Rector's Letters
Please find below an archive of the Rector's Letters from this and previous months.
« Return to previous page.- 05/07/09 15:46
JULY
Dear Friends,
Sixty years ago, this summer, one of the most influential novels of the twentieth century, Nineteen Eighty-Four, was published. Twenty-five years have elapsed since the eponymous year. The novel by George Orwell focuses on a repressive totalitarian régime and follows the life of one seemingly insignificant man, Winston Smith, a civil servant, whose rebellion against the system leads to his arrest and torture. Since its publication, many of its ideas and terms, such as Big Brother, have become part and parcel of common speech. Peter Tyrell was eight when he was sent to the Letterfrack Industrial School in the twenties. He was the original whistleblower, whose terrible experiences were vindicated by the Ryan Report of the Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse, “It was a secret world run on fear” admitted one Christian Brother in his evidence to the Commission. “It was murder of the soul” said the author and Letterfrack inmate, Mannix Flynn. There is little doubt that the Christian witness in Ireland has been gravely discredited by the revelations of the Ryan Report. Amends need to be made and genuine forgiveness sought by Church and State. Churches like our own need to be aware of the damage done and the difficulties in being a credible witness to Christ to a broken people. Above all we need to be transparent in all our dealings: maybe only then, the Ryan Report and its likes will be consigned to the “ MEMORY HOLE” of oblivion.
Ferran