Monthly Archives: December 2009

Here’s former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern talking in the Irish Examiner about the criticisms levelled at the bishops in the light of the Murphy Report:

I mean it’s difficult for them all. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I mean they are all saying different things as far as I can see. Some of them are saying they are going to wait and see the priests in the diocese. Others are saying they will wait to see what the public will say. Over the next week or so, we will see where it goes. Most of the focus seems to be on the man in Limerick. A lot of the others are old and effectively retired anyway.

Oh, poor chaps. It is difficult for them, isn’t it? Having their reprehensible behaviour made public must be tough to cope with. You know, it’s them we should feel sorry for. This all happened years ago and now people want them to be held accountable? What are we thinking? People go on and on about the victims but why is nobody thinking about how hard this must be for the bishops?

And the old and retired ones – sure leave them in peace. They’re just auld fellas now. Who cares if they helped priests rape young children in the past? Thankfully Bertie is around to set us straight. The horrible little prick. A man employed by the Sisters of Mercy before he entered political life. A man who agreed to a deal which saw the taxpayer most liable for the compensation that the religious orders should have paid. A man who is trying to tell us what’s going on at the moment is ‘difficult’ for the bishops?

Give me fucking strength. Yet this is the kind of attitude at the top of Irish political life which has allowed these kinds of crimes to be committed – and it’s not as if he doesn’t have plenty of previous. Aside from Enda Kenny which of our political leaders has said that the bishops should resign? Disappointly, to me at least, Eamonn Gilmore said it was a matter for the religious orders, as did the Taoiseach, but why has nobody apart from the leader of Fine Gael condemned these men outright and said that they should not continue in the roles they currently hold? Why am I not surprised that the Minister for Education is more concered about how he is perceived amongst the catholic zealots than doing what is right?

Technically you might say that politicians have no business interfering with the running of a religious order – but did the religious orders do us the same courtesy? No they did not. For years they ruled Irish life, and Irish people, without any mandate whatsoever to do so. What we did or how we did it was none of their business yet they poked their nose in every which way they could. Why should we now sit back and let them behind technicalities?

Willie Walsh was on the radio today crying about how he was in no position to judge anyone for their behaviour. I’m sorry, but if a man of god can’t judge someone who rapes a child then what is the fucking point? It’s not for god to judge the actions of that person, it is for us and for the courts to judge. As it is with the bishops who were part of the cover up.

Politicians, and especially the leaders of the parties, need to stand up to these people and say they should not continue in their current positions, that they should be prosecuted for withholding evidence of crimes, for enabling crimes to happen. They knowingly sent men to places where they knew they would abuse children. Why the fuck are we pussyfooting around them?

Most likely nothing will happen, but for fucks sake say it. Those who don’t are, like so many, afraid of the backlash from the faithful. Maybe if they grew a set of balls they might just earn the respect of the rest of us.

—

Update: Brian Coward defends the vatican, from where on high the cover-up began and who refused to cooperate with the commission. This is the leader of this joke of a country, remember.

The full text of his statement to the Dail can be found on Irish Election.

I despair.