God's Gift to Us: Mothers, and Mother Church

I am a mother. In my chosen vocation, I have had to study human nature, in order to accurately and effectively correct errors and character flaws in my children. As a result, I have had to learn to read faces, interpret meanings, read between lines, stop mind games and call out my children when they were splitting hairs, deflecting blame, redirecting bad behavior onto their siblings and overall trying to avoid facing responsibility for what they have done.

I can do this well and it doesn't stop with my children.

I am patient with my children in correcting this behavior. I am not so good with tolerating it among adults. My husband knows it well, and has had to learn how direct an American can be. This has actually helped him face some horrid memories. He has learned I have very little patience for excuses. Excuses from him, or from anyone who has done evil.

This generation seems to be the generation of "It's not my fault!" As a mother, I have learned that the first kid that denies doing anything wrong is the one to focus the investigation upon. Human nature propels people to deny wrongdoing when they are guilty in order to convince, first and foremost, themselves. Consequently, the current heirarchy within the Catholic Church, being a reflection of the current age, are also faced with the same flaws in character. "It's not my fault. I didn't do it. You can't prove it. But even if I did do it, noone would believe you because I'm more important than you are." As happened in the Boston diocese, the Irish Catholic Church is echoing the same mantra and making all the same mistakes.

Since posting my last blog about the sadness behind smiling Irish eyes, certain individuals have notified me I may be in violation of some laws. As I feared, there are people who are more interested in preserving their image than in preserving their souls. Sadly, it seems the Church has trodden down the path of legalities once again, and the actual truth is meaningless. All that really matters is whether it can be proved in a courtroom. Ironic, when one considers the fact that the perpetrators know what they did and know how often they did it, yet they preach to everyone else the importance of being honest to oneself. If they are so concerned about the image of the Church, wouldn't it make more sense for them to meet personally with each victim, and admit their transgressions? Wouldn't it be better to take responsibility and face the consequences than to hide behind lawyers, website apologies, and public relation spokesmen? Most of all, wouldn't it be better to deal with the temporal punishment, than the eternal one?

Last I checked, the Catholic Church teaches that Confession absolves a person of sin and eliminates the eternal punishment, but Holy Mother Church also teaches that avoiding the temporal consequences is not the objective of receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In other words, if you are trying to get out of the consequences, sorry...no can do! (Notice how the term "Holy MOTHER Church" seems to have a parallel in this article?)

Truth be told, they fear the very truth itself. Mirrors can be intimidating, and many learn not to gaze at their own reflection, for fear of what they might have to face. A mother knows it is worse to ignore the problem in the child, as it has a snowball effect. As my 96 year old grandma, a deeply devout Catholic convert, often said, "Maria, you have to be cruel to be kind." For those in the Catholic Church who have sinned while acting as an agent of the Catholic Church the sin is the scandal, not the fact that it now coming out in public. While hiding behind the rationalization that Jesus said not to bring scandal on the Church, they put a lie in the mouth of Christ. They distort Jesus' meaning, and demand people put up or shut up, in order to preserve an artificial image of the Catholic Church. But Jesus didn't want that. He simply was telling us not to DO anything that is scandalous, not to avoid taking the responsibility for doing it!

Unfortunately, we still live in this world and the people running the Catholic Church are human beings, full of the same character flaws that a mother sees and corrects in her own children. If we, the Church, want to grow and learn from the horrendous reality we face from the Ryan Report and beyond, we must be willing to step forward and call people out on the things being done in the Name of Holy Mother Church. As a good Mother, she knows it is better to let us face a little skinned knee than to have the injury develop into an infection that causes the total loss of the leg.

It will take some time to encourage those who know the abusers to come forward and speak out. But it must be done, if we are to make a better Church for our children and grandchildren. After all, the Church is built on us. We are the Church, the Body of Christ. If one part of the Body becomes infected, the whole body is affected. Only when we address the actual problem in the sick part of the Church will we see better health for the whole Body of Christ.

In other words, listen to your Mama and take your medicine.

Vices and Virtues: The Sadness Behind Laughing Irish Eyes

Today, the Catholic Church in Ireland had the wind knocked out of it. Most people, my own husband included, know first hand the severity of child abuse in Irish schools. He suffered at the hands of a young priest in ****** ****, *****, who later went on to be a Bishop of the ****** Diocese. My husband is just one of over 14,500 such cases. And that is just the number who have sought restitution thus far. There are thousands more who have suffered in silence. Some suffered so much, they took their own lives, believing the lies pounded into their heads by abusers who said they were worthless demons, devils, heathens. Content editted due to legal considerations.

