After A Period Of Reflection The Answer Is No

For decades, Irish women were enslaved by the Catholic Church, often in collusion with the Irish government, and no one dared to speak out against the power of the Church.

The history of the Magdalene laundry system is nearly incomprehensible in its cruelty and ferocious persecution of female sexuality,
but recent investigative reports have spelled out the unquestionable involvement of no less than four orders of nuns. The Sisters of Mercy, the Good Shepherd Sisters, the Sisters of Charity and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity all profited by the back-breaking labor of women who were put away for the crime of being pregnant outside of marriage, or of being too pretty, or or being at risk for fornication as determined by a parish priest. Victims of rape, victims of incest, they all had to be punished.

The Irish government is putting together a compensation scheme for the survivors, who not only were not paid for their work but do not stand to collect an old age pension because the nuns never paid into the funds. For those who were incarcerated for most of their adult life, they have nothing on which to live in their declining years.

Enda Kenny has called on the nuns to contribute to the redress fund, to finally pay some small portion of wages that should have been paid, but the nuns have said no. Enda can't make them pay without engaging in some dangerous maneuvers, and they know it.

Sure, the Sisters will yammer on and on about feeding and housing the women who were tossed out by society, but the report makes a lie of their claim. Not all the Maggies were left at the door by a parent who was outraged that a daughter went and got pregnant before marriage. Many of the inmates were the illegitimate children of those women, who passed through the industrial school system and came out illiterate, institutionalized, and the perfect sort of slave for the laundries that washed the dirty linen of prominent Dublin hotels, for a fee.

Reflect on your behavior, Sisters, and see the light preaches Enda Kenny, but when there is money involved, the Sisters don't see things his way.

Please reflect carefully, because the last thing Mr. Kenny wants to do is be forced to act with authority and come down hard, to follow the request of Magdalene Survivors Together and strip away the charitable status of the orders. And then start taxing them like any other corporate entity.

He would prefer not to confiscate the books, Sisters, and open them to review so that all can see what assets the orders hold and how much money is in the kitty. To see where assets have been hidden to avoid confiscation, to judge if the Sisters are as poor as they claim or if it is a matter of reserving funds to care for the old nuns who were guilty of abuse, while the victims must go without.

There are voters out there who would take offense at that sort of abuse. Not that they took much offense at the abuse of the Magdalene inmates, but there are always those who take the word of a nun as the word of God, all honest truth without question.

Their numbers are shrinking as the Irish people continue to turn away from the religion that held them together for centuries under British oppression before turning oppressor. Maybe Mr. Kenny will determine that he doesn't need the votes of the every-shrinking population of the faithful. Then he won't have to ask for reflection. He'll ask for the money and stop playing the diplomacy game.