And that is why everyone here and the rest of America is so outraged.

 Hand me my shootin' iron regards,

 TWC


Jon Ihle
 24 May 2005 @ 4:33PM
Yes, Rory, I do accept that, at the very least, there has been a miscarriage of law in the Shanley case (I'm not in a position know whether it was just, in the cosmic sense). I also accept that cases based on recovered memory are crap. The notion that people forget trauma is fanciful and probably agenda-driven. Further, the instances you describe re: Artane sound nuts and produced by hysteria. But what you can't deny is what the Church has documented itself - and I'm not just talking about sexual abuse, here. I'm talking about the Magdelen laundries and the whole infrastructure of incarceration built around unwed mothers, orphans and juvenile delinquents, wherein these people were mercilessly brutalised. And, of course, I'm talking about clergy who have admitted what they've done and about the Church which has admitted its role in covering for them. It's important to distinguish fact from fiction and to consider these cases individually, but you want to generalise too much from a handful of particulars. What should be important to you is the truth, not just the reputation of the Church.


Rory Connor 
24 May 2005 @ 4:37PM
James
 I agree I have limited knowledge of the scandal in the USA. However the following is a quotation from an article by Daniel Lyons, "Sex, God and Greed", Forbes magazine, June 2003.

 "The False Memory Syndrome Foundation, a Philadelphia debunking group, says at least 100 clergy cases involve people who claim they were molested or raped, blocked it out for decades and now suddenly remember."

 Another quote about the lawyer who represents the four "victims" of Paul Shanley. "For Roderick (Eric) MacLeish, sex litigation is a big business. MacLeish says he represents 240 people bringing abuse claims against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston." The Shanley case is described as his "most celebrated current case."

 Daniel Lyons is no Catholic Church acolyte nor is Forbes Magazine. The article is largely concerned with the effects of the scandal on the American insurance industry!

 There are just too many dubious cases. Have they all jumped on the bandwagon of a genuine scandal or is there something rotten about the entire child abuse issue?

 The story is much the same in Ireland. Artane was an industrial school mainly for teenage boys I think. Some would have committed offenses, some were orphans and others were neglected by their parents. The allegation about mass graves is an accusation of mass murder against the Christian Brothers!

 There was an article in the Sunday Independent (on 22 December 2002 I think) which claimed that there had been a "Holocaust" at another school in Letterfrack with bodies buried all over the place. The man who made the claim had been at Letterfrack about 20 years after the last boy died there!

 As I said, "Murder of the Undead" allegations are the Irish answer to Recovered Memory Syndrome.

 Rory


Rory Connor
27 May 2005 @ 8:06PM
Is this discussion closed? I am going to attempt a final comment anyway. John Ihle and myself differ on most things but we both agree that Recovered Memory is crap. Since he is Jewish and I am Catholic this agreement is not ideological but genetic (i.e. we are both Irish).

 Recovered Memory Syndrome is a Freudian fable and only occurs in societies where Freudianism has made deep inroads into the culture. This did not happen in Ireland. The Catholic Church was strongly opposed to Freud's ideas because they represented a threat to Catholic doctrines regarding sin, free will and personal responsibility. (Even atheists should be concerned about the latter two). That is why we have lunatic lies like "Murder of the Undead" but not Recovered Memory.

 Both societies are sick but I prefer the Irish disease. A liar inhabits the same moral universe as the person who is telling the truth; he just has a different attitude to truth. The Recovered Memory brigade are from a different planet altogether. It is possible to repent of telling lies but how do you repent of Recovered Memory?

Afterword re "Recovered Memory"

On 31 March 2020 I wrote the following in a thread on the politics.ie website "Alex Salmond Accused of Sexual Harassment"

I wrote a Blog article recently that accidentally illustrated the problem of "historic" memory. I wanted to reproduce an online discussion I had taken part in - more than a decade before - about the conviction of Fr Paul Shanley but I had difficulty locating it. I was pretty sure I recalled a comment by a blogger that "the opinion on the Catholic blogosphere appears to be that Shanley is a scumbag who was convicted on the only occasion on which he was innocent." When I eventually located the discussion I found that what I was probably remembering was a comment that

" A number of people in the Catholic blogosphere take the same position as mojoe: This was a scumbag who got caught by a rare case in which he was innocent"

My memory failure makes little difference here, but suppose I was a witness in court testifying to something that was supposed to have happened in 2005. It could make a BIG difference if I said that an event had only happened ONCE when in fact it was was a RARE event (i.e. it happened a few times).

Shortly after I started to compose this Blog article on Fr Shanley, I recognised my mistake. However I thought the way I remembered the statement is an improvement on the original so I decided to let it stand. And of course, that's the problem with "Recovered Memory". It's not a mental photo of what happened in the past but a Reconstruction!

[ Also the author of the original quote was NOT a "Blogger". I upgraded him. Another aspect of "Recovered Memory" is to make past events more important than they really were! ]

Rory Connor

10 August 2020