Letters 2005-11-17 2005-11-17

Clarification: Vatican and rights of the child

I refer to my letter which you published in Village (3 November) about the Vatican/Holy See and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in the context of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse and the taking of "all appropriate national, bilateral and multilateral measures..."

It has been pointed out to me that the Vatican in fact signed and ratified this Convention on 30 April 1999. However, ratification means the putting into effect of both the letter and spirit of such a Convention. Clearly, the Vatican/Holy See, as a state, has not implemented the Convention in the terms of its law, which is Canon law.

David Noble, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin

Vincent Browne and the church: Catholic church will rise again from the ordure

Vincent Browne asserts that John XXIII and his pontifical successors threatened excommunication of Catholics who violated some alleged child sex abuse gagging order. He reminded me of Omerta, sleeping with the fishes, and offers one cannot refuse. But I scoured the Ferns Report in vain for "chapter and verse" where I might find any such threat from Roncalli, Ratzinger, or any other capo di tutti capi.

The assertion struck me as daft; Roncalli was a veteran senior diplomat and a good man, whose concern for children and their safety was legendary. The current Pope would know it would be illegal for him, a head of state, to direct citizens of other states to disobey the laws of their states. Montini, who succeeded him, was also a veteran diplomat and, like Roncalli, a legendary protector of children. It is not rational to assume the natural human protective instincts of such men applied only to Jewish and Orthodox, but not to Catholic children. And nor is it rational to assume either one of them would wilfully violate international law.

Roncalli was neither vainglorious nor paranoid about the Church. He saw no enemy he would want to baffle so urgently as to sacrifice the safety of any child. Montini was no different; indeed he famously decreed that never should authority be bolstered at the expense of truth – and certainly never in, or by, or for the Church.

So, we must look elsewhere if we are to discover why our Irish Catholic bishops did such disastrous "covering up". Why was there so much mendacity about? Why did they ignore and/or punish whistle-blowers? Why did they regard criminal clergy as errant royalty; and why, oh why, do they not care at all for the children – to whom they owed, and still owe, a special and manifold duty of care. We need to get to the bottom of this great "mystery of religion".

Episcopal indifference to the fate of children has not gone away. Abortion was regarded as a positive option until some, but not all, bishops were shamed out of their wicked stance. They still find abortifacients acceptable. They mutter "pastoral" as though this context changes everything. We live in dark and evil days.

But all is not lost. We still have faith, hope and charity. We still have shining examples in Roncalli and Montini who, by their errands of mercy, manifested these virtues so well. And we've still that lowest form of morality – shame-facedness which manifestly still works, even on bishops. So we don't have to give it all up as a bad job.

Le cúnamh Dé, His Irish Catholic Church will rise from the ordure. We really must give this our very best shot.

Cathal Loftus, National President, Comhar Críostaí / Christian Solidarity Party, Dublin 1

National Development Plan: A lot done, a lot more wasted

In the midst of the current debate about the Government's wastage of public money I believe a more serious and sinister abuse of the public purse is being ignored. I am referring to the gigantic "National Development Plan" billboards, which adorn all new public infrastructure projects.

These notices are nothing more then the current Fianna Fáil junta using public funds for blatant advertising. What other purpose could they possibly be serving, other than informing the plain people of Ireland of just how our wonderful and beloved leaders are spoiling them? I am surprised they are not accompanied by the sort of pictures one finds in totalitarian states, showing our leaders engaged in heroic activities (slaying dragons and such like).

These signs are a disgusting sight on our democracy and they should be removed. Ideally they would be replaced by a sign detailing the full costing for each project (including consultants fees) compared to the initial estimate. The initial estimated time scale for the project compared to the actual time scale should also be included.

The signs could be replaced with a simple slogan which sums up the current administration, "A lot done, a lot more wasted."

Matthew Sadlier, Nth Circular Rd, Limerick

1916 at home and abroad: What were they fighting for?

The anniversary of First World War Armistice Day, or Remembrance Day, has once again been observed in Ireland with yet more ruminations and hand-wringing on how we should observe the event and commemorate those who died in the First World War.

What are we to make of the recent comments of our Government, conveyed by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern TD, in an article in The Irish Times (11/11/2005 – 'Shared History Can Help Build a Shared Future'). It should be taken into account that Dermot Ahern has governmental responsibility for the Northern Ireland peace process and, therefore, his comments are quite probably influenced and tempered by diplomatic considerations of national reconciliation.

The Minister calls for a "national debate on the issues raised by both the [Battle of the] Somme and [the Easter Rising of] 1916". He goes on to say that both the Rising of 1916 and the Battle of the Somme were "concomitants of a wider European movement of national awareness which came with the rise of democracy". Here, I am at a loss to know what he is talking about. It seems to me that the Minister is waxing lyrical without seriously addressing any fundamental, historical issues.

