This piece of verse is a strong comment upon the Church child abuse scandal that shocked, and still shocks, the world of Christianity. In Ireland, clergy stood on pulpits and lectured the obedient masses on how to live good lives, whilst those same priests were abusing and raping their children.
In other instances, nuns facilitated the abuse of children by priests. In certain religious orders, such as the Bon Secours Sisters (which ironically means ‘Good Help’) nuns brutalised and neglected children to the point of death. Many of these children had no one to look out for them. They were abandoned by parents and then tortured by members of a Church that should have been caring for them. The small corpses were tossed into sewer tanks where they lay for decades until a recent citizen-led inquiry uncovered the remains of hundreds of children and babies. The Church in Ireland is still obstructing official inquiries. This is what passes for Christianity on The Emerald Isle.
Rape, sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, psychological abuse, theft of property, simony, condescension, bullying and complete arrogance; it all took place within the churches of Ireland. Today, those churches still exist and still look down their noses at the people. They still feed off the populace like parasites, trying to cover-up their vile crimes against those who fed them, and clothed them and gave them shelter and a place to be. Many other members of the clergy knew about the horror. They did not actively participate. Yet they remained silent. In that they were and are complicit.
Rebel Voice often wonders how the people of Ireland can bear to attend religious services in buildings where paedophiles stood in judgement of others; can bow before those who turned away from the suffering of children; can pretend that none of it really happened. Is it a flaw of the human condition that allows us to ignore what has went before? Is it a demonstration of the Capitalist psychology that causes us to care only when it happens to us, or those in our immediate orbit?
So many questions; so many crimes; so many guilty clergy still walking around with their noses in the air; so many naive members of the congregation. But, as George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Clerical Predations
The sacerdotal plague that swept
True innocence aside and laid waste
To cushioned dreams
Lurks close. Barely hidden.
It feels its time will re-emerge
When blackened hearts will give Pious Voice
To Ornate Robes and Reeking Thoughts
With Bloated Hands.
When Darkened Souls should thence surge
Forth in Gluttoned Feast
To pat, pat, pat the dirge… diseased
That clings with ease to the scaled
Sweating spine of their Foul Prophet.
Let Forceful Fate damn them all
To the Hell from where they’ve drawn
Their Obscene Beast
Antán Ó Dála an Rí
Rebel Voice 