RE: The Catholic Church And Magdalen Laundries
June 18, 2015 at 8:08 am
(This post was last modified: June 18, 2015 at 8:10 am by Randy Carson.)
ATHEIST BRENDON O'NEILL RESPONDS
There are, of course, honest parties to this discussion, observers who have long been critical of the laundries, but who upon reading the McAleese Report, sought to correct the record. No one has done so with greater valor than Irish writer Brendan O’Neill.
When O’Neill read that the Irish Times was trying to look at the good side of exposing abuse, even if it didn’t happen, he was taken aback. Worse was a playwright who told the newspaper that even if the stories weren’t true, they “served an important function at the time—that is, to raise awareness about the problem of abuse in Catholic life more broadly.” To which O’Neill responded, “This sounds dangerously like a Noble Lie defence—the idea that it is okay to make things up, to spread fibs, if one is doing it in service of some greater good.”
“Anyone who points out that reports and depictions of abuse in Catholic institutions have been overblown risks being denounced as an abuse apologist or a sinister whitewasher,” says O’Neill. He insists, not without reasons, that those “who are genuinely interested in truth and justice should definitely be concerned that films and news reports may have left the public with the mistaken belief that women in Magdalene Laundries were stripped and beaten and that thousands of Irish and American children were raped by priests.”
What makes O’Neill’s account so persuasive is that he is an atheist; he has no vested interest to serve. His honesty is refreshing. “Catholic-bashers frequently accuse the Catholic religion of promoting a childish narrative of good and evil that is immune to factual evidence. Yet they do precisely the same, in the service of their fashionable and irrational new religion of anti-Catholicism.”
The horror stories associated with the Magdalene Laundries cannot withstand scrutiny, but they will continue to have a life of their own. That’s the way prejudice works. Unwarranted negative attitudes, especially when employed about a familiar whipping boy, are hard to shake. All we can do is pursue the truth and educate fair-minded people about what really happened. We certainly can’t count on the likes of the New York Times or the BBC to publish the truth.
Source.
There are, of course, honest parties to this discussion, observers who have long been critical of the laundries, but who upon reading the McAleese Report, sought to correct the record. No one has done so with greater valor than Irish writer Brendan O’Neill.
When O’Neill read that the Irish Times was trying to look at the good side of exposing abuse, even if it didn’t happen, he was taken aback. Worse was a playwright who told the newspaper that even if the stories weren’t true, they “served an important function at the time—that is, to raise awareness about the problem of abuse in Catholic life more broadly.” To which O’Neill responded, “This sounds dangerously like a Noble Lie defence—the idea that it is okay to make things up, to spread fibs, if one is doing it in service of some greater good.”
“Anyone who points out that reports and depictions of abuse in Catholic institutions have been overblown risks being denounced as an abuse apologist or a sinister whitewasher,” says O’Neill. He insists, not without reasons, that those “who are genuinely interested in truth and justice should definitely be concerned that films and news reports may have left the public with the mistaken belief that women in Magdalene Laundries were stripped and beaten and that thousands of Irish and American children were raped by priests.”
What makes O’Neill’s account so persuasive is that he is an atheist; he has no vested interest to serve. His honesty is refreshing. “Catholic-bashers frequently accuse the Catholic religion of promoting a childish narrative of good and evil that is immune to factual evidence. Yet they do precisely the same, in the service of their fashionable and irrational new religion of anti-Catholicism.”
The horror stories associated with the Magdalene Laundries cannot withstand scrutiny, but they will continue to have a life of their own. That’s the way prejudice works. Unwarranted negative attitudes, especially when employed about a familiar whipping boy, are hard to shake. All we can do is pursue the truth and educate fair-minded people about what really happened. We certainly can’t count on the likes of the New York Times or the BBC to publish the truth.
Source.