The reason why we cannot categorise the act of serving in the British Army in World War 1 as an act motivated by the same spirit and ideology as that of the Easter Rising of 1916 is because the aims and objectives of the two events were diametrically opposed. And Minister Ahern's attempt to obscure this truth simply does not stand up to scrutiny. The First World War was an imperialist war, a war of conquest, of colonial division and re-division. It was a pointless and futile blood sacrifice. There are some who characterise the Easter Rising as a doomed, militarist adventure and will draw attention to Pearse's "blood sacrifice" speech. Pearse made those comments in the context of a global atmosphere of militarism, jingoism, bellicose utterances and world conflagration. Pearse's utterances, along with the rising itself, was the sanest possible response in a world gone mad. The Rising of 1916 was a militarist act that had a non-militarist agenda.

So to return to the question of how we remember the past and in particular those who died. I think it is to be welcomed that An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, at the most recent Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis announced that from next year the anniversary of the Easter Rising will be officially commemorated with military parades in front of the GPO. Nevertheless, a doubt lingers in my mind. With all due respect to the nation's Defence Forces it must be remembered that the 1916 Rising was primarily a civilian uprising. James Connolly's followers even styled themselves 'The Irish Citizen Army'. It was an insurrection against the existing authority in Ireland at the time. So the question that those in positions of authority should be asking themselves is – do they really want to be cast in the role of 21st century John Redmonds and General Maxwells?

Is it too far-fetched to suggest that, just as the Easter Rising was an event that took place in the context of wider international developments, so too the question of how we mark the event is also being influenced by global considerations? Maybe it is not the simple, localised issue we all suppose it to be. It is interesting to note that in the same week that the Government announced the gradual phase-out of the Shannon stopover there has been no talk about withdrawing the services of Shannon Airport as a facility for US warplanes en route to the Middle East.

The clock may well be counting down to some kind of regional, or even global, conflagration in the very near future. If the youth of Ireland are being conditioned to fight in future wars it is imperative that we start to publicly debate the issues and demand answers from our elected representatives. The most pertinent questions are those to do with what these wars are about, and what end they seek to achieve.

Oscar Ó Dúgáin, Baile Átha Cliath 11

RTÉ in Iraq: Prime Time and the British army

In a recent Prime Time programme a British army officer was interviewed by Richard Downes concerning the release from Iraqi custody of two SAS men. In an incident leading up to the arrest of these soldiers, two Iraqi policemen were shot dead by the British army. Neither Downes nor the British officer stated the importance of these deaths, the British officer saying that this incident was "a storm in a tea cup". Why are Richard Downes and RTÉ playing down the significance of this?

Martin Brady, Ballybay, Co Monaghan

Response to Jack Lane:Was 1916 a crime?

Trying to get away from Jack Lane (Village, 10 November) is like attempting to free oneself from a persistent swarm of bees who do not have the sense to know that their season has long since passed, and that their sting is not what it used to be.

At the end of my last letter I asked him a simple question which he has not answered, so I will re-phrase the question so that he might better understand it. Had the 1916 insurrection occurred in Cork city and taken the lives of 300 civilians, including scores of children, wounding thousands more, ripped the heart out of much of that city, leaving it a smouldering ruin, would he have considered such death and carnage a price worth paying in order to advance the cause of independence? A yes or no answer is all that is required. To be fair to Jack though, he can't answer it. To answer in the affirmative would go against his moral conscience, to answer "no" would reveal him as a hypocrite.

The term "rights of small nations" was a rhetorical slogan used in pro-war propaganda. My description of it as such is simply stating a fact; only Jack could attribute a cynical and insulting motivation on my part regarding this point. I have the greatest respect and admiration for the memory of all those loyal Irishmen and women, Catholic and Protestant, nationalist and unionist, who served in the first World War.

Jack's expression of concern in relation to their welfare and dignity in history is simply an exercise in cynical opportunism. His defence of one of the most unnatural acts of betrayal in history, the 1916 insurrection, more truly represents what he really feels about them. He despises such heroic Irishmen as Tom Kettle and Willie Redmond, regarding them as shawneens and west-Brits, ignoring the fact that these gallant men understood the concept of Irish patriotism and the generous spirit that went with it. They were as unlike the backward, anti-liberal, black-hearted Irish Irelanders who collectively stabbed them in the back in 1916 as it is possible to imagine.

Like most of their fellow national volunteers from across the socio-economic spectrum, Tom Kettle and Willie Redmond had politically rationalised their participation in the war. They saw themselves as giving a liberal internationalist substance to Irish nationalism. They fought for a modern, democratic world, not for a fossilised pre-Norman, Milesian, spiritual, Utopian myth, so beloved of ideological primitives such as Pearse, MacNeill, de Valera and – setting aside the spin – Collins.

The fact that this Government, and the rest of the nationalist elite, have committed themselves to erecting a highly overt memorial to one of the most notorious traitors' galleries in history, would suggest, in any normal democracy, that such a political establishment ought to be committed to a mental institution. However, this is not a normal democracy, despite its outward liberal facade. Jack Lane and most people in this country subscribe to Napoleon's dictum, made flesh so to speak by Neil Jordan, that "history is a fable that we all can agree upon." However, if we can't be honest about our history, what can we be honest about?

