Letters and Articles:

As a father involved in a family separation crisis, I have been through the well-worn mill of the FAMILY LAW process and all of the associated support mechanisms. This opening sentence is probably not at all what the reader might imagine at first glance, as it might suggest that support mechanisms are in place to sustain a family through the horrors of family break-up.

Instead, this sentence refers to how the Family Law Practitioners and the State support themselves with quasi-helpful agencies such as; the Health Boards, the family mediation services and a huge array of state-funded feminist support groups that seem to exist to ensure the opposite of 'support' - in reality they facilitate the destruction of the family.

Surely I do not need to explain how the established gender biased processes work as the end result of their effectiveness has by now probably touched most family groups in Ireland, with single-parent families, largely controlled by a lone mother, steadily becoming the norm. The reality of the now accepted destruction of society with its seemingly unstoppable upsurge in street violence, theft and social/political corruption now a common focus when people stop to converse.

I am a practicing Catholic living in my family home with my older children who have taken their right to decide to live in their home with me. My two younger children are prevented from having a normal healthy relationship with their older brother and sisters, by the actions of the family law industry, were stolen from their home against their wishes, against my wishes, against their siblings wishes, against two separately documented psychiatric counselor reports and against our family doctors expressed concerns. To this end, they were fed through a woman's refuge, which acted to provide legitimacy to their abduction.

I have worked closely with the people whose families have been affected by this form of social cancer to try to understand what is going wrong, why it might be happening and to try to figure a cure to purge our lives from this legalised and divisive rottenness. By this experience I am forced to conclude that the destruction of ordinary family life is the fundamental objective that is spinning vast quantities of wealth towards groups who have as their ideology the destruction of marriage and the family so formed ­ an industry that has rendered itself almost invisible in similar fashion to what most malignant diseases do as they weave their way through the life blood of its victims.

The facts are abundantly clear. The Family Law Courts are hidden from public scrutiny. The results are also hidden, not just at personal levels where it could be suggested that public viewing of such cases could potentially have a negative affect on individual family members but with more sinister repercussions, where at general level when no one, not even government officials, are allowed to quantify the depth and depravity of the destruction being inflicted on our basic and decent family life.

The Health Boards do not publish statistics on the human casualties, although the pain suffered is widespread and well known. The mediation services do not publish how many families have been reconciled or have been assisted asunder. 'Victims are left without voices with many choosing suicide as their last scream for help. Suicide figures are not published with an endless mire of unanswered deaths enshrouding the sufferers.

If you think this is too graphic a description then ask yourself, what facts are you aware of, through general public channels, to help you understand why even one individual choose not to continue with their life?

That Domestic Violence is an ever-increasing factor in our society is indisputable, but through devious and strategic propaganda, the general public now believes that whenever there is violence in the home that 'wicked-cowardly-despicable-husbands' are always the cause.

In fact, the term 'Domestic Violence' covers a multitude; the most common form is abuse perpetrated against children by a parent - I'm sad to say overwhelmingly by mothers. Other forms are inter-sibling violence, Sibling to Parent violence, Cohabiting Couples Violence, Gay-partner Violence, Lesbian Partner Violence (which by the way is the greatest percentage of all known domestic violence) and Married Partners Violence.

What is even more interesting is that in 2000, the Department of Health published a Report which found that married couple violence is shared at about 50-50 between the sexes but also that it amounts to only 3% of all Domestic Violence. This actually means, contrary to the prevalent propaganda where husbands (ie married men) are portrayed as the guilty ones, the truth is that the safest relationship for any woman to be in (as we all knew anyway) is within a marriage.

It would be possible to continue to discuss the lunacy of the destruction of what is supposed to be our Constitutionally protected family life but that fact needs no further recognition. Instead, we could consider that it is reasonable to believe that the monogamous family was perfectly selected through the eons of time as the only possible way for humanity to live together in any form of contentment or happiness. This belief is also the stated core of Christianity with Catholicism being the most prevalent doctrine being recognized by the Irish State and it's Constitution as the most basic and fundamental governance. By this most elementary publication, we, the citizens of this holy Christian state, acknowledge the Christian belief of the 'Holy Family' in the opening sentence of our Constitution where it says;

"In the name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred",: and

"The State shall not impose any disabilities or make any discrimination on the grounds of religious profession, belief or status". Article 44.3

The inviolability of the family is further enshrined in Article 41.1 where it states;

"The State recognises the Family as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society, and as a moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law".

