August 18, 2007
Diarmuid Martin has released 'The Private Report on Artane Industrial School' which was furnished to his predecessor, Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, on July 7, 1962.
In so doing he has honoured his pledge, that the only possible resolution of the child sexual abuse scandal would be when everything came out.
The Archbishop should be congratulated for that. He has also said: "There are no short cuts. Over the past five years there has been a change in the Church's handling of the issue with a policy of openness and of rapidly addressing problems."
Some would dispute this, pointing to the disparity between what has happened in other countries and what has happened here. But the Archbishop is still a new broom and should be encouraged in what appears to be the beginnings of a new policy here.
He has put himself at odds with the Government and with the more reactionary elements in the Church, in respect of the abuse issue, and this is where the release of the Father Moore Report is an important action.
It throws into doubt the whole method and direction of what should have been a scrupulous investigation but has turned out to be a flawed one.
The Archbishop has drawn our attention, perhaps unwittingly, to the dishonest and biased handling of the Moore Report and its content in the hearings before the Commission on Child Abuse.
That Commission has concluded its public hearings and its chairman, Judge Sean Ryan, now has to prepare his own Report.
Father Henry Moore's Report shines a clear light of judgement upon the iniquities of Artane and upon the wider iniquities of the Industrial School System for letting what happened at Artane and elsewhere continue unchecked for decades.
The annual reports on industrial schools, year after year, told the same lies, that "the physical and educational needs of the children were adequately catered for", that "those fitted for post-primary education were enrolled in secondary or vocational classes", and that "where it was considered that pupils would benefit from secondary or vocational classes, they were enrolled in such classes".
These regular mantras were simply not true.
Moore's Report was the result of a confidential charge given him by Archbishop McQuaid. It was factual and complete. It was also, it must be said, written intelligently and with style. It followed a careful reading of the Cussen Report of 1936, itself a damning indictment of Artane, and Father Moore found -- 26 years later -- that nothing had changed.
Moore endorses Cussen's finding, that "in Artane only the minimum standard of literate education required by the regulations is provided" and that trades taught were obsolescent and "useful to the schools rather than providing a groundwork for future employment. The boys are regarded as juvenile labourers".
Moore said Artane "is in need of drastic revision". Management methods employed "are obsolete, proper training is neglected, and there is no attempt at rehabilitation". Artane is "dilapidated, colourless and uninspiring, and reflects the interior spirit".
Admission is "indiscriminate" with "no regard for background, medical history, antecedents or suitability for the training". Medical history would not have mattered anyway because the Department of Education inspectors were entirely indifferent to "the seriously inadequate medical facilities in the school" -- no matron or nurse, but run by an unqualified brother "transferred from care of the poultry farm".
Food was sufficient, but plain and unappetising. Methods of serving were crude and unhealthy. Clothing was inadequate, uncomfortable, unhygienic and dirty, as were the boys. The winter during which Moore surveyed conditions was cold, and the one that followed his report was one of the coldest of the last century.
"It is pathetic to observe hundreds of boys walking the roads even in deep winter without overcoats," Moore wrote. "All the clothing was indiscriminately shared. Handkerchiefs are not used."
A trifle, in the broader spectrum of a place run like a prison, but Moore comments: "This fundamental disregard for personal attention inevitably generates insecurity, instability and an amoral concern for the private property of others. This I consider to be a causative factor in the habits of stealing frequently encountered among ex-pupils."
Discipline he found outrageously severe -- "regimentation"; "without proportion"; "boy severely beaten on the face for an insignificant misdemeanour", are phrases used. The result was "undue fear and anxiety", loss of self-esteem and an inability to establish relationships.
He condemned the chapel as dirty and damaged, with mouse-droppings on the Chasuble.
Severest judgements were against the levels of education, with widespread illiteracy in boys up to 14. Technical training was completely out of date, vocational guidance non-existent, choice of trade training bore no relation to wishes or capacities of the boys. This was all contrary to the Children's Act of 1908.
A counter move by the department, made aware of the report, was to send inspectors on a two-day visit, the Brothers knowing of it in advance. A whitewash followed. An inter-departmental inquiry heard Moore's evidence and accepted a good deal of it but he was given a punishing time, causing his mentor, Archbishop McQuaid, to respond to the department and to the Government.However, any public confrontation would bring shame on the Church, so the matter was dropped.
