Is the State trying to bankrupt the Irish Catholic Church?

[scolairebocht]

Commission of Investigation System

For almost a decade and a half the Irish establishment let a number of high profile public enquiries run without bothering to track properly the vast legal expenditure involved or their over wide terms of reference, resulting (not accidentally of course) in the discrediting of the whole public enquiry system which has run, smoothly enough, in Ireland since at least the early 17th century.

Then inevitably the power that be, in this case Minister of Justice Michael McDowell, proposed their (prepared) ‘solution’. He sponsored an Act that created a ‘Commission of Investigation’ (or Inquiry) system which is almost the complete opposite of a proper public inquiry, but the distinction gets very confused in the minds of ordinary people. Where before a public inquiry involves evidence given in public and then a judge adjudicates the evidence in a final report, which is based only on that evidence given publicly in court. Obviously you can only have confidence in evidence given publicly, anybody can lie about anything they like in private, especially, as in this case, they are receiving large sums of money for so lying.

Instead the Commission of Investigation system would make a Stalinist prosecutor in Soviet Russia blush, everything about it is entirely secret, and indeed it also serves to hoover up any information that would otherwise be available to the public on the particular issue. Also, mysteriously, these Commissions have almost always been used only against the Catholic Church in Ireland and the criticisms they make have always been greeted by brainwashing levels of media hype pouring down on top of that Church. For example the Murphy Inquiry was set up to investigate the treatment of child abuse cases in the Dublin area, on the part of the Church, the state agencies and Civil Service, the Gardai, and the health services (the HSE or its preceding bodies). But instead when the Commission actually was up and running the before mentioned latter interested parties just said they had no surviving documentation or witnesses from that time, and then almost the whole report mysteriously became only about the Catholic Church.

Fr Padraig McCarthy, who died last June, discovered this Stalinist system when he tried to pursue some serious errors in that Murphy report (called after the same judge who presided over the Mother and Baby Commission):

“A normal court case is heard in public, the evidence is public and justice may be seen to be done. With a commission of investigation, the hearings are in private. The evidence, except for what the commission may choose to include in its report, remains private, including conflicting evidence. Under Section 42 of the Commissions of Investigation Act 2004, documents of a commission (including its interim, final and draft reports) are absolutely privileged: they have legal immunity from any civil or criminal liability. The possibility of going public with evidence is severely inhibited by the Act, which makes unauthorised disclosure or publication of evidence or documents an offence punishable on conviction or indictment by a fine not exceeding €300,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years, or both. Witnesses and other individuals have to wait thirty years to go public without penalty.”(1)

That Murphy report, and this Commission of Inquiry or Investigation system, was critiqued by the Irish barrister and long term Hong Kong judge, Fergal Sweeney, who writes:

“In the course of its investigation the Murphy Commission in my opinion went well beyond its mandate in respect of one category of witness by building up and making a “case” (called “the Commission’s Assessment”) against individual clerics who testified before the Commission, instead of being “concerned only with the institutional response to complaints, suspicions and knowledge of child sexual abuse” (Report, Par. 1.7).
3.2. In thus extending its task, well accepted minimum rights of natural and constitutional justice were not observed and an individual’s constitutional right to his good name was not protected in the course of the Commission’s work.
3.3 As one examines the Report, standards of proof were not always respected by the Commission which resolved all or any differences of recollection against individual clerics without stated reasons.
3.4 The Report dismisses out of hand any reasons, explanations or mitigating circumstances put forward by those clerics whom it “names and shames”.
3.5. Indeed, in its Report the Commission only refers to such arguments and submissions as were made by the clerics who testified in order to try to dismantle them.
3.6 The Commission’s mandate was to report on the handling by Church and State authorities of a representative sample of allegations and suspicions of child sexual abuse against clerics operating under the aegis of the Archdiocese of Dublin. When the Report is critical of the handling by State authorities, in only one or two cases is the individual employee named. When it is critical of the handling by Church authorities, in every case is the individual named. No reason or explanation is given for this disparity of treatment.”(2)

And concluded:

