Eugene Greene: the unasked question 11-12-08
Usually it is the unanswered question that bothers us in the wake of a scandal or tragedy, but after last week, I was left wondering, why – in all the discussions I listened to or read about – one question was begging to be asked of Michael Kelly, deputy editor of the 'Irish Catholic'.
Had an 'ordinary' paedophile – as distinct from a former priest – been released after serving a jail term for horrific crimes, would Kelly have uttered a breath about 'forgiveness' or the 'onus on the community to look after him'?
I'll let our readers come to their own conclusions. If the Eugene Greene (right) affair is currently taxing the mind of Michael Kelly, I thought I would peruse the 'Irish Catholic' and see how it was being dealt with editorially.
Last week, the November 27th editorial was headlined "Marriage and our politicians" (with reference to the Fine Gael annual conference) in which the following line jumped out – "However, other issues were dealt with as well. Alan Shatter dealt with children's issues while Olwyn Enright dealt with social and family affairs. Neither betrayed the slightest appreciation of the immense social importance of marriage."
That is outrageous – I and many others in this county consider the abuse of innocent youngsters as a serious children's issue and within the remit of social and family affairs. Let's call a spade a spade here! Much of the abuse in this country happened during a fantasy era when the sanctity of marriage was being heralded from the pulpit and women and children were suffering abuse silently and with no recourse to church or state.
In the current December 4th edition, the only reference to any Donegal story I could find was under the heading, "Justice for the Cura Four", where it read": "Justice delayed is justice denied, goes the saying. There is a lot of truth in it. The four brave counsellors dismissed from Cura three years ago should never have been dismissed in the first place, and when they were dismissed, they should have been instantly reinstated, at the insistence of the bishops, with an apology. However, even justice delayed is better than no justice at all." Just to remind readers, in 2005 four Cura volunteers in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, were dismissed by the national executive after publicly questioning its policy of distributing a 'Positive Options' leaflet to women who were intending to seek an abortion. Although Cura acceded to the formal request from the Irish Episcopal Conference to stop offering leaflets pending a policy review, it did not reinstate the volunteers at the time.
In May 2006, an 'exclusive' in the 'Irish Catholic' about Cura's subsequent loss of funding was sent as a press release to the national media. This was pure speculation and untrue. Subsequently, the inaccuracy was corrected by Olive Braiden of the Crisis Pregnancy Agency, Cura's funders to the tune of €654,000 annually. The Agency was very angry because of what they perceived as a seriously misinformed view of their role. It stressed that the 'Positive Options' booklet did not contain information on abortion services. It provided a list of State funded agencies that provide crisis pregnancy services free of charge. (Under Irish law information on abortion can only be provided if it is requested as part of a crisis pregnancy counselling session.)
Whatever the merits of Ann Farren, Mary Kelly, Phil Murray and Pauline Roarty making a decision based on conscience, the newspaper which Michael Kelly is deputy editor of has long been more concerned with diversionary tactics rather than addressing the real rot at the heart of Catholicism in Ireland.
In a paper entitled 'Understanding Paedophilia' a few years ago, Dr. Kieran McCartan wrote of the majority of fellow professionals "agreeing that paedophilia is incurable, with no effective treatment and is therefore a case of risk management." When risk management means releasing a paedophile into a community already traumatised and terrified, it is a risk too far.
I laughed when I read Michael Kelly's concerns about "The easy option would be to be very right wing". In an editorial entitled "Violent Crime" on November 20th, his paper said of the murder of Shane Geoghegan: "If, instead of Shane, the intended target had been killed what would our reaction have been? Quite correctly, we would not have been as outraged." No, we would not have been as outraged, but "Quite correctly"? Well, well, a very different Christian view from Michael's 'turn the other cheek' remark about Eugene Greene in last Thursday's Donegal Democrat.
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