This position concurs exactly with the expressed teachings of the Catholic Church. In a publication published to endorse the value and natural bond of marriage and under the heading of 'The Nature of Marriage and its Inalienable Characteristics', the Catholic Church has promoted its firm conviction by saying:

"The marital union of man and woman has been elevated by Christ to the dignity of a Sacrament. The Church teaches that Christian marriage is an efficacious sign of the covenant between Christ and the Church (cf. Eph 5:32). This Christian meaning of marriage, far from diminishing the profoundly human value of the marital union between man and woman, confirms and strengthens it (cf. Mt 19:3-12; Mk 10:6-9)".

With this in mind, I made contact with Fr. Frank Buckley who represents the Catholic Church in family matters in the diocese of Cork. During our meeting I explained that my family was being destroyed and that my children had been separated from each other through the administration of the law but I carefully defined my visit to him as being outside that legal forum and within the confines of my Catholic beliefs.

I emphasised my desire for my children to be raised within those substantial ideals. He openly expressed a lack of knowledge in family law and at that part of the conversation, I offered my understandings, based on established Irish legal precedent, of a custodian's legal right to have meaningful involvement with the religious and moral, intellectual, physical and social education of the children, in accordance with article 42.1 of the Irish Constitution. He accepted the correctness of such a proposition. Again, I emphasise that although our conversation had at times drifted towards legal understandings, my visit to him was entirely on a religious theme and my Catholic perspective.

I explained that my 12-year-old child was just about to make her Confirmation and that based on conversations with her during her fortnightly visits to her family home that I perceived her complete lack of understanding of what Catholicism was about. I was left with no other option but to believe that I could see that she was only being educated in religious facts and not in religious or moral understandings. When I asked her, she confirmed that she had not the faintest idea of what the difference was between Baptism and Confirmation. I informed him that I had spoken to my parish priest on the findings of a recent church attendance survey that confirmed yet another shocking decrease in Mass attendances by young people. This evaluation also confirmed that Church congregations were practically devoid of family groups. Fr. Buckley easily agreed.

I spoke about my belief in the family's attendance at Mass as a normal part of our lives and how my children accepted this as it has been this way since their infancy. I further explained the encouragement I now felt from their willingness and desire to continue this now established religious practice. I continued to explain that the removal of my two youngest children from their Catholic school, again without my consent, was acting to destroy their understanding of what I saw as a hugely important part of their moral and religious nurturing. I also explained how this was in contradiction to our Constitution and to the Law of the land.

To explain my understandings of this fact I drew his attention to the Irish legal precedents set in the Kindersley case where a father had established his right to decide the school for his children's religious education. I then briefly described the Tilson case where it was established that a given parent could not remove their siblings from their original unanimous choice of religious education establishment because they had separated or divorced. I told him that behind the closed doors of 'In camera-law' that I had been illegally prevented from my legal rights and desire to have my children's Catholic education maintained to my expectations.

I cited some examples to confirm my beliefs. In their current 'Multi Denominational' school, my children were expected to attend for classes on 'Holy days of obligation' as opposed to what would have happened had they continued to attend their Catholic school. My daughter has advised me also that they are not supposed to talk about such Christian themes as 'Christmas' as it involved the name of Christ and could be said to be offensive to other participants in their classroom. I was shocked to hear her say that the extent of her religious education has been where the teacher would leave them to colour pictures of Christ on their own while members of other denominations could simultaneously colour- in what ever they chose. In answer to his suggestion that I should talk to the school management, I informed him of the unsympathetic way that the school principal had previously addressed my concerns.

I explained that I am now left without a remedy to salvage my children's Catholicism. I felt that it was therefore reasonable to ask the Church for support, as the Church has continuously demanded the participation of the Catholic laity while explaining that the clergy were but servants at the hands of Christ.

