By Thomas Hegarty
Irish Catholics warned to brace themselves as Lent approaches. It is now customary for RTE and the government on the run up to Catholic liturgical dates, to broadcast documentaries and release reports that attempt to portray Catholics in a poor light. When Catherine Zappone was in the Irish government, her department would always release an interim report on the mother and baby commission on Easter week.
This practice stopped after the commission found no evidence of babies being “dumbed in septic tanks in Tuam or no evidence that babies were ever sold to rich US couples by nuns.
This year, at the start of Lent, RTE will broadcast a documentary on the women in the Magdalene Laundries. We’ll soon see how RTE approach this difficult story.
The timing of its release has us wondering if it will be fair to Catholics, the Irish State and Irish Society in general.
For the women who were in these laundries, they deserve to have their voices heard and their stories told. But is RTE capable of presenting the topic in an unbiased way? We will have to wait and see. Their track record is poor in this regard.
Note for overseas readers: RTE is the propaganda arm of the anti Catholic Irish government