Was writing 'A Magdalene Rose' a journey into anti-Catholicism?

A Book, an Author and the Temptation of Absolutes

As you may know, I am the author of A Magdalene Rose. It’s a book that draws on secrets and promises and the family experiences within Ireland’s Magdalene enterprise. It charts my journey across Ireland to discover hidden truths and to confront the apparatus and the rationale of actions that have rippled down the generations. For the first time in over 90 years, the invisibility of shame has been replaced by hard truths and to an extent, joy.

Because of those now evident truths, in the legal section of my book, I am required to place trigger notices about its content because it is sold across borders, part of which states:

“This book contains themes and content relating to historic gender biological (male & female) disadvantage, prejudice and detriment issues, along with critical content in belief systems”.

Whilst I have been privileged both through sales and direct engagement, that contact has revealed both joy, frustration, anger, personal revelations and questions.

A question that has been asked several times of me is whether the book is intended to be anti-Catholic, or whether the book represents any anti-Catholic prejudices I may hold.

To be ‘anti’ to an idea, organisation or a group of people reveals that you oppose or are against those elements. It could be argued that to be ‘anti’ of any such element(s) is either borne out of an environment experience, a generational belief, even a desire for revenge.

As I have explained to those questioners, my book is about truth, and within that truth, there exists the honesty of my reactions in the process of a 14 year journey.

But, as I explained, in the early stages of that journey, the sheer enormity of those revelations, the potential of lost love, connection and identity made me very angry with a system and those people who once facilitated the horrors committed against my family and many thousands like them.

But within that initial anger, I began to ask the question of ‘why’; why had this happened to my family members; what were the conditions that dictated those experiences; who were responsible; when was this commodity of cruelty created?

Once I started to examine these questions my focus shifted from anger towards curiosity. It became a curiosity that led me across the decades to reveal a powerful history of a Church and a embryonic State; both driven by fear, anticipation and ambition.

It is a Church history that was not taught in Catholic schools or Parishes and that perhaps remains the case today.

It became evident that the purity of the message of Christ had become replaced by dogma and the ambitions of social construction & political influence. There will be those of course who would argue that within these documents, the guidance given around societal construction and morality were based on the teachings of the gospels and the Word of God. That may have been the intentions of the authors of such documents, but the narrative and exclusions created therein suggested a strong desire for power, influence and dominance.

My family, like many others, didn’t stand a chance. Their fallibility as human beings was not rewarded by a Church or State through any compassion or practical help, only an abandonment.

The enormity of this new understanding brought me to the point beyond any anger, and into examining my own Catholicism.

The vast majority of Roman Catholics, become members of the Church by default – that is to say, family dynamics and tradition inducted individuals into a belief system and the obligations that flow from that membership; that is the category I sit within. There are also those who choose to be inducted into the Church because of a desire to be part of a belief system that is not familiar within their own family or social structure. At the time of joining the Catholic Church, all new members are baptised. Baptism means that you are either to be eventually or directly entitled to receive the Church’s sacraments (for example, communion, confirmation etc). A second qualifier arrives at the point you reach 7 years of age, when you are deemed by the Church to have acquired reason or reasoning abilities.

These two acts, baptism and the acquisition of reasoning binds you further into the Church through the obligation of following, and being bound by Canon Law – this obligation accompanies your other obligation, that being to the laws of the society within which you live. Canon Law is supported by the Catechism, which is if you like, a guide on to how to live as a Catholic within any given society. Such a guide was presented to me at confirmation, contained as it was within a small grey book, primarily providing me with guidance on Catholic spirituality.

As part of my search for the “why”, not only did I rediscover these sources of Catholicism, but I began to understand the extent that these two important documents influenced ordinary Catholics in their daily lives, but also how they lent themselves toward the ideal construction of a society.

As I have already indicated, those realisations led me to discover papal encyclicals from the mid-1800s and through into the 20^th Century which demonstrated a Church’s fear. A fear of losing control, railing against a secular society that was discovering the potential of democracy, human rights and personal liberty and socialism, all against a prevailing wind of anti-clericalism.

I have known many priests and nuns over many years and in my encounters with them, I discovered that many were deeply spiritual, working hard for their flock, and it is this very point, that has had current members of the Religious Orders, questioning whether or not so many good works, carried out for the benefit of the people were to be forgotten in the storm of Religious abuses and scandals?

