Everlasting Shame

For years, they knew about the pedophiles in their midst but they hid them, rather than be shamed. Better to preserve the good name of the Christian Brothers, to avoid the loss of prestige. A religious order that was a danger to young boys could hardly be perceived as a voice of moral authority.

The Irish people knew all along. Word leaked out. Stories were carried out of the industrial schools and passed from one neighbor to the next. No one talked about it, of course. To disparage a clergyman was to bring shame to a man of God.

Now all the world knows, and the shame is everlasting.

The Commission To Inquire Into Child Abuse released a five-volume report that detailed what was once only whispered. It took nine years to compile the overwhelming amount of evidence.

It took nine years and the resignation of Mrs. Justice Laffoy to force Ireland's Department of Education to cooperate with the commission and give them the records. It took nine years of battling against the religious orders who stonewalled and played every legal game they could find in an effort to keep the filth well hidden.

When next a bishop stands in the pulpit and proclaims the sanctity of life, the parishioners will laugh and remind him that there was precious little sanctity granted to Ireland's children. They were punished because their widowed mother was seen with a man. They were punished if their mother wasn't married. They were punished if they were born poor.

For every issue of morality that the Church would like to champion, there will be a reminder of the utter lack of morality that was allowed to stand for decades.

The children who were irreparably harmed suffer from the everlasting shame of their incarceration and abuse. The Catholic Church will suffer everlasting shame for turning a blind eye, and attempts by the clergy to guide the faithful, to be the moral compass, will be turned aside with a nod to the actions that made a lie of the words.