Spotlight: The Magdalene Sisters Controversy Revisited

Fundamentally, my view of the film, and my objections to it, haven’t changed, but judging from reader response it would seem my attempts to express my view in a way that makes sense to those who take a different view have failed. My critique of, say, The Last Temptation of Christ has gotten appreciative responses from those who admire the film. I’ve gotten appreciative responses to my Magdalene Sisters essay too, but never, so far as I can remember, from admirers of the film. That may not be proof of failure, but it’s a striking commentary nonetheless.

Perhaps the task was doomed to failure. Perhaps outrage on the subject is just too hot for any kind of critical response to the film. I doubt it. I don’t want to give myself an easy out. Instead, I’ve taken one more shot at it, in an addendum to the original essay.

I’ve been thinking about doing this for awhile, partly in light of the 2009 Ryan report on abuse in Irish institutions for children. I thought of it again after Pope Benedict’s pastoral letter on Irish child abuse — and a March 2010 editorial response to Pope Benedict’s letter from, of all people, Sinéad O’Connor. (My essay addendum mentions all these factors.)

More recently, I happened across a critical online response to my essay. At first I was going to include some comments about that essay in this Spotlight post, but my response got too cumbersome, so I wound up spinning them off into another blog post.

The Magdalene Sisters Controversy Revisited