'Ashamed, humbled and repentant'

"They raped me on a Saturday, gave me an unmerciful beating afterwards, and then gave me Communion on Sunday. My God."

This is just one quotation from the Ryan report or to use its official title 'The Report of the Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse'. The report compiles 2,600 pages of documented experiences like the one above. It shows very clearly that physical and sexual abuse was endemic in Irish institutions for boys run by religious orders between 1940 and the late 1970s.

Hundreds of children were systematically beaten, flogged, kicked, physically assaulted, scalded, burned, held under water, beaten in front of other staff, residents, patients and pupils as well as sexually abused.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin said he was overcome with anger and disgust when he read the report, and at one point while reading it, he hurled the document across the room; later, he had trouble sleeping. Mgr Martin had openly opposed the effort of his predecessor, Cardinal Desmond Connell, to prevent the release of documents showing how the Dublin archdiocese handled sex-abuse complaints.

Why did it happen? Why was there a conspiracy to keep things secret for so long? Bishop Noel Treanor of Down and Connor stressed the need to find an answer to these questions. He put it in stronger words: Why did the Irish religious brothers and sisters, and diocesan priests, abuse children in their care? What was it about Irish Catholicism and Church leadership that turned young men and women into monsters?

The May 30 editorial of The Tablet gave a very disturbing explanation of why, in its opinion, things happened the way they did: "It is clear the problem was not just 'a few bad apples' or even a whole barrel of them, but the arrogance of an almighty Church too powerful for its own good. ...The blame lies within the Church itself.

"The power and the glory that were so badly misused had a theological, even ideological, basis. This told the Church that it was 'a true and perfect society' (in the words of Pius IX): whatever it did was right, and whatever might contradict that impression had to be suppressed. Only 'bad Catholics' would dare whisper it."

Tough words indeed. It would be foolish to dismiss them without proper reflection.

In a strongly worded column published in the Irish Times, Mgr Martin wrote: "The first thing the Church has to do is to move out of any mode of denial. That was the position for far too long and it is still there."

It seems that little by little the Church in Ireland is moving out of this phase of denial. The religious orders accepted to better shoulder their responsibilities and compensate the victims. Following their summer general meeting, the Irish bishops said they are "ashamed, humbled and repentant" that "heinous crimes were perpetrated against the most innocent and vulnerable, and vile acts with life-lasting effects were carried out under the guise of the mission of Jesus Christ".

I was particularly stuck by the position of the Pope as explained by Cardinal Brady and Mgr Martin:

"The Holy Father once again urged the bishops and all in the Church to continue to establish the truth of what happened and why; to ensure that justice is done for all; to see that measures put in place to prevent abuse from happening again are fully applied, and to help to bring healing to the survivors of abuse."

Establishing the truth and exposing it is the only way forward... in Ireland as well as in Malta. Only truth will set us free.