Siobhan O'Dwyer

The current scandals surrounding childhood sexual abuse by Catholic priests has confirmed that the twenty six county, Republic of Ireland, is indeed a church state. However, what is most interesting to me, is the fact that the coverage has missed the main political point that these "scandals" were allowed to take place right up to the present date because the Church was and is an integral part of the State. And what of Irish people’s collusion in their own brutalisation and degradation by this Church state, the Republic of Ireland?

When the state was formed in 1921, the leaders were facing the reality that the Treaty, which divided the country into two parts, was unacceptable to a large part of the population. The civil war ensued and when it came to an end, De Valera recognised that he now could not allow any further resistance to the state that he had decided to participate in. However, the state still had difficulties once De Valera gave up the civil war and brought the then IRA into the political life of the state and De Valera would prove to be one of the foremost architects of how to manage the stability of the new Republic of Ireland. Republicans have often commented down the years that the Free State murdered and imprisoned far more republicans than the British and the level of suspicion and hatred of republicans who continued to rebel against the Treaty compromise is well documented. The fact that the Special Powers Act has remained in force all these years is ample evidence of the fear felt by Free State politicians at the threat to their state by rebellious republicans. However, De Valera’s far more damaging influence was in the way that he set up the Church state that is the Republic of Ireland.

The state from its inception had a powerful ally in the Catholic Church who were happy to take on the role of moral policing for the new state. The Catholic church, despite some priests, had always been rabidly anti-republican and rightly feared the consequences for them if a socialist, democratic Republic were formed and therefore the Treaty state suited them much better. All talk of socialism was gone, the people were relieved to have peace and in the 26 counties, quickly took on the belief that they were indeed now free and the masters of their own destinies. The fact that the bosses now had Irish accents and Irish politicians argued ineffectively in their own Dail in Dublin and the elevation of the previously second class church made their independence from Britain seem real. This is not an unusual reaction in post-colonial states as we have witnessed in Africa and Asia and may also go some way to explain the mass compliance of the population to the degrading and brutal regime which followed.

The Irish Free State politicians, who had little experience of running a country or any aspects of it, were extremely lucky to be able to call on a bureaucracy which had massive administrative skills and were happy to get on with running parts of the new State. The Catholic Church took on responsibility for education of children, hospitals and health care, care for the elderly and disabled and with their local bases got involved in setting up local management structures. The Church was given massive power by the State at a time when they desperately needed to ensure a united people and administration. The Catholic Church is however not a social services or education organisation but is a religion which has a strict and clear set of moral and theological beliefs underpinning its actions. The Catholic Church was in a very powerful position to influence the new state and given its religious basis, it would obviously form the new state in its own moral, religious image. The politicians of the Republic were well aware of the backward and morally reprehensible manner in which the Catholic Church would help form and maintain the State, but they both believed in the moral order themselves and were too busy amassing political and economic power, to be overly concerned about the more brutalising effects on ordinary Irish people. It would be kind to say that at the time the Republic of Ireland’s politicians had very little choice and as Catholics themselves they were blinded by religious faith. I don’t believe that for one second, though it is true that all of them played very public lip service to the rituals of Catholicism while they continued to gather economic and political power to themselves and ignored the moral rules in their own personal lives. There was little or no challenge from the people in the new State, who witnessed very little economic benefits or indeed social benefits but who were held in subjugation by the State and its sister, the Catholic Church, whose opprobrium was feared much more than criminal sanction.

The State was also quite happy for the moral policing of the Church to be brought to the fore in Government policy and to allow the Church to dictate the development of social, education and health policy. The fact that the Catholic Church was developing those policies and implementing them had a major effect on the development of the Republic of Ireland and ensured that Ireland remained a backward society for 70 years. The impact of Catholic/ State doctrine on the lives of thousands of ordinary people throughout these years is only being acknowledged and questioned in the past ten years through the breaking of one "scandal" after another. The Industrial Schools, where children were detained until 16 whether their families wanted them or not; the Magdelen Laundries, where young women were enslaved and degraded; the physical and emotional abuse in all schools; the denial of basic human rights such as the marriage bar, inadequate housing, massive unemployment; the constant fear of being denounced from the altar for moral failures have become familiar topics on radio, television and film.

I have outlined above why and how the State used the Catholic Church to cohere a new society and to ensure that any opposition to the institutions of the new State would be strangled at birth. As a citizen of the Republic of Ireland, it is the complete denial of the fact that the State and the Catholic Church are one administration and that Irish people for years allowed themselves to be ruled by a religious, political dictatorship that most angers me. In my opinion, the revelations about the abuse of political power by numerous politicians in order to amass wealth for themselves and the abuse of their absolute power by the Gardai are the obvious consequences of a Republic formed on a degrading compromise and maintained by brutal and religious oppression. Of course, the Health Boards and the Gardai were not going to investigate priests guilty of sexual abuse, just as they didn't investigate allegations of brutality in schools or the unlawful detention of young girls and the removal of their babies without their consent and numerous other violations of civil and human rights.

Will politicians now change the power relationship that they have with the Catholic Church? The State was formed on the strict religious code of the Catholic Church and politicians are happy with the social control over their citizens that this partnership gives them. That has not changed despite the anger and disgust voiced by many against the Church in the past few years, as the Church still wield massive power over Education and Health in the Republic. It has not changed as the State and Church have agreed that Catholic influence on public policy will continue but behind the façade of lay clergy and professionals who continue to ensure the moral beliefs of Catholicism are the main philosophy in education and healthcare. In the current climate of fear of difference and aversion to risk taking and with an economic downturn, the role of the Catholic church in cohering society will continue to be important for the State unless the people decide that the Catholic church and State must be separated.

And what of the people of the Republic of Ireland themselves who participated in the oppression and brutalising of their own children and themselves for over 70 years. Is this a wake up call for us? Is this the sort of Republic that we want and what are we going to do to change it? We must acknowledge that the State and Church are inextricably linked and demand that the link is smashed once and for all, by legislative change which removes Catholic doctrine from all state run schools, hospitals and social services, housing and employment. It is not enough to go on Joe Duffy on Radio 1 and talk about how shocked and ashamed we all feel about the sort of society we have ended up with. I believe that ordinary people can challenge the status quo and demand that the State does change fundamentally and that the Catholic Church is assigned to its place in history, as just one of the organised churches which people in this island believe in. We should demand that the laws of the state protect innocent people and are not used to uphold a moral, religious code of behaviour which is not valid in a democratic society. We colluded with our own degradation for years, will we now stop being victims, get up off our knees and change radically the society in which our children will be reared by building a 32 county democratic, socialist republic at last?