Ireland, the World : Litany of Abuse, Litany of Shame : more to come

Ireland, the World : Litany of Abuse, Litany of Shame  

Here are links to on-line copies of the reports thus far from investigations of Institutional Abuse in Residential Schools, clergy abuse in parish's in Ireland.

• Communique At Beginning Of Apostolic Visitation To Ireland
• Vatican Response (12/12/2009)
• Dublin Report - Part 1 (Beginning)
• Dublin Report - Part 1
• Dublin Report - Part 2
• Dublin Report - Appendices
• The Ryan Report (In Totality)
• The Ryan Report - Executive Summary
• Ferns Report (in Totality)
• Ferns Report - Executive Summary
• The Murphy Report Part 1
• The Murphy Report Part 2
• The Murphy Report Chapter 19 Father 'Jovito'

There are  26 dioceses in Ireland, and reports for three have been completed, with two having been released to the public domain. A third has been completed, but has yet to be released. 

   

This is the tip of the iceberg, not just in Irish terms, but also in worldwide terms.. these patterns of abuses have occurred in Canada, United States of America, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Australia where there are ongoing investigations, and in many, many other countries, in particular those lands colonised by the European powers during the last 400 years.

Strategy

These abuses also include the world-wide 'assimilation' processes of the 19th and 20th Centuries in Colonised lands, aimed at undermining the traditional cultures of the colonised, whereby Native Aboriginal children were taken by force under the juridstiction of Law and placed in Residential Schools, to be educated in the ways of the Colonist.  
 
There is clear evidence, well documented, of legislated processes whereby Aboriginal Children were taken from their families and forced into residential schools, evidence from the USA, Canada, Australia and many, many other places... 

What those children, so many, went through!

Here's a propaganda film from the 1950s in Canda concerning these Residential Schools 


Here's one of the foundational documents outlining the philosophy behind these programs.

What I am describing here amounts to a world wide, and long-term, intergenerational pattern of systemic Institutionalised abuse, with clear political and economic aims, and, subsequently as the facts have been revealed, a world wide pattern of cover-up - an a cover-up that is tactical, mediated, strategic; that reveals a clear intent, and worse a clear understanding of the vulnerabilities of Survivors, vulnerabilities which are exploited to protect the Institutions and individuals involved in abuse, neglect or denial.   

What trauma did those children suffer? What of their families and communities? Why? What of  the Poor, those people who have little, whom nobody wants to be,and  yet so many are, so many?

Tactics

This exploitation of Survivors known vulnerabilities can often re-traumatise, and that in and of itself is a criminal act, in that the exploitation is intentional, mediated, known, understood in terms of it's potential effects. 

There are many cases where questioning by defendants adversarial legal teams and investigators is directed not at the issue, but at the person, in what are attempts to trigger the claimant.  

One example that occurs all too frequently is that survivors of pedophile priests are asked, during cross examination, whether or not the priest in question was circumcised! 

In most cases, this is difficult to determine in an erect penis, especially if the survivor is young, and considering that usually such an assault involves huge amounts of stress..... (a common response in situations like this is for the victim to shut of awareness, to look away, anything to not have to face the full impact of the situation.)

This of course is understood by the defendant legal team, and thus the questioning of this sort is a tactic to try to 'punch holes' in the witness testimony. Any hesitation on the wintesses part could then be used to undermine the reliability of the witness, in the court.

At the very least this is cruelty. It re-traumatises the Surivor. As this video shows clearly. 

It is certainly an utterly repugnant practice, though common in criminal and civil actions in courts all over the world. It is called 'destroying the witness'. 

This pattern of exploitation of claimants vulnerabilities is similar in nature to the approach and methods of errant Corporations and Banks. They use their resources to tie people up in courts, in order to drive the claimants towards 'out of court' settlements which usually demand secrecy or silence on the matter therefater, which block further civillitigation, and criminal prosecution and which the defendant can use to to deny the original charges.

There are examples of this kind of exploitative behaviour from Social Services as well. 

Alternatives

And it doesn't have to be this way. Empathy is not an airy-fairy hippy dippy concept. It certianly can and should be integrated into any process of restorative justice, and can be taught to those involved the the administration of restorative justice (which is the prime responsibility of The State, and should be the primary concern of The Vatican). And it certainly ought to be the bed-rock of ALL social services training. And school-teaching for that matter. Certainly the Police could also benefit from it.

There is NO excuse for the apparant lack of empathy on the part of State or Vatican in this matter. They certainly cannot claim that they are unaware of these dynamics as the professionals and researchers who have helped develope the understandings concerning empathy and restorative justice have communicated, in very clear terms, with the Vatican and most, if not all Justice and Health System Ministeries around the Earth.