Some highlighted the real benefits of a religious life, for example, in Ireland, where women entering religious life discovered a form of emancipation through education and service for a greater whole.

But the flip-side to those claims are the lesser-known claims of suffering by nuns, desperate to leave that life because of the control and cruelty exhibited to them; indeed, on this journey, I have even received information about present-day nuns who privately speak to their own decades-long suffering within their Orders, some believing that they may have wasted their lives.

I don’t believe that I have ever dismissed the good and charitable works of nuns and priests, but it is difficult to reconcile those expected actions from a religion when measured against a culture of cruelty and indifference; ironically, this is perhaps the struggle that present-day nuns are having to face as individuals?

So on this journey into a family history, you cannot avoid the elephant in the room, that being the “why” and the very organisation that was responsible. I instinctively felt the need to explore this history and the language and actions that accompany that history.

On that journey through past encyclicals and the laws of the Church, I believed that I might be able to detect the very direction or motivation either for good or malign works.

I was caught by the consistent use of the phrase ‘common good’, found within Canon Law (222), the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church & The Irish Constitution.

The ‘common good’ is defined within the Catechism as being:

“the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfilment more fully and more easily”.

Attached to that definition are what is described as the ‘common good’ 3 essential elements:

1. Respect for the person. Public Authorities should respect the “fundamental & inalienable” rights of individuals. People should be allowed to fulfil their vocation(s). To satisfy these obligations persons should be allowed to exercise natural freedoms so as to develop those vocations, such as, “the right to act according to a sound norm of conscience and to safeguard . . . privacy, and rightful freedom also in matters of religion”;

2. The requirement for “social well-being & development” of the society. Public Authorities should balance the needs of the members of that society in order that its members should, “[be able to access] what is needed to lead a truly human life: food, clothing, health, work, education and culture, suitable information, the right to establish a family, and so on”;

3. Peace, Stability & Security. This forms the basis of “the right to legitimate personal and collective defence”.

But another phrase discovered on my journey to understanding the “why” is ‘social justice’.

References to Social Justice can be found within Canon Law and within Papal Encyclicals, such as Pope Paul VI’s ‘Gaudium et Spes’, expressed through the lens of the “common good” (here is another commentary on the meaning of ‘Social Justice’ & the ‘common good’).

‘Social Justice’ is an interesting phrase but in general secular terms it can be defined as consisting of equal rights, opportunity and treatment. The quest for equality can be found through the inequalities created by politics and economics, the imbalance of a political or another social power or a combination of racial, sexual preference or gender issues, disability or on environmental issues (this list cannot be considered to be exhaustive).

In one article I found, a Catholic priest who wrote about how:

“Today, most people use the term to mean a progressive brand of political maneuvering by the state to equalize the distribution of goods and advantages in society. The concept of social justice is in fact a Catholic one, and it signifies something far removed from its contemporary meaning”. Despite his argument that Catholic Social Justice has a long tradition, he does appear to offer an interesting dismissal of collectivism within society!

The Religious Order of the Bon Secours in the USA advocate for ‘social justice’ by working for Environmental Health, addressing Violence & Advocating for Peace – committing themselves to “to address violence in all its forms”, supporting survivors and advocating for legislation against Human Trafficking and alleviating Human Displacement. Their mission statement provides that they will, “commit ourselves to defend and care for all of creation; to cry out with others against injustice and all that diminishes life on Earth”.

Another religious organisation, Network, reveals the strapline, ‘Advocate for Justice, Inspired by Catholic Sisters’, provides a list of Catholic Social Justice Principles, one of which states as an objective, to, “Uphold the dignity of each person as an equally valuable member of the human family”.

Another example of Catholicism seeking to deliver ‘social justice’ can be found in the USA’s Ministry Against the Death Penalty and the specific work of Sister Jean Prejean, where the emphasis is upon the dignity of the human person.

Then we should perhaps compare the language of two Catholic priests through the now infamous Kerry & Tuam homilies. In another more personal and memorable encounter with a nun, dismissal and ignorance featured strongly, as she believed that I was committing a sin against the Church by speaking to my family’s experiences.

The contrast between these three examples and a Church seeking to deliver ‘Social Justice’ for the ‘common good’, could not be any starker. It suggests a Church still struggling with its own history, supported by what appears to be the narrative of avoidance.

