Everybody Knew, Nobody Said

There is not doubt any more that the Catholic Church and the Irish government colluded to cover up endemic child abuse by priests.

The report of the Commission of Investigation stated this in clear terms.

What everybody has known for years is finally acknowledged as fact, and the Church is most sincerely sorry. An Garda Siochana is launching their own investigation, an examination long delayed, into the State's participation in the scandal.

Was there criminal liability? Are gardai to be taken to task for kow-towing to the local bishop and not pursuing complaints? Is the State to be sued for failing to act, for helping the Church to hide and avoid prosecution?

What can be done for the victims whose lives were destroyed by criminal acts of physical and sexual abuse that were ignored, all to save the reputation of the Catholic Church?

It is hoped that the report will provide a framework to avoid a repeat of such incidents in the future, but the damage is done to both the victims and the Church, which has lost its former standing as moral authority. A bishop or priest cannot open his mouth without being laughed at, for those who would throw stones are now proven to be with sin.

That which was hidden has been revealed. The perpetrators must now deal with the fall-out of their decades of hypocrisy.

Give Thanks

For friends and family, we give thanks every day of the year. For good books and good arguments, we count our blessings.

We'll eat too much and drink far too much, enjoy the company of our siblings and mourn the physical decline of our aging parents, who may be celebrating their last Thanksgiving Day on earth.

Clean the house, scrub the bathrooms, baste the turkey, mash the spuds, and in a flash the meal will be concluded and we'll pause after the guests have gone home, pause to recollect and reflect on our blessings.

We don't have much money. Business has been bad and won't be better in the coming year, but no matter how grim the economic climate, we'll have friends and family to provide food for the soul.

Unfair To Who?

Trade unions in Ireland have gone out on strike, to protest against planned wage cuts for public service workers. A successful strike requires the support of non-union members, the general public---the same people who make less than those who walked off their jobs.

People employed in the private sector earn less than the public service sector. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions seems to have forgotten this proven fact. Instead, in the face of unsustainable costs, they've decided to launch a very public complaint about being asked to take pay cuts that would bring member wages in line with everyone else's.

And they expect sympathy from the general public.

Doctors, nurses, teachers, firefighters and paper-shufflers are walking the picket lines, demanding that their pay not be reduced. Demanding that people who make as much as 20% less than them pay more in taxes to fund their bloated pay checks. Inconveniencing people, frightening people who are afraid to get sick or light a match in case no one will be there to take care of the issue. Yes, ICTU expects sympathy for their cause.

When Jim Larkin called out the workers, conditions were grim and pay was low. Today, ICTU calls out the workers and they're well-paid, with decent working conditions.

In 1913, W.B. Yeats wrote poems in support of those locked out in Dublin. In 2009, no one's writing poems. Just as no one is demanding that service workers paid by tax dollars aren't asked to make sacrifices like everyone else when the government's run out of money.

A Day For Giving Thanks

The long awaited report on clerical sex abuse in Dublin's archdiocese is due to be published, after much delay, on Thursday.

As luck would have it, that's also a major holiday in the U.S. Makes for a slow news day, a relatively quiet day, and it's less likely that the Irish diaspora will get many details in their newspapers. By Friday, of course, it's old news.

The report would have come out sooner, but there's a strike scheduled and people who might need mental health counseling after reading the report would find that the helplines are down due to industrial action.

Then there was the Department of Justice weighing in, adding to the delay. One of the priests mentioned in the report is about to be tried for child sex abuse, and they didn't want certain information relevant to their case to be released.

All the delay, yet it won't be much news in the end. It's well known by now that the Catholic Church had a pattern of moving abusing priests around from parish to parish. It was done all over the globe, in every parish in every country. And the State did nothing, not when it was the Catholic Church they'd have to deal with. The bishops didn't tell the authorities, the authorities didn't pursue cases aggressively because the bishops promised to take care of it, and the end result was thousands of children abused and broken.

On Thanksgiving Day, while the Americans are sitting down to a feast, the people in Ireland will be sitting down to yet another litany of abuse. A sensitive telling of the story, in fiction form, can be found between the pages of The Leaven of the Pharisees, if you're interested in learning more.

And Patrick Kennedy's bishop has decided that the man is to be denied Communion for his political views.

How can they wonder why no one takes them seriously?

