I'm with you, Domenica

However convinced you are that your opinion is the right one, it’s always nice to have it confirmed. So I’m quietly pleased to see an item in today’s paper that focuses on a woman called Domenica McGowan. She’s a psychotherapist who has worked with victims of sex abuse for more than twenty-five years and what’s more, she’s an atheist. “I have met countless survivors who have disclosed their experience of sexual assault by members of his [Ian Paisley Jr’s) apparently guilt-free Protestant Christian Churches". Her point is that Paisley’s call to the Protestant Churches, in the wake of the Murphy Report, to move in and sweep up huge numbers of bewildered and disillusioned Catholics, is essentially sectarian and contrary to the facts of self-abuse and where it is to be found - to wit, everywhere. “I believe there are many instances outside the Catholic Church where abuse has yet to be disclosed. Can I suggest a simple maxim Mr Paisley might want to consider adopting – better to remain silent and appear a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt”.

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Noli me tangere

I’m continually amazed at how adept people are at double-think, and I’m doubly amazed at the way they can double-think about political violence. Years ago, I remember talking to a friend of mine from Canada and I happened to mention that I’d met and talked to Martin McGuinness. “My God!” he said. “He was in the IRA. He must have killed people!” And he sort of took a step back, as though it might be catching and I might try killing him. I agreed that that what he suggested was a possibility, and pointed out that quite a few politicians had been responsible for killings: Thatcher for the lives lost in the Malvinas dispute, notably the crew of the Belgrano; Tony Blair and George Bush for the thousands who died in the Iraq invasion; and of course Harry Truman for the several hundred thousand who died in the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. He murmured something vague but it was clear that these people who weren’t just maybe killers but definitely killers didn’t seem nearly as horrifying to him as the possible killer Mr MrGuinness.

The same sort of thinking has surfaced today over a Channel 4 programme called ‘The Bible: A History’ that will be aired in February. It’s a series that will involve seven public figures giving their interpretation of the story of Christ. One of these figures is the Sinn Fein president, Gerry Adams, who will “examine Jesus’s teachings on love, forgiveness and repentance through the prism of his own experience”, according to the channel. This has upset a number of the other public figures, notably the Conservative MP Anne Widdicombe. She discovered that Mr Adams would be part of the series only after she’d filmed her own contribution. She says she disapproves of his involvement.

The obvious question is ‘Why?’ Ms Widdicombe is a life-long Tory and has never, as far as I know, voiced any objections to the various warlike excursions on which her party or the Labour party have embarked, so we can only conclude that she doesn’t in principle object to political violence. If she sees Mr Adams as associated with republican violence, what is there about such violence that makes it different from the violence Britain metes out – and always has meted out – to those who oppose her? After all, Irish republican violence has at least the merit that it happened in Ireland, against foreign troops; most British violence has happened abroad, sometimes thousands of miles away.

Overall though, my brain simply isn’t supple enough to take in the kind of double-think that decorates some people for the amount of killing they’ve done and can’t bear to be anywhere near some other people they think might have been involved in killing.

Mr 10%

Of all the myths that the north of Ireland has spawned, the most seductive (and stupid) is the notion that both sides are equally to blame/one side is as bad as the other. This was the founding principle of the Alliance Party about forty years ago and its failure to progress should be reassuring. Sad to say, it isn't, for the very good reason that it's a view shared by most of the rest of the world. I know whereof I speak: from the late 1960s to the late 1970s, I lived abroad, and I discovered how easy it is to buy into the myth that what we have here are two tribes high on religion, hopelessly addicted to sectarianism and hatred. This of course airbrushes out Mother Britain, which is why she works so hard at maintaining that myth.

The latest example of it in action comes from the hysterically anti-republican commentator, Lindy McDowell. Faced with the fact that Martin McGuinness, deputy leader of Sinn Fein, has attracted the admiration of some 10% of Protestants here, she clambers down from her customary it's-all-the-Shinners-fault soapbox and climbs onto an Alliance-type one. How's that? Well, the way Lindy figures it, because Peter Robinson would be really worried if he attracted 10% of the Catholic population's admiration, because his followers wouldn't like that kind of thing, Martin McGuinness must be appalled that he's attracted 10% of Protestants, because - yep - his followers can't possibly like that kind of thing. Pssst, Lindy: republicanism means replacing the names of Catholic, Protestant or Dissenter with the common name of Irishman (and woman). Besides, if admiration were to turn into votes for Sinn Fein, it would trigger a referendum which would almost certainly take the north of Ireland out of the union with Britain and into a united Ireland.

