AS I SEE IT
BY MARIANNE HERON
It all seems so very long ago now. Divorcee Annie Murphy’s ill-starred love affair with Bishop Eamon Casey, 20 years her senior, began in 1974. It’s disclosure and the existence of their son Peter, 18 years later led to Casey’s resignation and flight to Chile. The saga rocked Ireland’s faithful to the core, undermining the hold of Catholic Church here.
Now further scandals relating to allegations of child sex abuse by the popular bishop have risen to the surface like a drowned corpse. Ireland has moved on but the story, like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), still has the power to reawaken old trauma.
Silence is a dangerous thing where gender-based violence and abuse are involved, as it imprisons victims behind closed doors and allows perpetrators free rein. Now more victims are finding the courage to break that silence and come forward, identifying their abusers so that the law can bring them to justice: women like Natasha O’Brien victim of a vicious attack by soldier Cathal Crotty.
There are many things that may hold victims of gender-based violence or sexual abuse silent: shame, fear, the ordeal of going to trial and publicity imprison victims in threatening situations long after they should have been delivered from their torment. It can take years, too, before child victims can find the understanding, the maturity or even the words to come forward and speak about what happened to them.
But what if institutions are involved in omerta and systematic cover up of the crimes involved – isn’t that sin of omission worse than the original offence, since it leaves justice unserved and further potential victims at risk?
The thing that I find most disturbing in the latest revelations about Bishop Eamon Casey in the RTE/ Daily Mail investigation which aired on RTE1 is the way that the Catholic Hierarchy still persisted in covering up. The Vatican was aware of a number of complaints against Casey over child sex abuse from 2001. On Casey’s return to Ireland a decision was taken to ban him from publicly officiating at Mass from 2007 but it was never explained why, with people assuming this was because of the Annie Murphy affair.
The allegations of abuse of young girls by the late bishop is shocking enough, but that the Catholic Church never disclosed why Casey was barred from officiating here can only add to the sense of distrust and failure of accountability created by all the other cover-ups from the Tuam Mother & Baby Home to the Spiritan Brothers at Blackrock College.
Despite all the scandals that have emerged over the decades beginning in the 1980s, despite the Ryan and Murphy reports, the church were still protecting their own and putting their own reputation first decades later.
Social attitudes here and elsewhere are changing and institutions that fail to remedy the unacceptable face public criticism and demands for change. It isn’t only the church which has been culpable of failing to deal openly or effectively with abuse. The Army – already under scrutiny for bullying and sexual misconduct following complaints by the Women of Honour Group and the setting up of a Tribunal on Inquiry into same – has been in the spotlight over the need to dismiss members of the force guilty of sexual violence.
Perhaps the most concerning thing of all about the lack of accountability is the feeling that there is an underlying culture of tolerance for violence or sexual abuse and that the fate of victims count for much less than the perpetrators and the standing of institutions.
Now we are seeing another area where there is lack of responsibility and action to curb abuse. Social media and the internet allow trolls and right-wing activists to pour out vitriolic hate mail, incite riots, and threaten politicians, asylum seekers and migrants. Two recent cases show that effective action can be taken: the individual who threatened to shoot Mary Lou Mac Donald was swiftly identified, arrested and his on- line account terminated. In the UK Gavin Plumb who went on line and invited others to help him kidnap, rape and murder TV personality Holly Willoughby was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment.
But those two cases are just the tip of a menacing iceberg of online abusers who threaten public figures and social order.
Effective measures are needed to stop them.
