Christian Brothers

I went to a Christian Brothers school and I hated them with a vengance. I saw kids physically and psychologically abused; belittled, destroyed by fat-chinned men with crucifixes round their necks. I hated them and I fought back until they kicked me out of religion classes. It took me 25 years to realise that it was probably only my middle-class background that protected me from the much more severe treatment that was daily meted out to other kids.

It amazes me that Irish people continue to attend Mass; to have their marriages sanctified, their children baptised, and their dead buried by priests of the Catholic Church. As long as the Church and religious orders continue protect the members of their order, those whom they well know are guilty of terrible crimes, from justice, the institutions themselves remain guilty as a whole.