Wouldn't it be funny if Martin McGuinness's saintly patience in the face of vilification were to reap the ultimate reward for republicanism? Maybe the guy who said 'Destroy your enemies - make them your friends' knew what he was talking about.

Calling all votes...

For the next six months, it’d probably be helpful if each time we hear Ian Óg Paisley speak, we imagine a little bubble coming out of his head with the words ‘It’s the election, stupid’. Between now and next May, Ian Óg’s every public utterance will be aimed at the voters of North Antrim.

His latest pronouncement expresses his satisfaction at ‘an end to the once all-knowing and powerful hand of the mother church in Ireland’ and urges Protestant churches to get in there and convert these bewildered Catholic misbelievers to the Protestant faith.

Now I know it’s a striking image: Ian Óg perched crowing on the corpse of the mortally-wounded Catholic Church, but like with Mark Twain, the reports of its demise are much exaggerated. Most Catholics know that we are all sinners and there but for the grace of God go I and/or Ian Og Paisley. Their faith is in Christ and the doctrines of the Catholic Church, not in its frail and sinful, or even in many cases the strong and good priests and bishops.

What Ian Óg is intent on doing is setting up the tired, sad, sectarian vision of a Catholic Church locked in struggle with the Protestant churches: eternal damnation with one, eternal salvation with the other. Ian’s daddy was doing that kind of thing as far back as the early 1950s, when he sought to save the soul of a misguided young Catholic woman. Like father, etc.

The Murphy Report excites dismay in many Catholic hearts but it’s not dismay with the Church’s doctrine and core beliefs: it’s with a number of corrupt priests and bishops who have engage in or covered up paedophilia. Is Ian Óg suggesting that were Catholics to move into the Protestant churches, they’d be moving into a paedophilia-free zone? That’s not what the research into child sexual abuse shows. Paedophilia exists in every area of society. Catholic priests have no monopoly of evil.

No, Ian’s not really thinking of all the Catholic souls to be saved from eternal hell-fire and subservience to the Anti-Christ; he’s a man with a constituency on his mind called North Antrim and a man on his mind called Jim Allister.

The Murphy Report

The newspapers, radio and television are once again sagging under the weight of a 'Priests are child abusers' report. This one is the Murphy report and details how reports of child sexual abuse by priests in the Dublin diocese were covered up by the Catholic bishops and by the gardai of the day. No one in their right mind would want to see a child sexually abused (or anyone else for that matter), but there's something unedifying and undiscriminating about the way the media are handling the story.

A few questions that spring to mind:

1. What is the nature of paedophilia - is it a straight-forward crime or a condition? This is crucial, if we're to judge the legal or moral guilt of those who perpetrated these actions. If they freely chose to commit the crimes, they deserve to be punished, probably by imprisonment. If they suffer from a psychological condition, they're not free to choose and deserve not prison but hospitalization and treatment.

2. What is the nature of the evidence that made the people who wrote the Murphy report confident that things happened as those who brought charges claim? Is there material evidence? Is it the word of the accuser against that of the accused? An important distinction to draw, for just as the accused can be guilty of vile crimes, the accuser can be guilty of lying.

3. Why are people surprised that the Catholic hierarchy seem to have been engaged in cover-up? All institutions instinctively do this when attacked - universities, schools, broadcasting corporations, local communities. It doesn't make it right but it does make it common.

4. Is it true that most instances of child abuse - over 90% - occur within the immediate family circle? If so, shouldn't abuse within the Catholic Church be set in that context? That is to say, that there are as likely to be abusers among the ranks of, say, journalists, as among Catholic priests?

5. What constitutes child sexual abuse? If an adult strokes a child's face or kisses them, is that abuse in the same way that forced sexual intercourse is abuse?

