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Thread #125363   Message #2775625
Posted By: Jim Carroll
28-Nov-09 - 01:34 PM
Thread Name: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)
Subject: BS: Suffer The Little Children....
The events in Ireland over the last few days seem to have passed the rest of the world by (or maybe they hasve been filed under the category 'The love that dare not speak its name').
Following on from the Ryan report on child abuse, the Govenment has just released the results of the Murphy Enquiry into abuse in the Diocease of Dublin.
The report states that not only have clerics been raping and sexually and physically abusing children placed in their care routinely and on a huge scale for over thirty years, but their crimes have been systematically and deliberately covered up by the heirarchy of the church over the periods of office of 4 archbishops.
Priests observed to be a risk to children have been moved on to other parishes to 'carry on the work of god' and their crimes have been spiritually excused from being a sin by the inventing of the state of 'mental reservations' for the perpetrators.   
Complaints of abuse have been ignored by government authorities and by the the police, who quite often reported them back to the diocese.
Reports of abuse sent to The Vatican were ignored under the excuse that they should have been submitted "via the correct diplomatic channels".
Surely it's about time that these criminals and their accomplices were prosecuted for their crimes.
And isn't it about time that the church - any church - be barred from holding any position of authority other than that of giving religious guidance to those who wish to receive it.
Jim Carroll

---

I received the following from a friend in Ireland:

The current bishop of Limerick, who was heavily criticised in the recent Dublin child abuse report for his actions as an auxiliary bishop in Dublin, has gone to Rome to offer his resignation. It is likely there will be more.

My response to him:

I'm still puzzled by all this - and I think a lot of very active
Catholics (including priests and nuns) are puzzled by all the deceit
in the upper ranks. These cover-ups seemed to have happened even in
dioceses where the bishops were pretty good guys.

I keep trying to think up theories - here's one I thought of tonight:
in all the dioceses where I've been involved in the Catholic Church,
the least-likable priests are the ones who get the jobs "downtown" in
the bishop's office. Some are downright creepy. They get those jobs
because they aren't suited for parish work, and then the few normal
people "downtown" leave because they can't stand working with the
creepy ones. So, in most places I've seen, the priests in the parishes
hate the people in the bishops' offices - and many of those creepy
functionaries become auxiliary bishops and sometimes even heads of
dioceses. They get promoted out of parish work because they can't hack
it in day-to-day contact with real human beings.

My Irish friend also said it appears the current Archbishop (Martin) is acting as the Pope's enforcer on this one.
I get the impression that Pope Benedict has sent out several new bishops of unquestioned integrity, starting with O'Malley in Boston, to set things straight in dioceses where things have been sick for a long time. I didn't like John Paul II (and my Irish-born pastor agrees with me), and I get a lot of flak from Catholics who saw him as saintly, but I think he appointed a lot of oppressive bishops who made this problem far worse than it should have been. I think Benedict is taking the problem seriously.

So, let's carry on, and see if we can keep the personal squabbles out of this thread.

-Joe-