As to the charges on education, clothing, care, food, recreation and all the other matters dealt with by Moore, the Commission did not discuss, debate or raise them in a direct and open way, putting each of Moore's criticisms into the public arena for debate and cross-examination.
Doodscertificaat van Patsy Flannigan, een van the boys of Artane, 1951 
en hier staan de openbare verhoren.
Dank je wel, voor jullie gecontinueerde moed!
"...My worry is that many victims won't adequately appreciate the huge achievements they've made - in their own healing, in protecting others, in prodding law enforcement and in alerting citizens...."
Bruno's simple request
Last week saw a flurry of Irish diplomatic activity in the Vatican, where Government secretary general Dermot McCarthy spoke publicly of formalising church/state dialogue, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Ahern, met the Pope and invited him again to these shores.
Mary Raftery reports.
As we contemplate the possibility of another papal visit, it is worth considering the extraordinary case of Bruno Hrela. Bruno has a remarkable file of correspondence with the Vatican, from which the following information has been taken.
Bruno was born in Croatia in 1938 into a devout Catholic family. His father was killed during the second World War when their house was bombed from the air and destroyed. He, his two sisters and his mother, Maria, became refugees and fled to Italy.
There they met a fellow Croatian, a priest who suggested to Bruno's mother that she go to Ireland where she could start a new life in that most Catholic of countries.
With this priest's help, Maria Hrela and her family eventually arrived in Dublin in 1951. However, she received little assistance here and was unable to find work.
Within months, Maria's children were taken from her and placed in industrial schools. Bruno, then 12 years old, ended up in Artane, which at that time housed up to 800 other boys, and was of course run by the Christian Brothers. As Bruno tells the Pope in his letters, it was here that his personal tragedy began.
These letters describe the abuse Bruno suffered as a child at Artane. At the time, he managed to tell his mother what was happening not just to him but to many other boys as well.
She was distraught by the accounts of daily beatings and humiliations endured by her son, and embarked on a most unusual course of action. She decided to write to then Pope, Pius XII.
Bruno had fluent Italian from his time spent in that country, and so his mother dictated to him and he translated and physically wrote the two-page letter to the Pontiff.
It outlined the abuse suffered (physical and sexual, says Bruno) by the boys at Artane, and spoke of the fear and anguish in which they lived. Bruno describes it as a desperate cry for help.
Surprisingly, the Vatican appears to have acted on the letter. Bruno describes a bishop arriving at Artane, with the children all lined up for his inspection.
The bishop - Bruno cannot remember his name - was brought over and introduced to Bruno. In front of the Christian Brothers in charge, the bishop asked the boy if he had any complaints about the school.
Bruno froze in terror, and did not confirm the accusations of abuse made in the letter to the Pope. The bishop departed, and Bruno was left alone with the Brothers. As he explained in the letters to the current Pope, they beat him into unconsciousness and left him bleeding on the floor.
Bruno now wants that original letter, written in the early 1950s, alerting Pope Pius XII to the abuse of children in Artane.
He first made the request in 2001. He was curtly informed that the Vatican archives were available for inspection only up until 1922, the end of the pontificate of Pope Benedict XV.
Everything since 1922 remains sealed. He has tried again and again, humbly pleading with Pope John Paul, but the response every time is brief and blunt - his request is refused.
All Bruno wants from the Vatican is a copy of what after all is his own letter, written over 50 years ago by his own hand and containing his mother's words.
It is, he says, a part of his own story, his own experience.
It is almost literally breaking his heart that the Pope won't listen to him.
From time to time, Bruno phones me from London, where he has lived for many years.
When he talks about Artane and his letter and the current Pope, there often comes a point where he can't continue, where he breaks down and cries. The sadness never leaves you, he says.
Of course, were it from the Irish State that Bruno had requested any material relating to himself, he would be given it without argument. His right to any documentation relating to himself is now enshrined in our freedom of information legislation.
Perhaps the formalisation of church/state dialogue in this country might be of some value if it avoided abstractions and addressed itself instead to issues such as Bruno Hrela's very simple request from the Vatican.
It is one area where the Irish State could teach the Vatican a thing or two about basic duties and obligations, and in the process ease the burden on one man who has suffered much at the hands of both church and state.
Twenty-five years ago, when the Pope last visited Ireland, we did not know Bruno's story or those of thousands like him whose lives have been tortured by their experiences as children in Catholic Church-run institutions.
Today, in the context of a possible second visit by the Pontiff, we no longer have that excuse.
Mary Raftery - Email
18th November 2004
© The Irish Times
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