I survived 5 Elite Irish Boarding Schools, 12 years in all.
It destroyed me. To the extent that it wasn't until I was 28 that I realised that there was something really wrong with what had happened - I thought it was because there was something 'wrong' and 'evil' and 'dirty' in me.....
I have studied the history of child-rearing in many, many cultures.
For 25 years. I have also studied the subject of Power Relationships and Politics.
For 25 years. I have also studied the subject of Power Relationships and Politics.
I am a parent.
Christianity's concept of Original Sin lies at the roots of the abuse I and so many others endured.
To promote and enforce such a doctrine is an expression of an adverse and deadly Authoritarianism.
It's a doctrine that is an expression of a profound hatred and fear of The Natural Child.
It is a psychological device that sets the parent against the child, and the child against herself or himself. It is devoid of empathy.
It is also a lie.
The concept of Hell ties in with the concept of Original Sin, as it creates a fear for what occurs AFTER death, a FEAR that permeates life for those who are taught it.
That fearof Hell and and stain of Original Sin conditions the child to such ad eep sense of a basic unworthyness, and is resolutely kept in place by the RULES the Church invented, or lifted from The Old Testament, rules which The Christ never, ever spoke of..
"suffer the little children..........."
"suffer the little children..........."
The vast majority of indigenous native societies were, and are, empathic, non-hierarchical and had no use for Power Relationships, only mutual relationships. This is the natural state. Most people in the West have no idea as to the nature of those Societies. We have been sold lies and romance, and not the reality.
The vast bulk of first contact data going back to the 1400s reveals the truth.
There are 350 million Indigenous Native people alive to day.
The current Anthropological data gathered from extant indigneous Societies confirms the first contact observations, and runs counter to how those observations were interperted by the colonial masters. We all know how the Brehon system protected women and children in the main.
And we all know how that culture was interpreted by the Christian and Norman Invaders, and later the British Empire.
Rape, Child Abuse, Hierachy, Rigid Gender Roles are rare in these communities until they come into contact with Western cultures, and then they emerge out of the dynmaic of intergenerational trauma that afflicts those communities as the Western Culture drives them off their lands, and forces them to 'assimilate'.
Where they do show up in Indigenous Native Societies, we also see a disruption to the natural child-mother bonding process. This natural process builds the neurology of empathy at the earliest stages, and if those stages are missed (as they are in ALL hierarchical violent societies, none excluded) then a lack of empathy emerges as a trait that permeates the hierachical societies.
Even to this day. There are Christian Missionaries running Residential Schools in Africa, South America, Asia to 'assimilate' and 'save souls'. Some are connected to the Catholic Church. Others to other Churches.
The Vatican is and always has been an Institution of Temporal Power as much as it claims Spiritual Authority..
These are the hard truths. It was only by facing the harsh truth of my own experience, and my own dysfunctional behaviour which was the result of that trauma, which was the symptom of the trauma, that I was able to overcome it and survive, and now thrive as a natural, loving human being, one who limps. Some wounds do not heal.
The is NO LOVE, NOR EMPATHY in The Vatican. None.
There is NO LOVE, NOR EMPATHY in the Irish State Istitutions and Government.
Without Love or Empathy there is no understanding.
Without understanding there is no effective accounting, no effective justice ... and for the hundreds of thousands of children who were abused, or witnessed abuse (which can be just as traumatic if the witness is sensitive) who did not survive, who have already died, there is nothing. No justice for them. No accounting for the lives they lived in agony and fear and shame and confusion and insanity.
And even today, for most survivors there is neither justice nor understanding, nor support for their recovery.
This is the harsh truth.
If survivors had not spoken out, in spite of strong resistance even from their own families, this crime would still be totally covered up.
The Irish Government and The Vatican made a back-room deal to 'manage' this crime, to dojust enough to make it look like something was being done, so that neither would be broght to the courts, by Civil Litigation or by Criminal Prosecution.
The 'pressure' on either side is merely a publicity tactic. A cover.
This is the cute hoor-ism we all know and love : Charlie Haughy typified it. Aherne, Cowen and Lenihan typify it. And many, many others in Power in Ireland.
Power Relationships poison Society.
I am not going to tell you what you ought to be doing about this.
Ask yourself that question.
From Henry Porter in the Guardian commenting upon the WIKI LEAKS situation.
"It is all about power and who has access to information. Nothing more. When those who want society to operate on the basis of the parent-child relationship because it is obviously easier to manage, shut the door and say "not in front of the children", they are usually looking after their interests, not ours."
He is correct.
The greatest Power disparity in a healthy society is between the adult parent and the infant child. It is never used, for nurturance is their way, their norm...
In an unhealthy Society that Power is used adversely. The State takes the role of parent, the vulnerable and the people are it's children.
Ireland, The Vatican and The Residential Schools system. 80 years.
Canada, The Vatican, The Anglican Churches and The Indian Residential Schools System. 110 years.
America, The Vatican and The Indian Residential Schools System. 110 years
Australia and The Aboriginal Residential Schools System. 100 years.
America, the coalition of the 'willing' and Iraq. 20 years
America, the coalition of the 'willing' and Afghanistan. 9 years
Thailand, Christian Church groups Residential Schools and The Akha People
China and the Peasants.
The UK and privatised Elderly Care.
The UK and Social Services care-homes.
The UK Coalition Government, the Banking System and the Vulnerable.
The Irish Government, the Banking System and the Vulnerable.
The Metropolitian Police Force TSG, The Coaltion Government, The Banking System and Students.
Industry and the habitat.
You get the drift.
This cannot stand. It has to be addressed, and with some speed.
Power relationships as they are practiced poison life.
Kindest regards
Corneilius
Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe
