The Js used to have the casuistry hashtag, clever but dubious arguments, car salesmen with dog collars. You’d think there might be some bright young novitiate in the media relations team that would figure out how much more good publicity the order would get by full disclosure. All the names, all the mea culpa apologies. But there seems to be something particularly shameful for them about their abuse of children in their care, something that freezes them - trauma?
All the more reason to acknowledge you and Donal Ballance for giving them a choice of only a worse outcome if they did not act.
Too bad about Glasnevin Cemetery housing the bones of the damned along with those of the innocent.
Thank you so much, Paul. I think the culture of Never Apologise, Never Explain is so ingrained at this stage that they will never admit wrongdoing until shamed into doing so. There are a lot of loyal Jesuit alumni who congratulate the Jesuits on their "glasnost" while never recognising that the Order would never admit to anything unless forced to do so. I don't think congratulations are in order!
Is it not their sense of their own superiority that they can't let go of? As a Belvedere alumnus of a much later era reading Tom's blogs on the abuse, I feel like the exceptionalism they preached and transmitted must be a difficult mantle to remove. Indeed, it is difficult for me to face the fact that they were the same as all the other Catholic institutions, such is the sheen of their public image, and to be fair, the quality of education I felt I received in an era perhaps after this abuse had ended. Tho that is not certain.
Your comment interests me greatly. Yes, despite the sheen, the carefully cultivated sense of difference, the sense of being not of the "the common herd" with which I grew up, the Jesuits turn out to be just the same as the craw thumping, peasant-minded Catholic tradition where our "betters" determine what we should now. I left the RC church over four decades ago, formally and forever. And I have the Jesuits to thank for that impetus!
That's the bizarre thing about the J's. I am an absolutely fervent atheist to the point of mockery and I was in school also, and the priests seemed to be very pleased with this, like as if hating religion proved their thesis that as Jesuits they never brainwash you. No matter how critical or provocative or juvenile I was about religion they seemed actively pleased and would respond positively. A very strange subset of Catholicism!
Thank you for this update. As ever, it is very well written.
I like the analogy you make with the Jesuits of today, 2024, and the Soviet Communists of the 1980’s. Perhaps ‘glasnost’ (ie transparency) rather than ‘perestroika’ (ie restructuring) is closer to the meaning you intended. However, I must confess that my Russian is fairly rusty. Indeed, these are the only two words of Russian I ever knew.
Your outlining of the apparatchik obduracy of the Jesuits - which exists with other Orders - is well made. I would recommend to anyone interested in this area to read your book on Joseph Marmion. It’s a revealing story which is written in such a fair-minded way that renders it very moving. Unusual for me, I cried while reading it.
Just a further reflection/thought
In contrast to you and the likes of Donal Ballance, I only became involved with trying to expose clerical child sex in November 2022. So I am very new to this. In my case, it pertains to the Vincentian Order at Castleknock College. So there is a danger of someone joining things late in the day proposing something that is all too ‘’dull, stale, flat and unprofitable’’ - to quote from another chap who was preoccupied with the unacknowledged putridness of certain things.
However, from reading this latest piece of yours, it brings home how important it is, that the Jesuits and other Orders are not allowed to present their ongoing concealment as being in the ‘interests of survivors/victims’ as you state they might try. They have no right to speculate as what is in our ‘interests’. We decide that. Such a callous and devious manoeuvre needs to be called out and ideally headed off at the pass.
A shot across the bows
Should you and/or others such as Donal Ballance, David Ryan and hopefully others from the likes of Terenure College or wherever, wish to contact the media to denounce such humbug, I would happily sign such a letter. Indeed the more names openly signing such a letter the better I suspect. I would encourage others to reach out to lend their names and support to such a joint endeavour.
Thank you again Tom D for your fine contribution on this matter.
Thanks Tom.
Fine fare as always.
