What We Lost (Responding to the Ryan Report) : 29 May 2009

It has taken ten years for the Ryan Commission to provide answer to the question of what happenedin Ireland’s Industrial Schools. The question of why it happened will probably take even longer to answer.Jesus announced his mandate “to proclaim good news to the poor… to proclaim freedom for the prisonersand recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour."He warned that “if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better forhim to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.”So what caused the journey from the pages of the Gospels to the pages of the Ryan report? How didorganisations set up to protect and care for the weak, the poor and the vulnerable end up raping, abusing,exploiting and even killing them? What created the climate and culture that led people to believe theycouldget away with such horrific abuse? What caused those in charge to think that it was better to coverup the evil rather than expose and remove it? And how did the institutions of the state and societyas a whole become complacent accessories to the horror?There are hundreds of places in the Christian Scriptures where people are warned against neglectingthe poor, oppressing the vulnerable or not caring for the fatherless or the orphan. Yet it was preciselythis group of people who were abused and it happened because they had no defender. Not the State,not the judiciary, and most certainly not the church. It is probably no accident that the main periodof the Commission’s investigations is bounded by Irish Catholicism’s two most triumphant moments,the 1932 Eucharistic Congress and the 1979 Papal visit. Both events were effectively public displaysof power by the Institutional Church, a power that was recognised and submitted to by both theState and the general public. It is this alliance of religious and political power that establishedthe industrialschools and made them places over which the State effectively had no control.But the kingdom of God is never advanced by powers of State. And a Christianity that seeks tocompel belief and enforce conformity is not Christianity at all. Those who had followed Jesus butthen changed their mind were free to leave, never forced to stay. Even Judas Iscariot was permittedliberty to carry out his betrayal of Jesus.The Christian faith by its very nature must be freely chosen. It may seem of little comfort to theabused but they can find in their company the founder of the Christianity. He was flogged, mockedand crucified by a collusion of the religious and political powers of his time. And thoughhis execution was an utter perversion of justice no one of influence did anything to stop it.We have a long way to go until we have a public space where communities of faith and powers ofState have a healthy but clearly defined relationship. Even today the State depends on the CatholicChurch to provide primary education for most of the children in the State. To this day there hasnever been a debate on the proper relationship between church and State. Now is the time tocommence such a discussion.  Causing Scandal (Responding to the Ryan Report) : 29 May 2009by Seán Mullan One issue that has surfaced in the various reports on child abuse is the issue of “giving scandal.”The idea was thatif improper behaviour by members of the clergy or religious orders were tobecome public knowledge that the reputation of the Church and, by extension, the reputationof God might in some way be besmirched. So complainants were discouraged or opposed onthe basis that they might give scandal or cause scandal. God’s reputation needed protecting.Jesus seemed to have no such reservations. He was constantly giving scandal. His scandalousstories: the father who welcomed back his wayward son; the employer who paid those whohad worked an hour the same pay as those who had worked a full day; the Samaritan whocared for the victim of crime and the religious leaders who ignored the same victim.Jesus was a scandal giver. And then he gave the greatest scandal of all, getting himself crucified,hung on a tree, sure evidence of being cursed in that culture. And yet he never seemed toworry about his own reputation or his Father’s. And the resurrection appears to offer proof thatthe Father was not offended by the Son’s scandal. If institutional Christianity is ever to recoverin Ireland it will need to discover the scandal of the cross and the scandal of the Crucified.The God who sends his Son to suffer and die to redeem rebels is not worried aboutprotecting his reputation. And neither should we be. All the truth must come out. Nothing hidden.Then in thescandal of admitting such evil and repenting of it we may find a Saviour unafraid ofscandal willing to be with usin our scandalous state.Economics is not a Value-Free Zone : Friday, 10 April, 2009"I'm an economist, not a moralist, so let's deal with economic issues." So said Dr. Peter Baconon Thursday's Prime Time programme. He was being asked about the morality of making thecountry fund the banks' bad debts. That answer shines a bright light on the root cause of ourcurrent economic woes.How  we  make our money and how we spend it is a moral issue. Economics always involves morality, be it good or bad morality. Gordon Gekko - of "Wall Street" fame - understood this:"Greed is good." That was his moral take on economics. It seems he had a lot of disciples inIreland, though few will now admit their allegiance to his creed. Jesus of Nazareth took a differentview to Gordon. "Be on your guard against all kinds of greed. A person's life does not consist inhow much they possess." For him too, how we viewed and handled wealth was a moral issue;a life issue. You can argue that greed is good; you can argue that greed is bad; but there are no groundsfor arguing that greed is not a moral issue. To argue that "I will make the economic choicesand someone else will make the moral choices" is like drawing a line on water. Sooner or laterwe have to recognise that what is  going on inside us will determine what we do with our money,and our lives. Seán Mullan