Jack's contention relating to ex-servicemen in the IRA has precipitated him into a historical black hole. Most historians put republican "military" strength prior to 1916 at 15,000. Even during the period from 1919 to 1921, 15,000 remains the figure quoted by a range of academics. No reputable historian has ever suggested that committed republican ( IRA) strength ever reached 27,000 between 1919 and 1921. This appears to be another example of Jack's talent for de-contextualising events in history to suit his own idealogical agenda.

Pierce Martin, Celbridge, Co Kildare

Response to Martin Mansergh: Unity and the Good Friday Agreement

The Good Friday Agreement was not 'freely negotiated' as Martin Mansergh contends (Village, 3-9 November) because the price of participation in the negotiations was the acceptance of their pre-determined outcome through the British imposed pre-condition that all participants concede to the principle of "consent". The premise for any agreement was partitionist. The fact that the British government, democratically unaccountable to any Irish constituency, (a point Mansergh fails to address) insisted on this precondition renders any assertion that the ensuing referenda could in any meaningful way be described as an act of self-determination by the Irish people. What the referenda actually represented was an exercise in how the British government believed the Irish people should vote, leaving itself insulated from any objections the Irish people may have because such a vote is subordinate to the 'consent' pre-condition. Irish objections, whether raised or not, are meaningless to the British government under this wholly undemocratic arrangement.

Saying as he does that the option of unity, the 'constitutional imperative', is contained in the Good Friday Agreement is to place that unity outside the realms of an Irish democratic framework and placed firmly within a system controlled by the British government because the tenacity of that government to remain in Ireland far exceeds any, if any, efforts by an Irish Government to remove them. Placing unity within the GFA removes any grounds for its adherents to call Irish unity a right of the Irish people because under the terms of the GFA partition can be legitimately permanent and given the track record of the 26-county body politic in trying to end it it is likely to remain so.

It would seem that Mansergh is more content with applying labels to people's insights when they highlight the democratic deficiencies in his own. When Irish republicans call for an all-island democracy it is labelled "coercive majoritarianism" when the British government demand that a minority hold veto on the island its called "respecting traditions". Is that the Fianna Fáil shade of republicanism? It certainly is not the Pearse shade.

Colm MacAonghusa, Lucan, Dublin

Liz O'Donnell's remarks: Need for debate on religion in society

Bertie Ahern, and others, seem to believe that the primary education sector in this country would collapse if it were removed from the patronage of the Catholic church. This is an incredible remark from the elected leader of one of the world's recognised democracies. We are a modern, viable economy, with one of the fastest growing GDPs in the world. As a nation we have the resources to support an excellent education system and, if we are to maintain our economic progress, an absolute need to do so.

We need to deal with the sentiment which repeats that we owe a debt to the church because it provided for education in the Republic when the Government would not, or could not, do what was required. The church did not take over education (and health) for any altruistic or patriotic reasons. It assumed these functions by filling the vacuum that existed because it saw therein an excellent means of controlling the population and by extension the Government, of maintaining the widest possible adherence to its doctrines, of providing a reservoir of talent for its priesthood and of ensuring that, particularly in health, that anything which did not conform to Catholic philosophy would not be tolerated. Down through the years we, the people of Ireland, have paid dearly for this accommodation.

One indication of the church's attitude to education and, by extension, the development of the state, is in the recent book (2004) by Tom Garvin, professor of Politics at UCD: Preventing the Future. Garvin describes how the hierarchy reacted to vocational education in Ireland when it was first introduced. Because it was not handed over to the church, it was denigrated and its development obstructed for many years by the church authorities. Liz O'Donnell is correct: there needs to be a debate about the place organised religion has in our society. The real pity is that it required the destruction of so many childhoods and the traumatisation of so many young people throughout the country before the climate could exist where a politician, even of O'Donnell's calibre, could realistically call for such a thing to happen.

Seamus McKenna, Sandyford, Dublin 18

STATEMENT: Justice for the Shannon Five

John Gormley (Green Party), Joe Costello (Labour) and Aengus O'Snodaigh (Sinn Féin) are among five Dáil deputies demanding that criminal charges faced by the Shannon Five be dropped.

The five accused are Ciaron O'Reilly from Australia, Deirdre Clancy from Dublin, Nuin Dunlop from the US, Karen Fallon from Scotland, and Damien Moran from Offaly. Their second trial collapsed on Tuesday 8 November after counsel for the accused asked the presiding judge, Donagh MacDonagh, whether he had posed for a photograph with then Governor Bush in Texas in 1995, and subsequently attended the US President's inauguration at the White House in 2000.

This is the second trial collapse for the five Catholic Worker peace activists, also known as Pitstop Ploughshares. In both cases the trial collapsed because of "perceived bias" on the part of the judge. The five have now been on bail for almost three years.

Independent TDs Finian McGrath and Tony Gregory and Senator David Norris joined in the calls for charges against the Shannon 5 be dropped. The use of Shannon Airport as a pitstop for the US 'War on Terror' was condemned. David Norris said the Government appeared to consider a dent "in a death machine is more significant than the slaughter of innocents".

More: www.peaceontrial.com, Email: dublincatholicworker@yahoo.co.uk