“I have been unable to get a fair reading of [the case of the clerics who appeared before the Murphy Commission] because the Murphy Report lacks nuance, balance and any understanding of the historical and sociological context in which these events took place. Further, the very nature of the Commission of Investigations Act 2004 precluded fair procedures to those clerics who were called to account for themselves…
...
From the legal perspective it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that insofar as the Catholic clerics who were called to testify were concerned, the practices and procedures of the Murphy Commission fell far short of meeting the concerns of the Law Reform Commission and more importantly, of natural and Constitutional justice.””(3)

Commission of Investigation into Irish Schools

So after it was established by McDowell we have had repeated reports from these secretive Commissions, almost all of them bearing down with huge slanders against Catholics, clerics. bishops and religious. Now the government has opened another one, they have launched another Commission of Investigation, this time into Irish schools. Because of some, massively hyped, allegations into Blackrock College in Dublin in particular, they are now going to investigate every single primary and secondary school in Ireland since Independence. This Commission of Investigation system, rules out any type of cross examination of course, so the general pattern is that people make allegations entirely in secret and entirely without challenge and then get awarded huge sums of money in ‘redress’ if the state, in its wisdom, deems it necessary.

And who pays for the redress, you may ask? Well anybody who knows Ireland knows that most of those schools since Independence were patronised and assisted by the Catholic Church, whether it be National Schools assisted by the local priest, or Loreto or Mercy run female secondary schools, or boys schools run by the Christian brothers, or Catholic Diocesan boarding schools, etc etc. In otherwords this is potentially a great big arrow pointing at the financial independence of the Catholic Church in Ireland, as in fact the Minister herself seemed to indicate at the press conference launching this:

Minister Helen McEntee: “The report of the interdepartmental group, a group which was established to advise on the recommendations of the scoping inquiry, has advised that more work must be undertaken on any potential [redress] scheme. Any scheme must be funded by those who ran the schools, where this abuse occurred.
Let me be very clear: all potential levers that can be brought to bear, to secure the funding from those responsible for sexual abuse in schools, must be considered and will be considered. This work will include looking at potential changes to the statute of limitations for civil claims, changes to the status of unincorporated associations, crucially looking at what assets these religious orders and groups have. They don’t have what they claim they have, what we think they have [sic, ?], because all is important, and much more. Again I fully recognise how important redress is, for survivors, how it is a measure of accountability for the awful crimes that they endured.
That is why more work and more analysis is required regarding redress, but crucially this will happen parallel to the work of the Commission, we will not wait until the work of the Commission is completed, this will happen immediately and in parallel to the work of the Commission.”
Presenter Sarah McInerney: “What happens next Barry?”
Reporter Barry Lenihan: “Well Minister McEntee, as alluded to there, says that the government will examine what levers can be used to ensure religious orders pay to any redress scheme, particularly if there is reluctance on their part.”(4)

 

[scolairebocht]

Mother and Baby Homes hoax, financial pressure on Catholic Religious Orders

If you think this is alarmist, consider that the Legion of Mary is now been hounded by the state to hand over 26.2 million euro because of the hoax Mother and Baby allegations and Commission of Inquiry. Although the Legion is a huge international organisation headquartered in Dublin, in practice it runs its modest headquarters and men’s hostel in Dublin city centre, on a shoestring, as anybody knows who has ever visited it. This 26 million would surely bankrupt it, and even the established media are talking about the pressure the state is employing here.

The Legion by the way did tremendous work at the beginning of this state by giving refuge to women caught up in prostitution, famously in the ‘Monto’, and in fact helping them to stay with their frequently illegitimate children (it was their big thing to always try and encourage the mothers to stay with their child, irrespective of the circumstances). For that our modern day Henry VIII inspired government is openly trying to bankrupt them. Yes, Henry VIII, if you read the resulting report, called after Sheila Nunan, you will see how they are very carefully assessing the financial and legal status of the various orders (with or, mostly, without their cooperation) clearly to bankrupt them and seize their assets.

