Christian Brothers dismayed at secret report and Archbishop

Dr Diarmuid Martin, The Archbishop of Dublin, has come under fire from the Christian Brothers, over his decision to publish a report on conditions at the Artane industrial school, compiled 45 years ago.
The report shows that at least one priest, the secret report compiler were trying to change things, and had the boys welfare at heart.
The Christian Brothers said they were "shocked and dismayed" at the decision of Dr Martin to release a 1962 Church report into the conditions at the school which is the subject of an inquiry by the Ryan Commission on Child Abuse.
The report, compiled by Artane's then chaplain, Fr Henry Moore, followed a request from his Archbishop, John Charles McQuaid, to conduct a "confidential survey" on the management of the Artane school. Fr Henry Moore's report dealt with general care, diet, clothing, discipline and education of the 450 Irish boys who were resident at the school at the time.
In the shocking report Fr Henry Moore wrote, 'that while the boys were reasonably well fed, discipline was rigid and severe and frequently approaches pure regimentation. Constant recourse to physical punishment breeds undue fear and anxiety. The personality of the boy is inevi-tably repressed, maladjusted and in some cases abnormal'.
Archbishop Martin's decision to make Fr Moore's report public following repeated requests from the Survivors of Child Abuse organisation (SOCA), has angered the Christian Brothers.
In a lengthy statement, the Brothers said Dr Martin's decision to release the controversial 1962 survey was "unconscionable."

This latest development is a continuation of the investigation into the alleged systematic abuse of Irish children inside the care system of the time.

Irish journalist Fintan O'Toole has articulated the view held by many that Irish society has for too long ignored its mistreatment of children.
One of the first tasks of this society in the new millennium will be listening to the survivors of the industrial schools in the Commission to Inquire into Childhood Abuse. Historians have to develop a language for discussing 20th-century Ireland in which words like "slavery", "concentration camp" and "torture" are not exotic imports but belong in the vernacular.

Others--including former inhabitants of industrial schools, educators, and social historians--respond that critics like O'Toole overstate the case in an attempt to discredit the Catholic church. In a letter to the Irish Times, Ray O'Donoghue presents a personal, opposing view of life in an industrial school.
Oh yes, there were a few nasty Brothers and I had a few bad experiences and was constantly hungry, but on the whole I feel that my time (at St. Joseph's Industrial School in Glin, Co. Limerick) was very positive and that I owe most of what I have achieved in my life to being in Glin. If I had not been sent there I feel I would have turned into a criminal, because that was my ambition before I was sent to Glin.

The coexistence of such seemingly irreconcilable statements in the pages of the Irish Times hints at the profound levels of shame, confusion, anger, and shock evoked in Irish society by the most recent revelations of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse in industrial schools.

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Christian Brothers dismayed at secret report and Archbishop