The Js used to have the casuistry hashtag, clever but dubious arguments, car salesmen with dog collars. You’d think there might be some bright young novitiate in the media relations team that would figure out how much more good publicity the order would get by full disclosure. All the names, all the mea culpa apologies. But there seems to be something particularly shameful for them about their abuse of children in their care, something that freezes them - trauma?
All the more reason to acknowledge you and Donal Ballance for giving them a choice of only a worse outcome if they did not act.
Too bad about Glasnevin Cemetery housing the bones of the damned along with those of the innocent.
P.
Thank you so much, Paul. I think the culture of Never Apologise, Never Explain is so ingrained at this stage that they will never admit wrongdoing until shamed into doing so. There are a lot of loyal Jesuit alumni who congratulate the Jesuits on their "glasnost" while never recognising that the Order would never admit to anything unless forced to do so. I don't think congratulations are in order!
Is it not their sense of their own superiority that they can't let go of? As a Belvedere alumnus of a much later era reading Tom's blogs on the abuse, I feel like the exceptionalism they preached and transmitted must be a difficult mantle to remove. Indeed, it is difficult for me to face the fact that they were the same as all the other Catholic institutions, such is the sheen of their public image, and to be fair, the quality of education I felt I received in an era perhaps after this abuse had ended. Tho that is not certain.
Your comment interests me greatly. Yes, despite the sheen, the carefully cultivated sense of difference, the sense of being not of the "the common herd" with which I grew up, the Jesuits turn out to be just the same as the craw thumping, peasant-minded Catholic tradition where our "betters" determine what we should now. I left the RC church over four decades ago, formally and forever. And I have the Jesuits to thank for that impetus!
That's the bizarre thing about the J's. I am an absolutely fervent atheist to the point of mockery and I was in school also, and the priests seemed to be very pleased with this, like as if hating religion proved their thesis that as Jesuits they never brainwash you. No matter how critical or provocative or juvenile I was about religion they seemed actively pleased and would respond positively. A very strange subset of Catholicism!
Dear Tom D,
Thank you for this update. As ever, it is very well written.
I like the analogy you make with the Jesuits of today, 2024, and the Soviet Communists of the 1980’s. Perhaps ‘glasnost’ (ie transparency) rather than ‘perestroika’ (ie restructuring) is closer to the meaning you intended. However, I must confess that my Russian is fairly rusty. Indeed, these are the only two words of Russian I ever knew.
Your outlining of the apparatchik obduracy of the Jesuits - which exists with other Orders - is well made. I would recommend to anyone interested in this area to read your book on Joseph Marmion. It’s a revealing story which is written in such a fair-minded way that renders it very moving. Unusual for me, I cried while reading it.
Just a further reflection/thought
In contrast to you and the likes of Donal Ballance, I only became involved with trying to expose clerical child sex in November 2022. So I am very new to this. In my case, it pertains to the Vincentian Order at Castleknock College. So there is a danger of someone joining things late in the day proposing something that is all too ‘’dull, stale, flat and unprofitable’’ - to quote from another chap who was preoccupied with the unacknowledged putridness of certain things.
However, from reading this latest piece of yours, it brings home how important it is, that the Jesuits and other Orders are not allowed to present their ongoing concealment as being in the ‘interests of survivors/victims’ as you state they might try. They have no right to speculate as what is in our ‘interests’. We decide that. Such a callous and devious manoeuvre needs to be called out and ideally headed off at the pass.
A shot across the bows
Should you and/or others such as Donal Ballance, David Ryan and hopefully others from the likes of Terenure College or wherever, wish to contact the media to denounce such humbug, I would happily sign such a letter. Indeed the more names openly signing such a letter the better I suspect. I would encourage others to reach out to lend their names and support to such a joint endeavour.
Thank you again Tom D for your fine contribution on this matter.
Tom (Maher)
Castleknock College (1974-80) Vincentian Order
Thank you for those kind words, Tom. And yes, I certainly meant glasnost rather than perestroika! My Russian is not so much rusty as non-existent!