There will be a national enquiry into the grooming gangs

[inkognitha]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jun/14/keir-starmer-national-inquiry-grooming-gangs

Posting here for traffic

YABU: this was unnecessary
YANBU: this was the right thing to do

You must be absolutely living under a rock — or you’ve not been to Ireland recently — because I can tell you, as an Irish Catholic, that what you’re saying is absolutely not the case.

The idea that Catholics have stayed silent about the Church’s abuse scandals is just wrong. For years now, it’s been talked about openly — in the media, in families, in schools, and in the streets. Survivors have shared their stories. People have protested. Priests have spoken out. Some people have left the Church completely over it. Others have stayed and demanded accountability from within.

My own grandmother was a midwife in Ireland in the 1950s and 60s. She wasn’t allowed to visit the girls in the mother-and-baby homes or laundries — hardly anyone was — but she was well aware of what was happening. Everyone was. And she was absolutely horrified. But the truth is, people didn’t feel like they could do anything. The Church had too much power back then. Challenging it could cost you your livelihood and your place in the community. That doesn’t mean they supported what was happening — it means they were scared. That’s what systemic control looks like.

And by the way, the Church has apologised. Multiple times. Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis all issued public apologies for the abuse and cover-ups. Pope Francis even addressed it directly when he visited Ireland in 2018. These weren’t offhand remarks — they were formal, direct acknowledgements of deep wrongdoing.

There have also been state investigations and reports — like the Ryan Report, the Murphy Report, and the Mother and Baby Homes Commission — all exposing horrific abuse and cover-ups, and many driven by survivors and their supporters, many of whom are Catholics themselves. So no — Catholics haven’t been quiet. The reckoning has happened, and it’s still happening.

Thank you. That’s my experience too.
And it will takes generations for the healing - there’s no easy way to process the grief and suffering. It’s been catastrophically damaging.

If I'm hopeful at all it's a very cautious version, ThePhantom

In one sense it's encouraging that so many want another inquiry, but no matter what it says I see no reason to suppose the outcome will be different to that bellyaching, diluting and minimising you mentioned and whiich we've seen so much of on here

Remember too that, while no party have covered themselves in glory over this, it's Labour who've been in charge of the areas where the atrocities have been most prevalent, and Labour who'll now get to decide who runs a new inquiry - and I'm quite sure they'll choose someeone who aligns with their own interests

Edited to add no probs over the Pollyanna thing ... I got the gist anyway

I share your worries. Done properly, this inquiry will be incredibly damaging for Labour. I'm struggling to trust them. I suppose all we can do is hope.

I agree! Nothing stopping people if they want a thread on something specific not general.

A discussion can take place I welcome it. When I said wanted one that person ran away.

“Labour who'll now get to decide who runs a new inquiry - and I'm quite sure they'll choose someone who aligns with their own interests”

Yes - that’s true . But they would be taking a big gamble if they try to cover up this time.
If they do that they really would be risking social unrest.

They've painted themselves into a corner. When you've spent years calling anyone who highlights this issue racist, it's difficult to walk back. How do you say "Oops, we made a mistake" when the stakes are so high?

Yes, I'm not sure they'll want to risk riots by trying to extend the cover-up. I wouldn't put it past them, though. They may think they can just stick their heads in the sand and it'll all eventually disappear.

@Barr77

I agree that its not true that Catholics/priests have not spoken out on this but it is historically recent. Its also true that as recently as the The McAleese report there was significant pushback both from religious and laity insisting it was all anti Catholic bigotry.

I’m a 60s born baby and I remember families sending daughters to England because the alternative was one of the horrific mother and baby homes where the baby was removed and given to a naice MC Catholic familly (resulting in a generous donation). There was still huge social pressure from ordinary friends and neighbours, long after girls in England had started to keep their babies.

But mainly do you not see the problem with this paragraph?

My own grandmother was a midwife in Ireland in the 1950s and 60s. She wasn’t allowed to visit the girls in the mother-and-baby homes or laundries — hardly anyone was — but she was well aware of what was happening. Everyone was. And she was absolutely horrified. But the truth is, people didn’t feel like they could do anything. The Church had too much power back then. Challenging it could cost you your livelihood and your place in the community. That doesn’t mean they supported what was happening — it means they were scared. That’s what systemic control looks like.

This suggests that everyone found it shocking and really wanted to do something but couldn’t.

Like every other abuse scandal it wasn’t just the good people wringing their hands. People made a choice to protect their own position because the girls were not important and some actively used the laundries to exercise their own grievances - my own WC Great Grandmother was a victim of this. It wasn’t the priest or even the Garda who reported her for “low morals”. It was the family of a boy she rejected (she was actually married but an “outsider” and even worse, a foreigner).

That was in Dublin, she escaped only because her mother was able to get her on a boat to England and told her never to come back for her own safety. Had she been somewhere more rural she would likely have died in the laundries at that time. She never went back, she begged her children never to go back either and none of them did. It scarred her for her entire life.

That wasn’t helpless good people wringing their hands in horror at the Church - it was ordinary people abusing the rules for personal gain or vindictiveness whilst their good peers looked the other way. Its the story of every outbreak of abuse and control be it gangs, social institutions or wholesale political movements like Nazism or Stalinism or the witchhunts.

It is really, really important that when we look at these events we do not present ourselves as good but helpless but focus on understanding why we as individuals failed to take action or even exploited the situation. It is why we have to assume it could easily be us failing or exploiting and these situations will happen again. Looking the other way for personal benefit in a church setting was still happening when my 90s born children were school age.

In context of the grooming gangs here- yes the specific cultural aspects about the Mipuri ethnic gangs matter - but they matter to investigating those specific gangs, just like the cultural specifics matter when dealing with other gangs of any ethnicity. Its equally important to understand the common patterns which apply to all grooming/trafficking gangs, the failings of the MC professionals who refused to act and the community members who failed to challenge.

The common feature in Rotherham, as with every other gang was not the girls’ whiteness and to repeat that claim (as has happened on this thread) is to deny the experience of all the Mipuri, SIkh, Hindu and other victims.

The common features are the vulnerability of the girls, professionals who simply don’t care about them or value them and the peers who look the other way. Even where the girls had a family member to speak for them the police, the social workers, the schools and the politicians told them to sod off and refused to help.

I’d wager a sizeable amount that the nurse upthread told in training that abuse was to be ignored in Mipuri families because it was “cultural” was told that by MC professionals, just as my mother’s friend was told the same
in 50s London about WC victims of abuse.

Lets face it, there are still professionals who will insist that child marriage and FGM are acceptable where its “cultural”.

It is however much easier to identify a “them” (which when I was young in England was ethnic Irish Catholics) and carry on our merry way.

I’m a 60’s born baby too and I agree with a lot of this . Of course some ordinary people “turned a blind eye” but it depends what type of abuse we’re talking about.

There were different victims.
The ( mainly working class) victims of the institutionalised violence and abuse of the laundries and industrial schools / boys homes -

I agree that ordinary people often colluded in that system . Families sent their daughters to laundries to avoid the “shame” .

Then there is the sexual abuse of the clergy who targeted individuals - this was more hidden. I think the Laity were kept in the dark . The church covered up for years

Its all utterly horrific

I do agree that all the causal / contributing factors need to be acknowledged if there is to be progress.