The most insulting thing is the way the government executed the report. The report took over ten years, but it fails to name any of the perpetrators. Ironically, it does name the names of some of the victims. This occurs in order to protect the government, who deferred responsibility of schooling to the Church, from costly litigation. Not one criminal case will be produced from the report. It was an attempt to osticize the victims.

After reading portions of the report, I just want to know one thing: Who is Brother X (a Christian Brother) and is he still alive or coherent of his surroundings? Here is an excerpt of his cruelty:

If you turned up late ... he ...(Br X)... used to do an inspection, if there was a speck of dirt, that would trigger it off. He used a leather, hand, cane on the legs, hand, arse or wherever ...(he)... had a temper, you would be black and blue, you would be on the floor. He used to make you take your trousers down and he would give it to you on the behind or wherever, he did it to me a few times. You wouldn’t do anything because he had a whistle and he would call other Brothers and they would weigh in, when these guys got going you would do nothing, if they couldn’t get you one way they would get you the other, kick, hit, you were knackered.
•
He ...(Br X)... flogged me one time, I was working in the piggery. I used to be starving,the pigs used to get the Brothers’ leftovers and one day there was lovely potatoes and I took some and I took a turnip. Br ...X... caught me and he brought me up to the dormitory, he let down my trousers and he lashed me. He always wore a leather, around 18 inches ...(long)... and it was all stitched with wax, his leather was very thin. It was about an inch and a half, others had leathers about 2 inches. He lashed me, he flogged me.

http://www.childabusecommission.com/rpt/pdfs/CICA-VOL3-07.pdf sec 7.28

They say where the greatest good is, there exists the greatest evil. Ireland is known for deep faith, but with that deep faith and devotion is a horrible truth yet to be uncovered. That horrible truth is the evil that exists in the hearts of some who are charged to preach the Good News. Sadly, it only takes one or two to spread the cancer. Brother X terrorized, not just the children placed in his care, but his fellow brothers. In fact, some tried to comfort the children clandestinely, but the rule of obedience always superceded any charity. Brother X was in charge and the only person who could override his authority was the bishop.

God never intended for the Church to use her authority to abuse and inflict horror on a child. Jansenism aside, it was never Jesus' intent to penalize us all for our flaws. Quite the contrary...He took the punishment for us. Here is where poor Brother X shows his very weak faith. He, like Judas, just could not believe that Jesus died for his, or anyone else's sins. He believed himself to be evil, and lived that lie. The sickness in his soul was allowed to perpetuate, which is the sin of his superior.

Every bishop in this country should be on their knees, crying with true remorse, for allowing the least of God's little ones to be lead astray. They were lead astray in thinking they were too sinful to be forgiven for some of the very least of offenses. They were lead astray at the hand of an evil man who hated everyone, most of all, himself. Some were lead astray to the point of despair. They took their own lives. Some simply left the Church.

While my husband has chosen to forget the past, I ache to see the hurt and sadness removed from his Irish eyes. I yearn for him, along with every child who suffered at the hand of the Church, to know they are precious in God's eyes. God knows their sorrow, and their innocence. He knows the sin of a Church that is flawed. Flawed because it is made up of weak men and women, products of the same type of abuse, from the lowliest brother up to the greatest bishop. Only this bishop never apologized.

Had the then, priest really understood his catechism, he would know to be truly sorry for the sin of abusing my husband and so many others in that school. He would have known Jesus was shuddering every time he kicked a student. The, then priest, would feel the horror of shame, knowing he was hammering the nails into the hand of Jesus. He would cry, knowing he did the opposite of that which Christ commissioned him to do...to love one another, even as Christ loves him.

There is only one thing that any good, practicing Catholic can do in the face of such a report with this type of abuse. We must first, recognize with genuine sorrow, the injury inflicted on the innocent, under the banner of the Catholic Church. Second, we must resolve to guarantee this is stopped, every place, every time, from now until eternity. WE are the Church, not the bishops, priests and nuns. WE must take the Church that Christ founded back from the hands of Evil. Evil thrives when the good do nothing. WE must refuse to allow evil to thrive.

Otherwise, we might as well hammer the nail into the hand of Christ ourselves.