Unbelievable. This man is foul, sickening and pathetic.

via Athiest Media

No words are necessary from me. Just watch (via Liveblog).

One of things overlooked yesterday when the report came out was the recommendation of the commission.

The report calls for a memorial to be built and inscribed with the words of Bertie Ahern, who apologised in 1999 to victims of the abuse.

While the survivors of the abuse have been vindicated there is to be no justice due to the collusion between state and church, which allowed the abuse to happen unfettered and then essentially gave the religious orders a free pass when it came to being prosecuted for their despicable crimes.

Yet the commission recommends we build a monument with the words of the former Taoiseach, the man who led his government through a frenzy of greed, fraud, cronyism, nepotism and back-slappery which sees the country on the brink/in the throes of financial meltdown. A man whose government did deals with the religious orders which saw the taxpayer front the bill for compensation while they kept their buildings, their land, their power and influence over schools.

So Bertie Ahern apologised unreservedly to the survivors of the abuse. If it wasn’t him it would have been somebody else. And it would have meant just as much.

A man who said of Ray Burke, monstrously corrupt Fianna Fail politician:

I always found him to be a proud honourable man, loyal and true, persevering and principled, caring and committed but tough and a person who often lost friends very easily. On behalf of the Government and particularly on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party, I thank him for his distinguished years in the service of his constituents and his country.

A man who, when questioned about his personal finances said:

I’m not answering what I got for my Holy Communion money, my Confirmation money, what I got for my birthday, what I got for anything else, I’m not into that.

Of course he was above having to be answerable to the people of Ireland, despite what he said in 1996:

The public are entitled to have an absolute guarantee of the financial probity and integrity of their elected representatives, their officials and above all of Ministers. They need to know that they are under financial obligations to nobody.

What an utter hypocrite.

I think a monument to honour the survivors of insitutional abuse is a good idea. It should serve to shame and remind us what depravity and iniquity we allowed in Irish society, it should stand as a testament to those who were brave and courageous enough to speak out, and to those who cannot despite suffering at the hands of those evil men and women.

But must we taint it with the words of a man like Bertie Ahern? Have the survivors not given us more eloquent, more moving, more honest words than his?

We owe them better.

In the light of the child abuse report what will happen?

Are there many of the perpetrators left alive? If so can they be prosecuted? Age should be no impediment.

What about naming those who carried out such abuses?

I heard Christine Buckley on the radio earlier and she spoke about how relieved she was that after 25 years people would know the truth, that she would be believed.

But don’t we owe them more than that?

This afternoon a report into institutional abuse by religious orders will be published. At a cost of €70m it will outline how children were abused in industrial schools, institutions for children with disabilities and ordinary day schools.

I wonder will anything in it shock us though? Will it be enough? I’m not trying to play down the need for such a report nor the fact that information like this should be released publicly, I just wonder how much attention will be paid to it.

We know already that the Catholic Church in Ireland has been guilty of horrendous abuse of children, sexual and physical, and that their first method of dealing with such abuse when they discovered it was not to address it or punish those guilty of it, it was to cover it up.

When the report is published will there be the usual outcry and sensational headlines for a few days or will it have a real impact of on the Catholic Church as an organisation?

Sure, it no longer holds the same power as it used to, but still every week people flock to churches, put their money in the collection plates, go up to the altar to receive a piece of tasteless wafer which is just a tasteless wafer, and send their children to be educated through religion (the newly returned Fatmammycat touches on this here).

Imagine if a tender went out looking for someone to run Ireland’s schools. One organisation is successful. And later it emerges that they used the power and influence they had over children to beat them, to force them to engage in explicit sexual acts, to scar them mentally and physically for life. And not just on an occasional basis. The abuse is widespread and systematic.

Would we not take serious steps to punish the abusers, those who enabled the abusers, those who hid them, moved them from one school to the next where the children there were just fresh meat? Would we not, as a nation, decry that organisation, speak of them in hisses, castigate them at every turn, condemn them, shun them?

Yet every day, every week, people flock to churches, hand over their hard earned cash to people whose abuse has cost all of us millions of pounds. It’s insane.

I’m not saying every priest is a bad priest, there are obviously dedicated, devout and good people, yet they represent an organisation so venal, so corrupt, so deliberately wicked at times, that it is completely at odds with what they try and teach and preach.

The report is welcome, it may well be shocking, it will shame the church and the government, no question, but will anything change? Children will have their communions and confirmations and people who don’t go to mass from one end of the year to other because they do not believe in God will get married in their local church.

Isn’t it time to think differently about the Catholic Church?

Update: Ok, I take it back. Reading this now is actually shocking. Even though you know what went on, the witness accounts are horrific.

The full list of reports. I’m delving into the Record of Abuse (Male Witness) at the moment.

What a stain this is on our country.