Fr. Buckley refused. I asked him what he would consider Christ would do with such a request? His answer was quite succinct and by his own definition well practiced. He said that he must have been asked this question over 50 times throughout his career. He said; "I am not Christ and so I do not know what he would do".

This of course promotes the obvious question. What so is he doing in such a powerful position, representing the Catholic ideology of Christ's Church on earth? He was most expressive in his opinion; that mine was a 'Family Law' matter and had no role for the church to play. He referred to the Baptismal rite and repeated the words used at that ceremony where the parents and godparents accepted the Catholic upbringing of the baptised ones on their own. I told him that I understood differently. My Catholic belief tells me that God had sent his only Son to earth to convert mankind and that the work in-hand was in doing just that. I said that Baptism was just the end-result to confirm that active promotion of the Catholic ethos had borne fruit. That the role of the Church was therefore in causing the converts in compliance with Peter's directives to build this church and to go forth into many lands and bring the Good-News to it's peoples.

To further explain the document that I had brought to Fr Buckley's attention, the Sovereign Pontiff John Paul II, in the Audience of March 28, 2003, approved it's Considerations and according to what I had read, those Considerations were adopted in the Ordinary Session of the Congregation, and the Pope ordered their publication. The sole purpose was to defend God's sacrament of Marriage from attack by reiterating its importance and status within the Church. Ie:

"The present Considerations do not contain new doctrinal elements; they seek rather to reiterate the essential points on this question and provide arguments drawn from reason which could be used by Bishops in preparing more specific interventions, appropriate to the different situations throughout the world, aimed at protecting and promoting the dignity of marriage, the foundation of the family, and the stability of society, of which this institution is a constitutive element.
The present Considerations are also intended to give direction to Catholic politicians by indicating the approaches to proposed legislation in this area, which would be consistent with Christian conscience. Since this question relates to the natural moral law, the arguments that follow are addressed not only to those who believe in Christ, but to all persons committed to promoting and defending the common good of society".

Fr. Buckley vigorously disagreed and said that the document in question was merely a 'guideline' and felt that it did not originate from the Pope himself and therefore the Considerations were only the opinions of some lower ranking church officials. He became most agitated when I offered him a copy of the document with the relevant paragraphs that I had quoted from, where I had read and understood that for Catholics to not defend my family's right to be involved with the Catholic religion "would also obscure basic values, which belong to the common inheritance of humanity. The Church cannot fail to defend these values, for the good of men and women and for the good of society itself".

He refused to accept the copy that I had purposely brought for his attention until I finally stated that if he did not accept it that I would send it to him by registered post anyway. With great reluctance he did eventually accept the document and then terminated the meeting which, to be fair to him, had gone on for more than we originally envisaged it would. The end decision being that; he would not be involving himself or the Catholic Church in any support of my wishes to have my children educated in a Catholic school as is my denied legal right and religious obligation. He said it was just a Family Law matter. He is wrong or else, the Irish Constitution is wrong, my religious / parental mandate is wrong and the Pope is wrong!

I felt that having spoken to him that Fr. Buckley considered his position to be on the sideline and not at all in leadership directing his flock in the path of Christian righteousness. Fr. Buckley confirmed this stance by only offering a suggestion on a legal tactic that would direct me away from the open support of my church to f ace my children's religious oppressors alone.

My conversation with this particular representative of my chosen church's policy left me deeply hurt and bewildered. Fr. Buckley is obviously a most learned man and perhaps he is right, but if he is then I do not belong to his church. I will instead continue to believe in a Church where it is said "Suffer little children who come onto Me - for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven", and I deeply understand and totally believe in confronting wrong when it affects my neighbour and even more so when it affects my children.

The prayer "Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven" is not lost in my belief. That Christ and Christian convictions seem to be losing just now is even more reason to stand 'In battle array' and it is certainly not an exaggeration to say that our time to be Christians is NOW, as our forefathers did, so that our children will know how to continue to cause that Kingdom to come.

Harry Rea

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