Encounters With A Brick Wall

Query letters aren't getting any attention. The current work in progress was put aside in favor of editing an old manuscript, and when I went back to it, I knew the opening had to be re-done but I didn't know where to start. Revised query letters aren't getting any attention.

I've reached the tallest brick wall yet, the one that I'm having a difficult time climbing over. It's the wall that's covered with graffiti, all of which declares my utter inability to write anything that anyone would want to read.

Crisis of confidence perhaps? Or the faintest glimmers of reality poking through? So what's at the top of this brick wall if I try to clamber up? More failure? Yet another wall?

The partial manuscript that was sent to a publisher may never move along any further than the bottom of the slush pile, forgotten until some cleaning session sees it tossed into the bin. The agent who's reading the full manuscript may be composing a rejection query letter even now.

Ah, the ups and downs of the writing game. The temptation to quit is quite strong. Be done with the pain of rejection, the weariness of early mornings spent with words. What point is sleep deprivation if it leads to nothing but....nothing?

But if I give it up, I'll be expected to find the leak under the kitchen sink and actually fix it. Rooms in need of paint will have to be painted. I'd have the time for the mundane chores, if I would abandon a hobby that's provided years of frustration.

Maybe if I can hypnotize myself and try writing from a trance......

My Kind Of Town?

The massive McCormick Place complex on the shores of Lake Michigan has long been a destination for major trade shows. Plenty of space for exhibitors and guests, the venue has the added advantage of being situated in Chicago, a bustling town famous for its steaks and respectable nightlife.

Unfortunately, McCormick Place's other claim to fame has caught up with it. The major trade shows are going elsewhere, and just when Chicago is desperate for money.

The plastics industry got fed up. The healthcare info management industry got fed up. And now the restaurants are letting the city know that the goose is cooked.

Since time immemorial, it was known that an exhibitor didn't dare to so much as screw in a single lightbulb out of fear that the booth would come to harm overnight. Call an electrician, or else. And then pay an astronomical fee.

An exhibitor had to have a union operative for every possible activity, and the cost was high but there wasn't much choice. Over the years, however, other cities figured that they could build large exposition halls and attract conventions. The conventions realized that they could go someplace else, have great fun, and not get gouged for the privilege.

Orlanda, Florida, and Las Vegas, Nevada, have stolen two key trade shows from Chicago, taking along tens of millions of dollars in business that includes hotel rentals, meals, and other incidentals. The National Restaurant Association, booked for the next two years, is making some noise about 2012. They might not choose Chicago.

When you own a monopoly, you can charge what the market will bear. Chicago's McCormick Place isn't the only game in town anymore, and Mayor Richard Daley has a hard choice to make.

He has the union's support because he takes care of the union bosses, but the union bosses have become too greedy. Now the Mayor must rein them in, but if he cuts off their access to the trough, why would they continue to get out the vote for Richie? But if he doesn't bring them to heel, there goes another trade show and the tax revenue they generate.

The high cost of corruption is taking a toll. Will someone blink and make a sacrifice? Or will they sit back as business departs, content with the knowledge that they run a place that's all but abandoned?

Talk To The Hand

The Irish government might as well talk to the hand, because the religious congregations ain't listening.

The cost of compensating thousands of Irish citizens for the abuse they suffered as children under the care of the Sisters of Mercy or the Christian Brothers is astronomical. Since the religious made money off the slave labor of those children (small fingers work best to string rosaries), it was expected that they would take a large share of the blame.

What few outside of Ireland know is that Irish children were literally arrested on trumped up charges such as begging, and commited to industrial schools. The idea was to socially engineer poverty into oblivion, and the girls could be well trained in morality and there's the end of premarital sex. The ultimate outcome was thousands of men and women wholly unprepared for the outside world, institutionalized, emotionally stunted.

The cost of psychological counseling alone will cost millions of euro, to say nothing of the financial remuneration for pain and suffering.

So will the religious organizations answer the government's call to contribute more to the redress scheme than what they originally were willing to give? More than worthless land and the heartfelt prayers of the congregations?

Thus far, there's been little response to Taoiseach Brian Cowen's request. No surprise, of course. The religious orders did nothing when they learned that they were harboring pedophiles within the confines of their institutions, and they did nothing when children were physically and/or sexually abused. Why break with tradition and actually do something productive?