Thursday’s, May 21^st front page, left-hand column of The New York Times is the occasion for this column, which has been buried and resurrected more often these last couple of days than a New Year’s resolution. Its author is Sarah l. Lyall.

My reasoning for choosing this subject is that if she can bring herself to write about such heart-breaking crimes, we, the majority of us so far removed from them, can at least honor the memories of Christ’s most innocent of members, because that is precisely what He would do.

Beyond Christ’s miracles, there is the miracle of his life, as whole as the garment Mary made for him, bargained away on the throw of the dice at the foot of the cross.

It is that life, absolutely free of selfishness, or indifference to others’ pain, a life of infinite love, that persuades us Jesus is every bit as compassionate as Lyall toward the tens of thousands of Irish children who were sexually, and physically, and emotionally abused by nuns, priests and others over a period of sixty years in a network of church-run residential schools meant to care for the poor, the vulnerable, and the unwanted, according to a 2,000 word report released in Dublin on Wednesday.

Now, I would like to digress for a bit and consider other laity abused in this ever-growing circle, those who have gone on doing their tasks, unseen and unheralded – the bakers who arise every day to open their bakeries and have the rolls ready for the first customers on their way to first shifts of the day, or returning from the last of the night. They performed their tasks, put their contributions in the collection baskets, and trusted they would be used well.

Then, there are the millions of little people, who, over their lifetimes, have sent contributions to the missions near and far, people like my mother. All through the Depression and beyond, two dollars were saved from here and there, and as swiftly as they went out, begging letters and enclosed envelopes would be returned, and the ping-pong process would go on and on.

Yet, it was a one-way street. Not that one would expect contributions to Main Street, USA from a noodle factory in China receiving the $2.00 contributions, but there was never a single sentence of effort to bridge the gap between the one who gave and the one who received. I’m sure that was not the case with the grand contributions, but it certainly was in the case of those from the little people.

And I’ve often thought of the hurt of those little people over the plight of children who had been abused by those their $2.00 had supported.

We have cemeteries for those who have fought in wars; why not a cemetery of a different kind, a playground devoted in memory of those abused children everywhere. And a library to help build hopes in the minds and hearts of children today, for their brighter tomorrows?

A special statue at the entrance of the playground would be of a woman encased in an apron, baking bread, with an envelope and two dollars on the counter, in memory of the millions of women whose love of children across the pond prompted them to do without that other mothers’ children might enjoy a fine education in clean and inviting schools and orphanages.

A state-appointed commission took nine years to complete the report, in an attempt to force Ireland to face the injustices perpetrated and maintained, but there was no attempt to name the perpetrators, so the report is pretty much a toothless- tiger, except in so far as the door has been opened.

The leader of the Christian Brothers, had run many of the schools involved in the scandal, and then was successful in keeping the names of the abusers hidden.

The report stated, according to Lyall, that most of the abused children are now 50 to 80 years old; some 30,000 children were sent to such places over a period of six decades, often to their families ‘ objections , overruled by a powerful local priest.

Punishments often sounded more like those in a POW camp; the report states: “punching, flogging, assault and bodily attacks, hitting with the hand, kicking, ear pulling and hair pulling, hair shaving, beating on the soles of the feet, burning, scalding, stabbing, severe beatings, with or without clothes.

Some institutions were no more that workhouses. In one school, Goldenbridge, girls as young as 7 spent hours a day making rosaries by stringing beads onto lengths of wire and cutting it with pliers after each bead. They were given quotas: 600 beads on weekdays, and 900 on Sundays. Girls were often routinely sexually abused, reports Lyly.

Long after the last of the potato salad and hot-dogs have been consumed, and the final notes of “Taps” have closed our national holiday of celebration and family memories, parades and millions of crosses and flags placed on graves of loved ones and strangers alike, we nestle into the quiet peace of the present and pray for tomorrow, peace for all God’s children.

Lord, we beg of You to enlighten and strengthen our leaders in Rome and in Washington, that we may become people of peace. May we keep in mind this admonition:

Why was there violence in Gilead? Because they made what is primary secondary and what is secondary primary. How so? Because they loved their possessions more than their own children.

Midrash Tamnhuma, Mattot

Dear Friends,
None of us can do much, but we can make efforts to be kind, to forgive, and to be gentle with the most vulnerable among us. And let us remember the untold millions of priests, sisters, brothers, deacons, and laity, who have served children all over the world with overwhelming energy and love, and continue to do so this day.

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