In any case the story is that after the Commission of Investigation report into the Tuam hoax came out, Minister Roderic O’Gorman set up a process of demanding money from religious orders associated with the care of children in the early years of the state. He asked for funds from the:

“Congregation of Lady of the Good Shepherd
Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary
The Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul
The Sisters of Bons Secours
The Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy
Sisters of St. John of God
The Legion of Mary
The Church of Ireland (Representative Church Body)”(5)

Then later in May 2023, Ms. Sheila Nunan, former President of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, was appointed to pursue this further and she has been advised by Ernst and Young (EY) who:

“...conducted an independent financial assessment of the resources of each organisation involved.”(6)

EY of course is one of the big four worldwide accountancy firms who do business consultancy and audits of company accounts etc. But in fact they have a great global reach, particularily into governments and for example advised states all over the world, including the Irish HSE, during the Covid crisis. While I am not in a position to make allegations here, I do think though that the general public should be wary of these huge global corporations and the way they seem to be tied into so many states. As detailed in works like Confessions of an Economic Hitman, many of these groups can be covers for international intelligence agencies, particularly British and American.

Of the above eight religious bodies it seems the: Bon Secours have been blackmailed into contributing €12.97 and this has been accepted; Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, offered a contribution of a building; and the Sisters of St John of God, “offered a conditional donation of €75,000 to be used as a charitable donation towards a charitable purpose associated with mother and baby home survivors.” The other groups are holding the line, as are some of the before mentioned who are been harassed for more ‘voluntary contributions’.

In fact religious orders who received no criticism of any type in the Mother and Baby Home report, are nonetheless been harassed by this British company, as pointed out here by Sister Geraldine Fitzpatrick of the Sisters of St John of God:

“Our Sisters worked in a state-owned institution that provided care and a home for those who had no other options available to them. The facility was not a Mother and Baby Home, in the general understanding of same, but a “catch-all” home for those in society who had nowhere else to go.
The Commission’s report makes no criticism, express or by implication, of the involvement of our Sisters at Thomastown. Were such criticism intended, testimony would unquestionably have been sought for us by the Commission. As you may be aware, our Congregation was not invited to give evidence at the Commission.
There is no evidence that our Sisters acted in any untoward manner. On the contrary their work must have been regarded as satisfactory, such is the longevity of association between our Sisters and Thomastown, and the evident extent of the various public health inspection regimes.”(7)

I hope her following comments are reflective of the way the Religious Orders will fight this, and I wish the Bons Secours could have taken the same view:

“A contribution from this Congregation to the Payment Scheme would be a betrayal of the Sisters who worked in Thomastown under these hugely challenging conditions, within this regime, culture and environment, which was not of their making. I am not about to betray these Sisters, some of whom are still alive. I know from sources within the South Eastern Health Board (before the establishment of the HSE) that the last of our Sisters who held the post of Matron in Thomastown was a strong and tireless advocate for the improvement of facilities and conditions.”(8)

Now we know why the endless slanders against the Catholic Church which have characterised the Irish media and establishment for at least two generations now, have been ramped up enormously in recent months. If just a small fraction of those who ran Irish schools of the 1922-2022 period, have to pay retrospective ‘redress’, then we definitely are talking about the wholesale bankruptcy of Irish Catholic Religious Orders and even Dioceses. Personally I think nobody, least of all a sincere Catholic, should ever agree to cooperate with an Irish ‘Commission of Investigation’ in any way, because with its secrecy and lack of basic legal rights, it is the complete opposite of a public or proper inquiry.

by Brian Nugent, http://www.orwellianireland.com

Footnotes
1. Padraig McCarthy, Unheard Story: Dublin Archdiocese and the Murphy Report (Dublin, 2015), p.88.

2. https://www.bishop-accountability.o..._Sweeney_ACP_Commissions_of_Investigation.pdf , p.6.

3. https://associationofcatholicpriests.ie/bishop-dermot-o-mahony-r-i-p/ .

4. RTE Radio 1, 8 July 2025, https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22526504/ 5:23-6:45.

5. https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of...-mother-and-baby-institutions-payment-scheme/ .

6. Ibid.

7. Report on Negotiations with Religious Orders associated with the Mother and Baby Institutions payment scheme, pt III, p.322-3.

8. Ibid.

 

[clarke-connolly]

Maybe the Catholic Church need to get some balls ?

With Christian Nationalists ?

 

[Myles O'Reilly]

Bocht is a great writer and a very good advocate for the RCC.

I for one salute him