6. Child sexual abuse is particularly shocking in that it is the violation of an innocent, defenceless person. Are blanket attacks on Catholic priests, including the majority of priests who appear to lead selfless, dedicated lives, another instances of abuse of innocent, defenceless people?

The last time I raised questions like this I received abusive emails for not joining in the undiscriminating condemnation of the Catholic clergy. In other words, if you're not for us you're against us. Now when did I last hear that forced choice being voiced?

Something's happening but you don't know what it is/Do you, Mr Jones?

At my Philosophy for Beginners class last night, I got talking to the woman beside me. She figured that even though the lecturer took the first seven lectures before he got round to establishing eye-contact, the lecture series was wonderful and she can't wait to follow up with more only in more depth. She told me she'd just finished a five-year part-time degree.'What in?' quoth I. 'Irish Language and Literature'. That's the third person - all women - who did that course that I've been in conversation with in the last month. This woman said she had no Irish at all in her secondary or primary education. So when she decided to study Irish, she had to take first GCSE and then A Level before embarking on the degree programme. What sparked her interest in the first place? Her mother. She - the woman and presumably her mother - is/are from Ballymena, and her mother's speech was littered with colloquial and dialect words which were Irish in origin. In addition, the whole issue of place names and their Irish origin began to intrigue her, and she figured there was a vast cultural storehouse to which she'd never been given the key and she needed to find out more. So she studied for five years and got her degree. Her day job is as a solicitor. When she tossed in the fact that she was from a Presbyterian background, I suggested she might be getting the odd sideways glance about Ballymena when they noticed she was studying Irish. 'Probably, but it was OK, because I live in Belfast'. Oddly enough, one of the two other women who did an Irish degree was also Presbyterian in her background. Is there something happening that we're not aware of? And if so, what does it mean?

After life's fitful fever...

“What if the roads are flooded?” the present Mrs Collins asked before we set out. “They won’t be flooded” I told her, adding by way of emphasis “For God’s sake!” Sure enough, there was no flooding for the first fifty miles of our 350 + -mile drive from Stranraer to Cambridge. But there was flooding as we skirted Cumbria, and plenty of it, and the local road-and-traffic reports kept breaking in on the radio to tell us about yet another half-dozen roads that had been closed. At one point on the M6, either side of the road was a temporary lake of flooding, and at a number of points we had to drive through (mercifully shallow) water. Next day, having completed the 10-hour drive, we opened our newspaper to read about the bridge in Cumbria that had collapsed, taking with it an on-duty policeman. Despite all that, the route through Scotland and England was a feast for the eye: it was rain-free, the English countryside had its usual big comfortable fields and carefully-kept villages, and there was a real sense of being in a foreign country.

We stayed at a place between Cambridge and Huntingdon. Oliver Cromwell was born in Huntingdon and I had a vague notion he was buried there as well, so I had half-planned to drive out and have a look at his grave on Saturday. However, a quick Google established that he was in fact buried in Westminster Abbey, but was exhumed twenty years later, his head removed and his body hung for public consideration (Message: don't kill kings). Where his head is now remains unclear, as does the whereabouts of the rest of him. I’m trying very hard to think of someone in Ireland who might feel upset to hear these posthumous details.

Instead of seeking Oliver, then, we visited the American Cemetery outside Cambridge. No, I didn’t know there was an American cemetery there either. It’s over thirty acres and was gifted by Cambridge University to the US. The light had just begun to fade when we arrived, making the place even more sombre than it doubtless usually is. Nearly four thousand American servicemen are buried here, most of whom died in the Battle of the Atlantic or during air raids on Europe. The white crosses are arranged in gentle arcs and look simple and sad against the Autumn trees. There’s a kind of Washington Wall along one side of the site, listing the names of all buried there, plus another thousand who were lost and whose bodies never were recovered. The statue figures arranged at intervals along the wall have the same bulk and brute strength Soviet statues used to have back in the old USSR. I suppose in death, there’s little difference between Russians and Americans, just as there’s little difference between those servicemen buried with a white cross marking their grave (99.9%) and those identified by a white Jewish star. The feel of the place is one of generous space and simple dignity. I suppose it’s necessary to give your war dead an honoured resting place if you hope to get recruits for the next round of slaughter.