The song of pain continues

I've read Part 2.

I did try to post only about things to do with writing on this blog, but some narratives are too big, too violent, too insidious to ignore. The story of the Dublin report has threads stretching out over the country and into the heart of every good Irish person who has ever walked inside a church. I can't ignore it, and I can't bring myself to stay silent about it. There has been too much silence.

Why did they do it?! WHY?! What damaged them so much that they thought it was acceptable to rape and to hurt?! Enough excuses, enough sanitisation - I want every last priest, every last believer in Ireland to know that this, this is the horror that was inflicted on the young, and the bishops let it happen! They were incompetant, and uncaring! They are unrepentant even now!

That the government were, and are, so utterly indifferent to the whole mess speaks volumes about their moral worth, and of the value they place on the Irish people. The evidence is there for all to see. These crimes were committed, and shown to have been obfuscated by the Catholic Church in order to save face, but there will be nothing done - not even a statement of condemnation - while the government remains spineless and self-absorbed. Andrew Madden talks here about his experiences while trying to obtain justice. The response of Bertie Ahern (then the leader of the country), that the State could not investigate the Church, chills me to the bone. And the sad truth is that they only care to speak about it at all because the Irish people are screaming at them.

It sends a clear message that the Catholic Church here is accountable to no one. That if a priest does something to me, or to the people I love, the law will not hold him to the same standard as a non-priest. I don't know if I want to live in this country any longer, knowing that.

I know I cannot be part of a religion whose leaders are so morally bankrupt that they allowed this to happen, and then refuse to take responsibility for the pain their decisions inflicted on hundreds of people. I will not have it on my conscience.

And so I sing across the Net, my voice lost in the chorus as the sons and daughters of Ireland call out the true lament; that our beloved country is broken, that there will never be justice to ease the pain.