But as I realised, the Church speaks much about Human Dignity, a factor that is replicated amongst many of the world’s human rights instruments, surely this is the vehicle or concept by which a Church should govern itself, when they have been responsible for failing to deliver such Human Dignity? Against the narrative that ‘those were the times’, the responses to Ireland’s Institutional abuse scandals, fly in the face of a continent which from the mid-1800s, was alive with political debate on the structure and delivery of human rights.

So, in responding to the binary question of whether the book or myself are anti-Catholic, I have responded to others that neither hold such an anti-position. I have explained that to be anti-Catholic is to dismiss a belief system, without respect to the questioners own beliefs and practices, along with the very clear dismissal of the many men and women around the world who were not party to the events contained in my book but have been called to the religious life and live that life in service and compassion for their fellow man. It would also mean that I would be rejecting the very clear beliefs and the basis of the moral beliefs held by my mother and father.

But my journey into the heart of my discoveries is not yet complete; my book is the representation of lived experiences, discovered through engagement and the discovery of documentation, but even their stories are not yet fully revealed.

As a Catholic I stand within the maelstrom that is the Irish Scandal of its Mother and Baby Homes and Magdalen Laundries. The scandal has been unrelenting, not just on the direct victims and survivors, but also upon the indirect victims, those being the families of those directly affected. All have, to varying degrees, suffered from the indifference and reluctance of a Church & State who do not recognise that there is a need to be comprehensive in their responses to a reparatory justice and in particular, the delivery of ‘non-recurrence’.

The best example is found in the engagement I have with both Church & State authorities, existing as they do, in symbiosis through the raft of Institutional wrongs. The State delivers poor responses or only looking at their responsibilities through the myopic lens of the financial ‘common good’; this engagement exists within a continual dance of correspondence and complaints procedures.

The Church rests within the paucity of information shared and the denial of records or information they hold and perhaps the narrative of avoidance, either institutionally or personally. For three years I have requested meetings with religious orders in Ireland, to create a dialogue, a personal relationship, a shared reconciliation, to seek a resolution, a consensus; all such requests being ignored.

What is common between Church & State is the fact that both refer to the past as being the responsibility of those who preceded them; their concerns are for the future, crying out that their good works are forgotten by an Institutional advocacy and perhaps rage.

But in essence, the now personal and wider experiences of these engagements reveals the simple fact, that these Religious & State Institutions are the inheritors of the past; it is they who preserve the memory of their own past histories, they preserve the documentation of the past; they have by default, become reflectors and carriers of the voices of the past, that once delivered an invisibility to thousands of Irish Catholics and Irish Citizens. There is an ethical question of whether such present-day inheritors are equally culpable for past wrongs?

As I have pondered these conundrums and listened to the many dissonant voices that are truly anti-Catholic, I have examined my own engagement. I came to realise through my own experiences in other areas, that the only way to achieve progress and a consensus, is through direct engagement; that is why I have repeatedly requested to meet with the religious orders.

But I’ve also realised that I have a voice for the wider Church, because quite simply, if local voices are not listening or engaging, it is my duty as a Catholic to create a Public narrative that could bring about a change; in doing so I take my lead from the appointment of lay people into the Synod of Bishops and of course, Canon Law.

Under Canon 212.3, it is clear that I have the right to make known my, “opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church”.

Canon 222.2 obligates me to “promote social justice”.

As I reflect on the lack of justice shown to my own family, along with the journey I have taken to secure the truth, I feel obligated to engage, to listen, to speak to a better way, for if I don’t, the history of my own people and many more like them, their dignity and their identities will be lost in a sea maintained by the inheritors of the past, so creating an historical amnesia.

In return, a Church in continual crisis, with ever decreasing numbers subscribing to its message; with ever decreasing numbers of vocations, will never recover in developed nations who expect a new compact of respect for the society that has evolved.

Whilst the purity of message rests on the flip-side to a financial and diplomatic power, it cannot escape the fact that they have failed through Ireland’s Institutional scandals, to deliver upon the simple precept of human dignity, a dignity that transcends the generations.

As I see it, now is the time to start afresh and to find the mechanisms that not only acknowledge the past but to deliver present-day solutions, a ‘non-recurrence’, to so many outstanding Irish ‘social justice’ issues.

If anything, my journey has served to demonstrate that a narrow-minded view or opinion of an Institution has no role to play in the aspirations of human life. As I move forward, it will indeed be interesting to see how open the doors are to a reconciliation.

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