Something inspiring to listen to :

Here's a revelatory radio show, from Why Radio at Radio Times : "As the worldwide call for accountability grows louder, we talk about what state and federal governments can do to protect children against sexual abuse by clergy. Our guests are law professor Marci Hamilton and Sister Maureen  Paul Turlish, an educator and victims advocate".

The discussion is amazingly clear, compassionate and honest. Utterly unflinching. Highly reccomended.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

Andrew Brown's Blog in The Guardian - Facing the truth.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/17/pope-benedict-cardinal-bernard-law

"A leader who wished to end the crisis would sack Cardinal Bernard Law "

Andrew Browns Blog 

THE GUARDIAN - March 17 2010 - St. Patricks Day (irony of ironies)

One ought to read this 'opinion' piece very carefully - it is a protective of The Vatican, , it is a clever piece of propaganda, and all the more nasty for that.

"What has driven a great deal of the outrage is the perception that the church placed itself above the secular law. Well it does.AS A GLOBAL INSTITUTION IT MUST. Otherwise it has no more moral worth than Google or News International, or any other multinational which will do business wherever it is profitable. And – especially under the Polish pope John Paul II who fought so hard against communism – the church's moral worth was validated by its utter refusal to bend to the standards of the society around it."

The author Andrew Brown, also implies that the 'scandals emerged' during the 70s and 80s and are over - he ignores the fact that the Residential Schools System worldwide (both Church and State) operates still, has operated for over 100 years, and that in that time, many millions of children have been profoundly harmed, by a culture of abuse thathas been described as endemic.

The Vatican leadership has long been aware of pedophile rings operating within the Church - the recent Ryan Report (2009) and more recently the Murphy Report in Ireland merely serves as one reminder of this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_to_Inquire_into_Child_Abuse - The Ryan Report

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_Report - The Murphy Report

The same pattern is repeated across the world. The Last Indian Residential School in Canada was closed in 1996. These were run by Catholic and Protestant Churches, in conjunction with the State.

http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org - Hidden From History : The Canadian Holocaust

The Canadian Social Services have taken over the role of 'assimilation' - Aboriginal Children are 50 times more likely to be fostered than white european children in Canada, and that figure has risen as the Residential Schools were shut down.

http://www.demeterpress.org/untilourhearts.html

Until Our Hearts are on The Ground -

Aboriginal Mothering, Oppression, Resistance and Rebirth

Edited by D. Memee Lavell-Harvard and Jeannette Corbiere Lavell

White fosterers are paid three times the rate that Aboriginal mothers are paid in State support.

This pattern is seen in all countries where Church and State operated Residential School Systems.

Assimilitation by other means. Social services as a tool of social engineering and 'resource exploitation'. The reason for the forced assimilation is that the lands from which these Aboriginal peoples emerge are rich in 'explotable resources' deemed neccessary for the Economy. 

Uranium, Coal, Oil, Timber, Gold. To access the lands the Aboriginal peoples have to be co-opted or removed.

In Ireland, Australia, the USA and elsewhere, those populations whose children were formerly sent to Residential Schools are now more likley to experience forced removal of children, who are placed in State 'care' or are fostered. The poor, the distressed, the damaged, the Aboriginal.

Andrew Brown is either unaware of these facts, and their implications, in which case his article is lazy; or he is ignoring the facts, in which case he is being ignorant.

And both of these, given the serious nature of the matter, are harmful.

There are many other like Brown, public apologists for what is criminal activity.

They must  be confronted at every turn.

Empathy demands that one NEVER uses another as a means to an end.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

Letter Published Examiner Ireland 24 January 2011

Here's a pdf file of letter published in The Examiner, and Irish Daily Broadsheet, based in Cork, Ireland.

The text is as follows :

THE residential school system story and all that goes with it is a far greater crime than the IMF story.

It is a crime in which the Irish State and the Vatican are equal partners. No party in Ireland at present can say it has dealt with this issue decently, honourably. What is it that stops the Irish people from defending the survivors, from demanding that those who protect the Vatican, who indemnify the Vatican and themselves from civil and criminal liability, be brought to account?

One thing I have noticed is the absolute silence on abuses within the elite fee-paying boarding schools which occurred — I know I was there. I am a survivor.

Ireland and its people need group therapy and fast. Without looking at the psychology, the intergenerational patterns of abuse and their effects, without understanding how the abused are forced to 'adapt'  to a situation where abuse is constant, no future Irish government will do any better.

"The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable.

Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried. Equally as powerful as the desire to deny atrocities is the conviction that denial does not work. Folk wisdom is filled with ghosts who refuse to rest in their graves until their stories are told."

Remember what Judith Herman wrote: “Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims.”

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

David Smail on Depression in 1989

Here's an insightful video, of David Smail, speaking of depression and the woundedness of those who have suffered from circumstances not of their own making.







