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About LinkBacksHarbouring, hiding, and shielding from prosecution those who committed/facilitated these acts is sinful and criminal. The abusers sinned, Cardinal Law-types sinned, those sheltering and shielding him are sinning.Originally Posted by garlandgreen
Harbouring, hiding, and shielding from prosecution those who committed/facilitated these acts is sinful and criminal. The abusers sinned, Cardinal Law-types sinned, those sheltering and shielding him are sinning.
That would be the Vatican. So what authority are they deviating against?
What's your superior intellectual analysis,Prof Hopi?
This is a forum,not a place of silence,so if you want to observe silence,you should not have come on here. Are you as dogmatic a Catholic as a loony left socialist? Why are you upset by a criticism of the blatantly obvious failure of the Catholic ethos and morality to protect the abused children and of its twisted Catholic puritan sexual morality of the past that regarded the children from broken homes as morally inferior and unworthy of care?
When war refugee Maria Hrela found to her horror that her only son was being savagely abused in Artane Industrial School, she went right to the top with her complaint - to Pope Pius XII himself. And soon afterwards a Bishop arrived at the notorious north Dublin Detention Centre to check on how Bruno Hrela was being treated.
The highly-unusual Vatican probe into conditions endured by Bruno at the harsh Industrial School over 50 years ago, figured in the inquiry into Institutional Abuse set-up by the Government.
Bruno talked about the horrific physical and sexual abuse meted out to him and other children at Artane during the 1950s. Bruno talks of how his Mum managed to spark of a high-level Vatican inquiry into his harsh treatment at the hands of the notorious Christian Brothers who owned and managed Artane Industrial School.
Tragically after the Vatican inquiry Bruno's treatment worsened and he was savagely and unmercifully beaten by the Brothers because of his Mum's attempt to expose the savage treatment of children in Artane Industrial School. Bruno's family came from Croatia and they fled, with many other refugees, to Italy. Bruno's Dad had been killed during a bombardment of their hometown, Karlovacs, during the Second World War. Bruno's Mum took him and his two sisters to live in poverty in Rome. She was a devout Catholic and, despite their dire poverty, attended daily Mass in St. Peter's in Rome. It was there that she met a Croatian priest linked to the Vatican and it was arranged for the family to go to Ireland. Bruno recalled: " ...it was thought that we would be better off in a good Catholic country like Ireland ..."
Bruno's Mum rented a flat in Marino Dublin. His sisters were accommodated in convents. But she tried to hold onto Bruno and he was sent to a Christian Brothers day school in Marino. On his first day he witnessed a group punishment when the entire class, including Bruno, were beaten because someone made a noise and didn't own-up to it.
Bruno was traumatised by this incident as nobody had ever laid a hand on him before. He could not understand how someone could beat him and other children for no reason. And Bruno had travelled through war-torn Europe, he saw Nazi-occupied Paris and the Partisan guerillas opposing them, but nobody had used violence against him until he ended up in holy, Catholic Ireland.
Bruno reminisced: "I could not believe the cruelty and brutality I was witnessing. The Brother had a leather strap and a cane. The experience struck total fear into me. And I didn't have a word of English."
But, unfortunately, much worse was to follow.
Bruno's Mum worked as a milliner (hat-maker) and earned a pittance of 2 pounds 10 shillings a week in Grafton Street and walked to and from work to save money on bus fares. But she could not afford to feed Bruno and he was brought to Artane Industrial School. He recalls the trauma of being brought there by a social worker. He described his first look of Artane as 'bleak'. To his great dismay, he recognised one of the Brothers at Artane as the man who had savagely beaten him and an entire classroom of children on his first day in a schoolroom in Ireland.
It was not a good omen.
Bruno, who is a mecanical engineer and a father of six living in London, says that during an approximate two-year stay in Artane, he was savagely beaten, terrorised, physically injured and also sexually assaulted. "It was a system of deliberate cruelty. It was like a Nazi concentration camp." he says.
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Bruno's simple request -[Mary Raftery 18th November 2004 © The Irish Times]
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 18th November 2004 © The Irish Times
Artane, A Little Child and the Vatican
I watched with glee, while your kings and queens, fought for ten decades for the gods they made.
They are deviating from, and disregarding, their own principles. That can happen - look at the British Labout party, for example.
If they can make up and change those principals at will as have the British Labour Party then their principals and actions are for all intents and purposes are indistuinshable
Why don't you take the homeless into your home for meals and occasional bed and board? Why don't you give most of your money to charitable causes? Because you aren't an idiot or a saint! So much for loving thy neighbour as thyself,a totally impractical project. It's your kind of phoney piety that prevents honest,critical thinking.
Bernard Shaw said the only problem with Christianity is that it has never been practiced. In my opinion,it hasn't been practiced because much of its moral code is simply not practical in the real world.
Agreed. The Christians that can be said to be of strong moral character don't follow it completely. You have to deviate from "turning the other cheek" sometimes in life, otherwise you don't just allow harm to come to yourself but you allow harm to come to those around you.
The story of Bruno and others are truly horrific. Thank you Andrew for undertaking to detail these cases and give us insights into the uncensored reality of the abuse/cover-up.
I am in no way trying to explain or rationalise the abuse, or excuse the failure to take action and accept responsibility that we witness to this day. The Church continues to dishonour itself and betray it's true mission and message. Until it stops putting expediency before truth and principle, and devotion to itself and eachother before devotion to God, it deserves out utmost condemnation.
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