I urge everyone to view this, to listen carefully to the fullness of what David says. His words are dense with meaning, with empathy and understanding.

Note especially that he says the most sensitive are often the most perceptive. The wounded see Society for what it really is. They are more wounded because of that perceptual ability.

This piece of video was made in 1989, during the height of the Thacherite years... and it has special resoance for these times of 'austerity' for the distressed and wounded, and bonuses for the wealthy....

This video outlines what Alice Miller has shown to be the dynmaics of abuse that are most common, that underpin much of the Dominant Cultures realities, the things that do harm, the kinds of adults those who have not faced their childhood woundings who later inflict those same woundings on others.







This is not to excuse those who cause serious harm, but to understand the dynamics of intergenerational abuse patterns.

Tony Blair can only get away with what he has done, David Cameron is getting away with what he is doing, because so many of us are wounded, blocked and in denial about the nature of our Society.


We must face these truths in order to change the patterns.

Remember what Judith Herman wrote:

"The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable.

Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried. Equally as powerful as the desire to deny atrocities is the conviction that denial does not work. Folk wisdom is filled with ghosts who refuse to rest in their graves until their stories are told.

Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims.”

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

Aboriginal Peoples and all our Collective Futures.

One of the things that inspires me the most is the message emerging from the Aboriginal Tribal Societies, from all over the Earth, who  have no desire to exact revenge for the brutal and inhumane treatment they have endured for many hundreds of years, treatment that continues to this day.

In Canada and  North America, in Australia, in Africa and South America, in China and in Asia, in Europe Aboriginal Tribal Societies peoples are extant - that is to say still living in their ancient ways - and they are still under threat; people speak easily of the threat to tigers and polar bears, yet there is a community of over 370 million peoples, Aboriginal Tribal Societies, who may well be extinct within the next 50 years.

The Aboriginal Tribal Societies seek an end to that treatment, they seek a full telling of their hidden history and an accounting, a recognition of the harm caused them and some form of reparation and justice; and in all of this they seek to harm no-one.

It is not in their children's best interest to seek revenge, and in many cases this is exactly why they refused to go to war to protect themselves - there is no honour in becoming like the oppressor. Liberation cannot come from behaving like the oppressor.

These peoples have been, and are being discriminated against even as they have been and are being forced into assimilation programs, even as so many died in those programs, even as some few survived and survive today to succeed in the oppressors way of life, even as some were and are being co-opted by the oppressor.

There are divisions within these peoples communities, divisions between those who have been co-opted into the mainstream dominant cultures version of these cultures, (the tourist version) and those who remain true to their traditions, their cultural roots, their languages, their landscapes.

These divisions are being nurtured and exploited by the Dominant Cultures, by Governments and by Churches and by Commercial Interests. The land these Aboriginal peoples are part of (they do not occupy the forest, they are the forest) is viewed as an 'exploitable resource' - and if that calls for the forced or 'accidental' removal of the people, so be it. Just as the forest gets in the way of exploiting the minerals underneath it and must be cut down, so too the people of the forest, the tundra, the plain. This is the price of progress.

A price the dominant culture does not pay. A price the consumer does not pay, and is often unaware of.

And thus, even as they are yet under attack from powerful interests, the Aboriginal peoples seeek to heal those rifts.. And these Aboriginal Tribal Cultures, they demonstrate great fortitude, empathy, honour and compassion which the Dominant Culture would do well to emulate.

Empathy demands that one never uses another as a means to an end.

I urge everyone who reads this blog to review this paper, to get a deeper understanding of the psychological underpinnings of the struggle of the Aboriginal Communities and Societies to assert their rightful place, to protect themselves and the lands thay are part of, in the context of understanding what drives the greed, the desire for progress both of which are symptoms of a deeper issue : a profound lack of empathy.

BODY PLEASURE AND THE ORIGINS OF VIOLENCE

By James W. Prescott

From "The Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists", November 1975, pp. 10-20

This paper explores how the disruption of the natural child-mother bonding process, which is a  biologically determined process, and is at the heart of most Aboriginal Societies,  and is related to the emergence of hierarchical power relationships, violence, abuse and the perceived need to dominate.

I am deeply, deeply inspired by the message emerging from the Aboriginal Tribal Societies, from all over the Earth, who  have no desire to exact revenge for the brutal and inhumane treatment they have endured for many hundreds of years, treatment that continues to this day.

This message resonates with my own experience as a survivor of Residential School abuse in Ireland, seeking justice for myself and the many survivors, the wounded. We mean no harm. We do not act in revenge. We will not desist until justice is served, until those structures that abused us are transformed.

That message is that empathy lies at the heart of being human, that the natural child is a gift to all life, and that, of course, there is another way for the people of the dominant culture to live - another way is possible.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe