BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2

Subject: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 11:42 AM

From the previous thread (click):

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-

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 01:38 PM

It is probably worth noting that Dónal Murray, the bishop of Limerick, in his response to the publication of the Murphy report stated he, in his own mind, had done nothing wrong and saw no reason to tender his resignation.

A campaign of support mounted by priests and lay people from his diocese was mounted immediately. It soon became clear though that he would be the one to bear the brunt of the reaction to the report, scapegoat was used by some commentators(not correctly I would think, his actions in the handling of one case were described in the report as 'inexcusable'). It would be sad though if his head was the only one to roll, out of all responsible for the cover ups.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: caitlin rua
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 04:44 PM

Joe, it's not just the upper ranks. It permeates right through all levels of the hierarchy here. Those upper ranks are simply the visible echelon who possess the power to cover things up, perpetrate the spin, re-locate the offenders. Etc. That whole "rank" question is a side-road.

This or that Bishop of Wherever is not the vital issue, and if only his head rolls, it will let a lot of others off the chopping block. The rot goes way deeper - and it's not rooted in being Irish, or being Catholic, but in good old (or bad old) human nature. To excuse one sector while faulting the other is to utterly miss the point. It's about a forceful network linking arms and looking after its own when the need arises. With all this focus on Bishops (I mean their focus, Joe, not yours), the "S" word that comes to my mind is not scapegoat but smokescreen.

You wrote in a previous post:   

During my tour of Ireland several years ago, I was struck by the severity of Irish Catholicism. We American Catholics are generally a pretty happy bunch (and not prone to blind obedience), but the Catholic Church seemed dour and dreary and rigid in Ireland. I have to admit that it did not seem like a healthy or joyful atmosphere. "Authority" and "obedience" were terms that seemed to fit well into the Irish Catholic Church.

It comes down to one thing. TOO MUCH POWER. And it did what power is famously said to do. It's easy not to be "prone to blind obedience" when you have some choices. Not so easy when you're under a virtual dictatorship with nowhere to go, or enough money. That's how it was here for most of the 20th century, until things loosened up economically and socially in the middle 90s.

In America you have several mainstream religions, and many alternative ones, influencing the national consciousness, and simply by their numbers these serve to balance each other out and give variety to people's thinking, because from the start not everyone believes the same things. A friend from California tells me her class at school (in the mid 1950s) had a healthy mix of Jewish kids, Protestants kids of every stripe, Catholic kids, plus a Buddhist and a Hindu (who were accepted by the others perfectly well). This HAS to make a difference to the way human minds develop, which in turn affects how societies develop.

Here, until very recently, the overwhelming majority of the population has been Catholic. And white. Those few who weren't Catholic and white were Protestant and white, or Jewish and white. And the Church had a stranglehold not only on people's spiritual life but also their children's education; because for much of the 20th century the impoverished State could not afford to compete with the Church (even if it had wanted to, which it didn't) in the field of learning. Throughout childhood our young were emotionally blackmailed with guilt and damnation and You'll-Go-to-Hell-If... for some of the simplest, most natural desires and pleasures. From an early age they were trained to think and do as they're told to think and do, or else. Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man. No kidding.

Because there WAS no other significant religious authority in Ireland, it meant the Church had the field all to itself, plus an unconscionable amount of power over people's minds in non-spiritual matters as well (not to mention financial resources beyond the reach of the ordinary parishioner). The populace was cowed into having large families they couldn't hope to support or house (with women's bodies and spirits worn out before middle age) to keep up the numbers of the obeying flock; or travelling any distance and terrain to get to Mass because to miss it was a mortal sin, right up there with murder. A friend's parents walked to church (few people could afford cars then) a 16-mile round trip, in rural Donegal, in winter. He tells me that what he remembers is not the doctrinal teaching, but the exhaustion on his mother's and father's faces.

There also was not at that time the constitutional separation between Church and State that there always should be, where the two keep each other in check rather than colluding in a too-mighty alliance. With the government and religion in close co-operation, there was quite simply nothing else on the horizon that had any force to act effectively. Without power, you cannot challenge. You can only suffer the consequences of displeasing the tyrant.   


MichaelR made a good point, which I heartily agree with, and so do many people here: LET THE CLERGY MARRY and allow them a healthy and permitted outlet for their sexual energies. Those energies are not going to go away if you try to stifle them, they just become warped and twisted. Which is precisely what happened. No one had sufficient strength to go against the organisation, so it simply closed ranks and moved the offenders to do it again in pastures new.

Guest from Sanity replied to MichaelR (in part):

michaelr: "I'd like someone in this discussion to address the point I made a while ago:
celibacy is at the root of the problem . . ."

Okay, I'll address it.

1. If you're horney you can always jerk off!
2. If you find a cute nun, you can do it discreetly,, which some do.
3. If you can't find a cute nun, and want to keep it discrete, and in the church, find an ugly one.
4. If you go without the clergy garb, you can find someone in a bar.
5. You can commit adultery with a parishioner.
6. All of the above, are a cure for celibacy.
7. You can find another priest or young boy, and do homosexual things with them.

But apart from No. 1 (and for some, this includes No. 1), the above all mean that you have to break some vow or rule or taboo, therefore you are doing Wrong as well as having to live a lie. Those are not healthy choices. If a vow can be tossed aside whenever convenient, what value has it? If it has no value, why bother with it at all?

You don't want the most powerful players in your community - the clergy - to be tormented by guilt-inducing hormonal drives, because those will find an outlet, one way or the other, and be kept hidden ever after in soul-rotting deceit. And they're the ones who swing the weight in society, not you. Thank God (literally) that times are better now, our children freer.

Nos. 2-5 can also leave some very real consequences in their wake, such as illegitimate children - who until recently were sentenced to a horrible and hellish life. (The Magdalen Laundries and industrial schools need a chapter of their own in this shameful story.)

The evil of child-rape exists in every society. But here it grew monstrous, nourished by secrecy; and if some viable alternatives or rights of protest been available to the general citizenry, I believe it would not have been so widespread, or so locked in hypocrisy. It boiled down to - as it always does - Because We Can.

Jim's post does not exaggerate. And I fully echo his closing sentence.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 05:45 PM

The same problems have been found in the United States and Canada as well.

Adding to Caitlin rua's list-
Hire a willing female caretaker or cook-housekeeper. I remember that there were a number of jokes about this.

When I was in high school in Santa Fe, which is the seat of an archdiocese, there were a group of Belgian young men there, priests in training. Some would jump the fence at night and join us, both Catholic and Protestant (or heathen) at our immature revels. Many gallons of the cheap (at that time) Gallo red wine, and the occasional 'bad' girl, were consumed. Very little of the latter, however, but much boastful talk.

I agree, for normally sexed humans, celibacy is not natural.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 07:04 PM

I'd like to thank Joe for restarting this discussion and offer my apologies for my part in its previous downfall, which I promise was not intended.

Joe - these Bishops of whom you speak - is it possible that some of them may have been abusers and promoted from the priesthood as a way of preventing them? Could this have had a knock-on effect at higher levels over the years?

Interesting points about celibacy above, and I can see how it could easily be a contributory factor indirectly, but these particular priests were far from celibate - indeed noticeably less so than many of us who aren't.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: caitlin rua
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 07:41 PM

A lot of them aren't. (Often it's an ordinary affair with an adult woman, who is at least in a stronger position than a helpless child.) I probably should have used a different word, because I didn't mean that they are celibate, but that it's a requirement - a demand I believe many people simply can't live up to, nor should have to. If sex were allowed to be a natural accepted part of a priest's life there would be far less perversion, far less shame and far less hypocrisy than has been the case. (Please note: by "perversion" I mean an adult imposing him/herself on a child REGARDLESS of the combination of genders.)

But the celibacy thing is only part of the issue, and not the main part at that. The real driving engine behind it is the power and control the Church had over Irish society until recently. Power, with no checks and balances, corrupts. And it did.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 07:49 PM

I agree with you. As I said in the other thread: too much power in the hands of the wrong people for the wrong reasons.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 08:22 PM

"too much power in the hands of the wrong people for the wrong reasons."
Absolutely.
The problem of trying to lay the blame at door of one particular Pope, or Archbishop, or priest, is that it has been going on for so long. I don't know if the Ryan Report restricted itself to any particular time frame, but those who saw the film 'Song For A Raggy Boy' based on Patrick Galvin's autobiographical trilogy, will know that similar events were taking place at least as far back as the end of the 1930s, and almost certainly further back than that.
The physical brutality that took place in these institutions has hardly been touched on, though there have been several heart-rending personal accounts in the letter pages of the Irish Times.
A local singer friend here, now in her mid-eighties, was beaten so severely around the head by a priest when she was in her teens that her eardrum burst and she permanently lost the use of that ear. Her crime - she attended a house dance. Unbelieveably, the church objected to these dances - which took place in people's homes and in the open air at specially designated crossroads - on the grounds that men and women attending such events unsupervised would be open to 'temptations of the flesh'.
All of these events can be traced directly to an abuse of power and have nothing to do with sexuality.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: caitlin rua
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 09:10 PM

Were those the same crossroads that they buried unmarried mothers and suicides at?

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,999
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 09:45 PM

The one thing I do question most vigourously about abuse in churches by priests/ministers, is why it is judged by the respective churches. It's a criminal matter and belongs in courts of law. THEN let it can be judged by the churches involved.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 09:50 PM

Jim, I'm not sure you caught what I was trying to say - the bishop's offices (chancery) in many Catholic dioceses I've encountered, are staffed with creepy priests who aren't the type who can make it in parish life. Parishes are largely isolated from one another, especially in dioceses where the chancery is corrupt. So it is possible for parish priests not to know what is going on in other parishes. But yes, I can see that many diocesan chancery offices are repressive places where secrets may be jealously guarded - with even the bishop unaware of much of what's going on.

Yeah, celibacy is a burden for a lot of my priest friends, and I suppose many have been romantically tied to someone of the same or another sex at one time or another - but most parish priests I know deal with celibacy pretty well most of the time. I don't believe they spend their lives resenting celibacy or scheming to break their vows, even if they slip now and then. If they're halfway decent priests, they're compassionate, generous people who are able to make friends - and their lay friends do a lot to help them get through life on an even keel. They tend to stay away from priests and others from the "repressive" parishes. Some parishes are healthy, and some are not. Healthy priests tend to do their best to stay away from unhealthy parishes - it's a matter of survival.

I don't know if there's a good psychological profile of a priest who molests or abuses children. I would think it would be the creepy, swishy ones - but I have been surprised to learn that many of the priests I knew who were accused of molestation, were people who seemed to me to be quite normal in high school and college. They weren't the creepy ones who ended up in administrative positions. The one I knew best was Jim Tully, a seminary classmate of mine who was ordained a priest with the Xavierian Missionary Fathers. Jim was a popular, upbeat, talented, fun-loving guy who had a lot of friends. I see that the victim who has pursued Tully most vehemently, was 21 at the time Tully (age 40) allegedly molested him - Tully was eventually convicted of disorderly conduct. There were two other reported victims - I gather they were college students. It appears my friend did something wrong, but it also appears that the victims weren't children. The anti-abuse organizations are working hard against Jim Tully because he is still functioning as a priest, albeit apparently in administrative positions. But I haven't seen good information about what he did that was horrendous or that involved children.

Another of my classmates (I won't tell his name) is no longer functioning as a priest - but that's all it says about him at http://www.bishop-accountability.org/. I recently got back in contact with him through the Internet. All I know is that he's gay and HIV-positive, but no evidence he's a child molester. I think I knew about a dozen of the priests listed on the child molester database of bishop-accountability.org. I checked the stories of all of them as far as I could. Some, like Jim Tully, were borderline cases - there was evidence of sexual misconduct, but the complainant was legally an adult at the time of the incident. Others sounded pretty bad. I've known hundreds of priests in my life, and about a dozen showed up on the database of offenders. Of those dozen, only one struck me as being a potential problem - and he's one of those where there was no report other than the statement that he was no longer allowed to function.

So, it's a puzzlement. There are no easy answers. But I do think that my insights on diocesan chanceries are valid - some are places where coverups could very easily happen. And from what I hear, the chancery of the Archdiocese of Dublin, like the one in Boston, was like that.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 10:05 PM

999, in most cases in most dioceses, credible reports of offenses are reported to law enforcement authorities. But what's a credible report?

In my previous parish, the church was vandalized - someone had spray-painted child molestation allegations against a priest on the church walls. The crime of vandalism was reported, but not the child molestation. Should it have been?

There was an anonymous post at Mudcat a few years ago that alleged that I was a child molester because I was a Catholic - should I have been reported to law enforcement authorities?

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 10:17 PM

Joe, I read your post, and have to re-iterate, that there are a "few bad apples in the bunch", Unfortunately they give the rest of the barrel a bad name. What really is unfair, is that, unthinking impulsive people, forget, or disregard, all the good things the Catholic Church has done, and is still doing. Yes, they have had a checkered past, in some places in history, but, to all those ready to jump on them, and fault the whole of the church, because of sexual misconduct, by a few, and the cover-ups that follow, if you are really that concerned, then add your support, to those who wish to clean up their ranks, and correct the wrongs that have been done, without pointing a condemning finger, at the rest of them, who are trying to correct things for the betterment.
Ironic, how the same voices, who condemn the whole of the church, for pedophilia, forget the churches stance on abortions, homosexuality, divorce, and broken families! They forget the excellent school systems they have, the hospitals, orphanages, and charitable work performed by very dedicated people. Mother Theresa, the icon of selfless devotion to the poor and needy, was also Catholic. So, to all those, who are so quick on the draw, to categorize the whole of the Catholic Church, as 'toleraters' of priests who are homosexual pedophiles, let's look at the whole picture, as Joe pointed out!
Regards, GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 10:19 PM

We cross posted. While I was typing my last post, and broke for dinner, Joe posted his other two.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 06:31 AM

Caitlín
"Were those the same crossroads that they buried unmarried mothers and suicides at?"
Not forgetting the children who died unbaptised and were denied a burial place in sanctified ground.
More later - getting over the article in the I.T. today which descrbibes the investigation of a priest by the church authorities who judged him to be innocent. Hew was later found to have abused 20 girls. One of his practices was to insert a crucifix into the vagina and anus of his victim!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: caitlin rua
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 06:40 AM

999, you need to remember that here, at that time, no court judge would have acted against the Church. There are major differences between the Ireland of those years and America; also between Irish Catholicism and American Catholicism, largely because of the differences in those societies. I wish people would take more account of that fact.

The populace here did not in practice have the same basic citizens' rights, whatever it did or didn't say in the law books. We were until very recently a MONO-culture, something the US has never been. A large percentage of the total population lived in rural isolation, in a rigidly enclosed society where things were simply not talked about, even when "everyone knew". I think you may not appreciate the strength of this invisible governing: you could pretty much expect censure from your neighbours if you complained to them. You cannot imagine this sort of fear-ruled conformity unless you've lived it or at least seen it first hand. In any case the political government was not separated from the Church in the ways that it should have been, so they neither protected nor helped the victims.

Yes, Sanity, of course they were bad apples. But the problem is that it was not simply "a few". They proliferated because such crimes were too easy to get away with, with no outside authority to answer to.

And, of course, what constitutes child molesting? It's a phrase that has become devalued because it can mean anything now. And I hate that people throw it around like a Frisbee, aiming it at innocent Catholics like Joe for simply daring to raise perfectly fair questions, in a spirit of genuinely wanting to understand. The crimes being spoken of here - and recalled by survivors - are the physical perpetration of sexual acts on those younger and weaker. People who have not done, or facilitated, this are not child molesters. You can read the stories of the survivors. That is, those who haven't committed suicide in despair, which many have. The statistics are appalling.

There are of course a huge number of honest and dedicated priests (the nuns are pretty much gone, ditto the Christian Brothers) and for their suffering because of this sordid saga, my heart aches. But IT HAPPENED. And for too long was swept under the carpet or given only cosmetic attention. Because not everyone was guilty doesn't mean that it was only a few. There was too much power, held by too many, for too long, for it to be only a few. We're never really going to know the true numbers.

No, Sanity, we didn't "forget the churches stance on abortions, homosexuality, divorce, and broken families". They have very clear rulings on these things. But where is all this decisive clarity when it concerns one of their own, a rapist among their ranks? All they did for punishment was move him to another area, so he could do it again.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 09:02 AM

It is an insult to the victims of clerical abuse to write it off as "a few bad apples" - it was a culture of abuse which permeated the church from the highest to the lowest over generations, carried out and/or hidden by the church as a whole - not forgetting the state's role in all this.
Many of the present day clergy have recognised this in their scramble for forgiveness.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 01:53 PM

I have a number of friends who are Irish-born priests and nuns. They have lived in the Sacramento area since they were in their early to mid-twenties. They are now between the ages of 60 and 80. The nuns did not go home until the late 1960s or early 1970s, but most go back to Ireland every year or two now.

I've asked several about growing up Catholic in Ireland, and they give me the impression it was not so universally dire as Jim says. They do not deny the problems, but I get the impression that most of my friends had a good experience of the Catholic Church in Ireland during their childhood. Mind you, these are people who have been priests and nuns all their lives, so you would think they would think well of the Church or would have left it by now. And most of my priest and nun friends are liberals who are not afraid to question the Catholic Church when there's a need for it.

I did know one Irish-born priest of French ancestry Father Tony Gurnell who was more critical. Tony was born in County Cork in 1929, was ordained in 1964, and died in Sacramento in 2007. He was a brilliant man, and quite a student of history. He came from a family that was associated with the IRA, and Tony was not quiet about the harm he thought the British brought to Ireland. Tony claimed it was the British who brought the heresy of Jansenism to Ireland, bringing severity and harshness to an Irish Catholicism that had once been far gentler. Tony said that once the British decided they could not defeat the Catholic Church in Ireland, they build the biggest Catholic seminary in the world in Ireland, and staffed it with Jansenist-influenced French priests. Jansenists were similar to Calvinists in some of their thinking, emphasizing predestination and the depravity of human nature. Tony said this seminary produced thousands of priests over the years, a significant percentage of the priest of Ireland - and these priests brought the harsh severity of their education to all of Ireland. Tony lived his whole life with passion; but during his last years, he seemed to be driven by a desire to bring a sense of joy to Catholic communities, wherever he was.

Tony was very critical of the Catholic Church in Ireland, and I think he studied the situation there much more closely than the other Irish priests and nuns I know. I wish Fr. Tony were alive to join in this discussion. I'm sure he'd have interesting insights.

I bought Tony's almost-new Honda Civic from his estate, and I think of him almost every time I drive the car. He was a brilliant, joyful, gentle man. His father and grandfather were famous stained-glass artisans, and the family was known in Ireland because of their artistry.

So, while I cannot deny what Jim says about the Irish Catholic Church, I also have good, honest priest and nun friends who had a positive experience growing up Catholic in Ireland.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 02:05 PM

There's a strong class element in all of this Joe (as has been pointed out in the earlier thread as well as the newspaper reports). Priests and nuns were mostly drawn from middle-class families and the abuse was perpetrated on working-class children. I think this goes somewhat towards explaining why your friends have good experiences of life growing up in RC Ireland.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smedley
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 02:23 PM

GfS - the appalling child abuse inflicted was against girls as well as boys, so calling it 'homosexual paedophilia' is not the whole story. It is, however, consistent with your obsessive anti-homosexual prejudice that seeps across a range of threads.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 03:41 PM

If the British built the biggest Catholic seminary in the world in Ireland as an anti-Catholic strategy, where is it, and why did the Catholic church either let them do it or not notice? I'm afraid that sounds like nonsense to me.

Admittedly the British are far from stainless regarding Ireland, but when it comes down to who has oppressed the Irish more, I think the Catholic church is the clear winner.

This abuse has obviously been going on for generations and is based on power and opportunity more than sexuality. More sadism than sex, and it should perhaps be remembered that sadism was named after a Catholic. We know not all Catholics are 'bad', that's obvious, but Catholicism is by definition all it does and everyone it encompasses.

The cycle of child abuse has to be broken somehow, and the only sure way to do that is to remove the opportunity.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 03:58 PM

Kids weren't abused because of any theological philosophy, they were abused because of biological drives that were not properly monitored or kept in check, by those who had the means to carry it out. Citing the British as being responsible when they were no longer even here also smacks a bit of projecting the blame. I find this line of reasoning unconvincing.

By the way, I see that Fr. Gurnell was originally from St. Joseph's Drive, Montenotte, Cork city. That's very near where I used to live, and I went up and down St. Joseph's Drive all the time, to play music with a friend who lived (and still lives) right at the head of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 05:36 PM

Smeds:"GfS - the appalling child abuse inflicted was against girls as well as boys, so calling it 'homosexual paedophilia' is not the whole story...."

True, However, the stats are far far more with priests, and boys.

Sex with a child = paedophilia
Sex with same gender = homosexuality

You figure it out.
Don't let your 'personal' bias get in the way of calling it like it is.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 08:01 PM

I think the majority of the abuse was bisexual, and that it was child abuse, not paedophilia.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,999
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 08:19 PM

I agree with you, Joe. An allegation is not proof. However, when the truth is established, why is the church--not just Catholic, but also Anglican, Baptist, etc--allowed to shelter the abusers from criminal prosecution? Allowed is the wrong word, but as far as I can see there just ain't too many men of the cloth doing time.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 08:32 PM

The ONLY things that ALL the abusers have in common is that they are ALL Christians, ALL clergymen and ALL CATHOLICS.
What are we to make of that?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 08:37 PM

It quack, waddles, and looks uncannily duck-like..

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 08:40 PM

Jim Carroll:"The ONLY things that ALL the abusers have in common is that they are ALL Christians, ALL clergymen and ALL CATHOLICS.
What are we to make of that?
Jim Carroll"

That's right, Blame all Christians!
This stupidity, and infantile logic speaks itself!

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Alice
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 08:51 PM

I've worked with people who have been abused in new religious groups, cults, established churches, whatever you want to call them, and as I posted before, abuse of power is an issue in any group that does not have checks and balances and where those in power exert control over what people believe about eternity. This is nothing new and nothing limited to Christian or Catholic churches.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 09:30 PM

"That's right, Blame all Christians!
This stupidity, and infantile logic speaks itself!"

I couldn't agree more, but with respect, I'm certain that isn't what Jim meant.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 09:55 PM

Smokey, I certainly hope not!...but on here, you just might ever know, for sure!
Regards,
GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 10:06 PM

I'd misunderstood you - sorry..
It's very late here Smokeystan..

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 10:09 PM

It's very late here IN Smokeystan..

I give up..

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 11:06 PM

Smokey, yes, its very late, and hopefully not too late.
My Regards,
GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smedley
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 02:04 AM

GfS - Jim spoke the whole truth (the abusers are all Catholics).    You major on partial truth (most of the abusers abuse boys, but many abuse girls).

This is not me speaking from bias, it is me observing and identifying hypocrisy.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 05:01 AM

"I'm certain that isn't what Jim meant."
It certainly isn't what I meant and our 'Sanitising' friend knows it - only it doesn't suit his role as apologist for the abuse that took place to admit it.
The sooner we get away from trying to pin this on homosexual behaviour, or 'a few bad apples' (or even the thousands that there actually were), or bad clegymen and neglectful (even co-operative) heirarchy, and examine it from the point of view it is now being examined here in Ireland, the quicker we'll understand what has taken place and how.
Throughout the 20th century the Catholic church got itself (or was placed) into a position where it influenced virtually every aspect of day-to-day Irish life - the home, marriage, birth, death, the food, and when it was to be eaten, the education of children, the music....... and relevant to what has happened here, what went on in the Irish bedroom.
If any good has come from this horrendous affair, it is that the stranglehold has now been broken and will never again be re-applied.
If you want to know about the abuse that went on, read the Ryan Report, or any decent condensed version of it, or the accounts of what happened at Ferns and Letterfrack - and brace yourselves for a long overdue report on the Magdelene Laundries.
If you want to know how, and to what extent it was covered up, read the Murphy Report.
Interesting insight into this in The Irish Times the day before yesterday.
A priest was found to be a child abuser by his superiors, and was moved on to several parishes, until his behaviour got out of hand and was sent to a mission in Brazil. He was found to have made his home above a créche in Sao Paulo - now doesn't that give 'care in the community' a whole fresh meaning?
The question yet unanswered is WHAT HAPPENS NOW?
From a legal point of view the law has to deal with the abusers and their accomplices as they would any other serious and dangerous criminals.
From a spiritual point of view, if it is to survive, the church has to deal with the abusers and their accomplices immediately (judging by an incident in the US, thanks to Vatican intervention, a priest found abusing can be defrocked - a bishop found to have been an abuser cannot).
From a civil point of view, the church must never again be allowed the malignant influence it once had and abused - and it must never again be given access to the bodies and minds of children.
Ireland was described in an article a few days ago as "A Catholic country, but not necessarily a Christian one" - there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that this is the case.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: caitlin rua
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 04:59 PM

From RTÉ NEWS
Wednesday, 9th December 2009   20:30

BISHOPS 'HUMBLY' APOLOGISE FOR ABUSE

The Irish Bishops' Conference has issued an apology to all those who were abused by priests. At the end of the first day of the bishops' winter conference a statement was issued saying: 'We, as bishops, apologise to all those who were abused by priests as children, their families and to all people who feel rightly outraged and let down by the failure of moral leadership and accountability that emerges from the Report'.

They went on to say that they are deeply shocked by the 'scale and depravity of abuse' described in the Report.


From THE IRISH TIMES
Wednesday, December 9, 2009   20:09

"We are shamed by the extent to which child sexual abuse was covered up in the Archdiocese of Dublin and recognise that this indicates a culture that was widespread in the church," the bishops said in a statement. "The avoidance of scandal, the preservation of the reputations of individuals and of the Church, took precedence over the safety and welfare of children. This should never have happened and must never be allowed to happen again. We humbly ask for forgiveness."

"We, as bishops, apologise to all those who were abused by priests as children, their families and to all people who feel rightly outraged and let down by the failure of moral leadership and accountability that emerges from the report," the statement said.

Responding to what they said were the "many concerns" raised about the use of a practice known as 'mental reservation' by clergy to avoid telling the truth, the bishops said: "We wish to categorically state that it has no place in covering up evil. Charity, truthfulness, integrity and transparency must be the hallmark of all our communications."


From BBC NEWS
Wednesday, 9 December 2009    20:47

Irish bishops have asked to be forgiven for the "failure of moral leadership" identified by a report into clerical child abuse in Dublin archdiocese.

The Murphy report found that church authorities had covered up child abuse. Also known as the "Commission of Investigation Report into the Archdiocese of Dublin", the Murphy report stated that Catholic leaders had prioritised the preservation of the church's reputation above the welfare and safety of the children in their care.

They also said that they were "shamed by the extent to which child sexual abuse was covered up in the archdiocese of Dublin". The bishops added that they recognised the report's findings indicated a culture of cover-up was "widespread" in the church.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: caitlin rua
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 05:18 PM

The one Eleanor Shanley sings (same title, different song) packs even more punch:

Magdalen Laundry

Johnny Mulhern & Con Cop

For seventeen years I've been
Scrubbing this washboard
Ever since the fellas started in after me
My mother poor soul didn't know what to do
The Canon said "Child there's a place for you"
Now I'm serving my time at the Magdalen Laundry
I'm towing the line at the Magdalen Laundry

There's girls from the country
Girls from the town
Their bony white elbows going up and down
The reverend mother as she glides through the place
A tight little smile on the side of her face
She's running the show at the Magdalen Laundry
She's got nowhere to go but the Magdalen Laundry

Oh Lord won't you let me
Don't you let me
Won't you let me wash away the stain
Oh Lord won't you let me wash away the stain

I'm washing altar linen and cassocks and stoles
I'm scrubbing long johns for these holy joes
We know where they've been when
They're not saving souls
What the red wine split what the
Smooth hand poured
We're squeezing it out at the Magdalen Laundry
We're scrubbing it out at the Magdalen Laundry

Oh Lord won't you let me
Don't you let me
Won't you let me wash away the stain
Oh Lord won't you let me wash away the stain

Sunday afternoon when the Lord's at rest
It's off to the prom, watch the waves roll by
We're chewing on our toffees hear
The seagulls squawk
"There go the maggies" hear the children talk
Through our faces they stare at
The Magdalen Laundry
In our eyes see the glare of the Magdalen Laundry

Oh Lord won't you let me
Don't you let me
Won't you let me wash away the stain
Oh Lord won't you let me wash away the stain

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: caitlin rua
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 05:35 PM

The reason I sound like I'm talking to myself is that there was an unidentified Guest post and they're not allowed. Just to provide some continuity, he or she cited the Joni Mitchell song "Magdalen Laundry" as sung by Christy Moore and put up a You Tube link. I found it (third hit if you type "Magdalene Laundry" in the search box). But I got side-tracked by the one above it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbPyvF9fnhg

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: caitlin rua
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 06:19 PM

Anybody care to guess when that place shut down?

http://silverstealth.fotopic.net/c1509609.html



Late 1996

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: mg
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 06:33 PM

I will say again that it is not just bad priests and worse bishops. It is the whole culture..not just Ireland but certainly there and its offshoots in US and elsewhere. Someone raised those priests. Someone repressed them beyond repair in early childhood and adolescence. Not only the Christian Brothers. Saintly mothers, themselves repressed etc. And they did it because most of them, I bet every last one of them, thought that is what God wanted. For all I know, and I am of that same culture, more or less (with added Baptist repression) it is what God wanted. It is hard to break off with what God wanted and say this is evil, or this does not make sense, or this hurts people..not when it gets to the child abuse but in the repression that leads up to it..mixed in with the overworking of Catholic fathers, the overreproductio of Catholic mothers..the whole birth control thing. It is all related. Can't we Catholics think for ourselves. no. Not really. Try it sometime. I had to shut my brain down early on and so did most of them. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 06:48 PM

"the church must never again be allowed the malignant influence it once had and abused - and it must never again be given access to the bodies and minds of children." (JC)

Globally and without exception. I could not agree more. I do have some sympathy for the genuine innocents in the Catholic church, assuming they exist, but that is impossible to determine and I don't think it is right to take a risk of that magnitude with children. I find it very hard to see how anyone with a conscience could continue to support such an institution.

"We humbly ask for forgiveness."

Some sins are just too big to be forgiven. One priest alone admitted abusing 100 children; I can't even think of an appropriate punishment. Forgiveness my arse.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 06:59 PM

Mg: From three re-readings, I found it hard to decipher your meaning. Here goes:

"It is the whole culture" [where] "someone repressed those priests"..."because..[they] thought that is what God wanted".."It is hard to break off with what God wanted" "but [the] overworking of Catholic Fathers & overproduction of Catholic Mothers & the Birth Control thing [is all related]"

So, are you saying that Irish Priests abuse/d children because they *believed* God wanted it? Bacause I'm not sure what relationship that has to "overworked fathers" & "overproducing mothers" or "birth control" etc.

Honestly I'm not quite sure what you're getting at.
I'd love to see equivalent statistics from celibate Buddhist Monks regards Child Abuse though.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Lox
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 07:01 PM

Any system that lacks accountability is a bad one.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Penny S.
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 07:04 PM

Just a reminder - along with all the other groups who enable (whether deliberately or not) and then do not allow abuse to be dealt with appropriately (there have been members of non-Christian religions whose leaders have abused) - there was a children's home run by Protestants in the North where worse than individuals abusing went on, wasn't there? And I gather there were analogies to the Magdalen Laundries in Britain, as well. It wasn't just Ireland.

When the film about the laundries came out, there was a footnote somewhere, that the buildings had been converted into old people's homes, and there, both the old inmates and the nuns were looked after together. I wondered about those nuns, and how genuine their vocations had been, and how they looked on the girls who had known, however briefly, what they had been denied. There was a terrible poison at work in those places.

And when you look back at what the original Celtic form of Christianity had been like, and how those men and women had gone out to spread the Gospel - they would not have been able to return the faith to Europe if they had been peddling one so lacking in joy.

And it is not for those of us not touched by the evil to forgive or withhold forgiveness.

What an appalling mess.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 07:11 PM

And it is not for those of us not touched by the evil to forgive or withhold forgiveness.

Point taken Penny, but are we not all touched by it to some degree, as humans? I rather resent being made to feel ashamed of my species.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: caitlin rua
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 08:24 PM

>When the film about the laundries came out, there was a footnote somewhere, that the buildings had been converted into old people's homes, and there, both the old inmates and the nuns were looked after together.

What a lovely thought. The site of the above Cork laundry is being turned into a luxury development of 200 homes. They're keeping the little graveyard, though.

>It is expected that the average price of a two-bedroom apartment at the scheme will be €450,000.
Any of 'em going to be used for social housing schemes, do you think?
Somebody made 20 million out of that bit of real estate.

- - -

Redevelopment of The Good Shepherd, Convent, Cork

200 new homes

The long-awaited redevelopment of Cork's Good Shepherd Convent, a former Magdalene laundry, has been given the go-ahead by An Bord Pleanála. Over 200 high-end residential units will be built on the elevated eight-acre site which is beside Cork City Gaol in the Sunday's Well area of the city...

In 2005 Cork-based developers Frinailla Ltd purchased the site for €20 million. Going against the recommendation of its own inspector, An Bord Pleanála has now granted permission for a large residential scheme, which will see apartments provided in the three listed buildings and further apartments, duplexes and townhouses built on the site.

Apartments will range in size from 51-148sq m (550-1,600sq ft) and townhouses will be around 186sq m (2,000sq ft). It is expected that the average price of a two-bedroom apartment at the scheme will be €450,000.

The developer had originally sought to build 274 units but this has been reduced to just over 200 by the local authority and the planning board.

A graveyard on the site - where more than 300 nuns are buried as well as an unknown number of women who worked in the laundry - will be retained and opened up to the public.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 09:07 PM

Don't know about now, but it was still there the last time Google maps were flapping around, because you can see it, if you know what to search for.

Go to Google Maps, type in "Cork City Gaol Ireland", a historic prison which is at least honestly-named. Put it on Satellite View and zoom in on the Gaol (Pin A), which close-up looks like two grey crosses enclosed by an oval. The laundry is just next to it, on the right, a cluster of handsome red-brick edifices, burned out since 2003. (Insurance fire?) Study it and weep.

The author Frank O'Connor, whose real name was Michael O'Donovan (and whose boyhood home I also used to live near) took the surname O'Connor, in honour of his mother Minnie O'Connor. She and her crippled sister grew up in Good Shepherd - I can't remember whether they were laundry girls or not, but life was still very hard there. He writes of her in his autobiography, and her sufferings through her life are the equal of anything that Angela McCourt ("Angela's Ashes") went through. To be fair, many of these woes were not the fault of the convent, but Frank is bitterly critical of the whole organisation for what she did endure. It's a very poignant read, in two volumes, which I heartily recommend.

Volume I deals with his early years - surprise, surprise - and is called "An Only Child". What it brings home to you is just how hard day-to-day existence was for so many of the Irish if they fell into the wrong social or economic category. (Going to be that way again too, considering what today's budget has done to the welfare and health services.)

I used to go to parties right around the corner from Good Shepherd, from when I first moved to Ireland in 1991 throughout the decade, and nearly moved into a nice flat near the foot of it. We don't know we're born, do we?

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 10:03 PM

When I was little I thought child abuse was my mother's seemingly unreasonable disapproval of toy guns.. We certainly don't know we're born, and I'm glad she's not here to be disillusioned by all this.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 01:34 AM

Smokey says:

I find it very hard to see how anyone with a conscience could continue to support such an institution.

No institution is perfect, Smokey - and no individual is perfect, either. As an ex-seminarian and someone who has worked in the Catholic Church all my life, I have had a vast amount of experience with the Church, and most of it has been positive. Yes, I have been aware of misconduct and injustices in the Church, but most times there has been a strong outcry against such abuses. And most times, I have seen far more good than bad in my church.

Catholic teaching is strongly opposed to any sort of injustice, including physical and sexual abuse of children. In eight years of Catholic seminary training, I was never taught to condone any sort of abuse. Certain individuals in leadership positions have violated those teachings - does that means that I am bound by conscience to abandon MY religious beliefs and hand over MY church to the transgressors? That's absurd! Send them to prison if they committed crimes, but don't tell me I have to give them my church.

I have to say that I have a hard time believing in the helplessness of the poor lay people in the face of the powerful and oppressive laity. If a child is abused or molested, why don't his parents speak out? If Father So-and-So is a bastard, why not treat him like the bastard he is? I've certainly told off a good number of bastard priests in my lifetime - why can't other people have an ounce of courage and do the same? And for God's sake, if your child is molested, report the criminal to the police and take your child to get help - don't wait for some institution to do it for you.

Yes, there are bastards in the Catholic Church, and there are child molesters in the Catholic Church and in almost every family and institution and community. Punish the people who committed the crimes, and punish them severely - but don't spread the blame and punishment too broadly, because we all are to blame for the ills of our society.

It's time to stop all this blame-laying, punish those who are actually criminals, and find a SOLUTION to the problem.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,999
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 01:39 AM

Excellent post, Joe.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 03:50 AM

Joe Offer:"....It's time to stop all this blame-laying, punish those who are actually criminals, and find a SOLUTION to the problem."

Absolutely!!!

I don't know exactly what 'restitution' can be given to the victims, but somehow, it STARTS with acknowledging that a wrong had been committed, and then dealing with the molester. I know that, because of the embarrassment and bad press that the Church, as a whole gets, because of such acts, they prefer to keep things 'in house'. However, a solution would have to be so severe to the perpetrators, complete with instant disclosure to their superiors first, that they would be discouraged from even thinking about doing it! Those concealing it who are higher, because of 'chain of command', should document that they made the situation known to the hierarchy, upon their discovery, and to the highest up it goes, should be the one ultimately accountable for any action, or cover up...both in the church, and in the government. By law, to know about a felony, and conceal it, is aiding and abetting, and that person can be charged with conspiracy. This goes for government officials, as well! So all those in the government, who knew about this, and concealed it, technically are also guilty of the same crime...and should be criminally charged!

Just a thought on the matter....
GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 04:50 AM

"It's time to stop all this blame-laying, punish those who are actually criminals,"
A little like shutting the stable door, don't you think Joe?
The church was dragged kicking and screaming into the limelight and eventually co-operated with the enquiries, not in the spirit of jutice and honesty but as an act of damage limitation.
This has been going on for at least half a century, and had it not been exposed in the way that it has, would have continued.
I wonder - if the abuse had been committed by teachers, social workers, scout and guide leaders... or any group of people who had been entrusted with the care of children, would you all be as ready to sort out the "few bad apples", forgive and move on?
If it had been your child or grandchild who had come home saying they had been raped or interefered with, or had had physical (often permanent) damage inflicted on them, would you be as ready to move on - or would you want to know how those entrusted with the child's welfare allowed it to happen and ascertain that it never happened again?
Would you be happy to let children, yours or anybodys, continue to be under the influence of an organisation which perpetrated, facilitated and covered up systematic widespread and long-term abuses?
Shouldn't the buck have stopped with the church as a whole or was/is it a special case?
We are not just looking at a handful (or even a large number) of rogue priests and nuns, but at institutional abuse on a large scale - physical, mental, and a complete betrayal of trust over a very long period.
In a grim sort of way part of the problem has been solved; the church will never be trusted again and it will never again occupy the position of power over the minds and bodies of the population it once did.
It is still fighting to maintain its influence over childrens' education - if there is any justice in the world, that will disappear in the near future.
Any good that the church might have done disappeared in the wash of the abuse revelations.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 04:53 AM

I have to say that I have a hard time believing in the helplessness of the poor lay people in the face of the powerful and oppressive laity. If a child is abused or molested, why don't his parents speak out? If Father So-and-So is a bastard, why not treat him like the bastard he is?

I have an example of this Joe. Some years ago a PP in Donegal was arrested for a long spate of terrible abuse. A woman I know grew up in his parish. She told me the whole parish KNEW all along what happened to the children who were brought to the Parochial house every week. Nobody dared speak out for all those years, it was the way it was.

And the thing about it all, she was shocked, really shocked, when the news of the man's arrest made the newspapers. Shocked because a priest, her Parish Priest (before she moved to Clare) was arrested and that someone had spoken out against him.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: ard mhacha
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 05:39 AM

Going slighty off course, but I agree with Bonnie Shaljean`s reference to Frank O` Connor books worth the trouble to track down, a brilliant writer.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: caitlin rua
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 05:59 AM

Wonderful post Joe.   

But I do have to answer one point. You ask

> If a child is abused or molested, why don't his parents speak out? If Father So-and-So is a bastard, why not treat him like the bastard he is?

I know you don't mean it that way, but this is so off the mark as to be insulting. Please don't dismiss our real injustices with simplistic "solution"-questions that just don't apply to our situation.

People in Ireland didn't question the Church. Society was rigidly bound by one religion, backed up by the government, and if you made trouble you faced serious social consequences, not to mention (as you were told) spiritual ones. It was a culture of conformity, denial, and maintaining appearances at all costs. I can't even begin to do it justice in a blog post because it's so complex, with many strata of underlying reasons built up over time. But the information is out there for anyone who wants to make the effort to learn about them. Without this understanding, one is not in a position to stand in judgment on people living in another country in another time.

There were no means of redress available, no place else to go, no social service to report to. Society, Church and government were interlocked in a powerful triumvirate in a way that people living outside cannot appreciate. There were simply not the alternatives available to anyone who made trouble for the ruling stratum.

"Treat him like the bastard he is?" HOW? How do you "treat" the most powerful member in your community like anything? He's the one who treats you. Don't expect any back-up from your neighbours. You'll just find yourself a pariah. Oh, and you were putting your soul in peril. Don't like your local priest? Tough - he's the only one around.

That is, when the abuse was even known about. It happened in secrecy, kids were emotionally blackmailed into keeping quiet about it - it was only your word against theirs and They were stronger than you. Time after time you read or hear now-grown survivors say that when they did complain to their parents, they were simply punished for lying. Denial runs very, very deep here. It was a way of coping. It still is.

Apart from that one point, I think your post is excellent and moving. Of course it's time to move on, but you have to remember that here a lot of this stuff is still coming out. The memoirs and survivor accounts have only surfaced recently and I don't think they're finished.

These cannot be moved on FROM until they've had their fair hearing. And that's still in the process of happening.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 06:06 AM

Footnote to above:
There is to be a meeting tomorrow in The Vatican between Pope Benedict, Cardinal Seán Brady and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin - subject "How the Catholic Church should deal with the damage caused by the child abuse scandal. I wonder if anybody finds this offensive as I do?
Leopards... spots!
"I have to say that I have a hard time believing in the helplessness of the poor lay people....."
Believe it Joe:
There is a remarkable description by a policeman who reported a case of abuse which had been reported to him by a distraught mother, to a bishop.
The bishop attempted to pass it off with a 'queer' joke and only agreed to even discuss it (with a policeman, remember) when the he threatened to take that matter further and make it official. The bishop finally agreed "to look into the matter!!!"
If that was how the subject was treated when reported to the police - what chance did the man or woman in the street stand?
A further thought - If, as has been suggested here and pretty generally elsewhere, those abused are quite likely to become abusers, the church did not only abuse past generations, but future ones as well.
The abuse has not been stopped, just brought to public attention.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: mg
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 12:11 PM

No..I don't think t he abusing priests thought God wanted them to abuse children. I think they did think He wanted them to make sure that the legacy of sexual repression was passed on..and that He wanted them to avoid contact with women at all costs because that was a terrible sin (including when married by the way unless you actively desired children each and every time, in spite of the fact that another child could kill the mother, leave 12 orphans etc..and this is not 1800s Ireland..this is 1960s Washington USA). This was the basis of our religious teaching. No sex and reproduce until dead. Somehow. Kill the mother in childbirth and the father from overwork in dangerous occupations.

Child abuse was what seeped out of that tradition. It is a by-product. The tradition is based on theology..and based on exactly four words in the Bible..be fruitful and multiply..no matter the cost to society, families, individuals, the environment etc. And I bet very very many of them thought they were being successful in avoiding the temptations of women. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 02:09 PM

"It's time to stop all this blame-laying, punish those who are actually criminals"

Absolutely right, Joe, but at the same time I think the criminal part goes well beyond the abusers themselves and it's well worth trying to establish how and why this stuff was allowed to happen. Surely that is the only hope of preventing it? It's a much bigger and longer problem than is currently being portrayed, and it's not immediately apparent that that is being acknowledged. It seems to be generally known that about a third of victims go on to be abusers themselves, and one thing the Murphy report seems to illustrate is that the number of actual complaints fell a long way short of the number of admitted abuses. A lot kept quiet about it and it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that most of the potential future abusers are among that number. They need to be found, and they need help before the same rot sets in, although given the time scale of the report it will be too late for some.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 02:15 PM

"They need to be found, and they need help....."
With a bit of luck the prison they (should) end up in will have good psychiatric unit.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 02:38 PM

Having read this post, and had a think, (although the gravity of the situation makes you wish you couldn't think about it...)

What hope is there when some of the people even in this thread think they have the answers, and that the answer is found in their damned bible? I assume it the Pilot parable of washing your hands that gives this absurd view of it being nothing to to do with Christians.

If I were a Christian, the first thing I would want is these people being excommunicated,

Then the law to take it's course.

Including anybody, even the big boss in Rome, to be investigated for knowingly harbouring criminals and perverting (ironic term eh?) the course of justice.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: MartinRyan
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 02:38 PM

I have to say that I have a hard time believing in the helplessness of the poor lay people in the face of the powerful and oppressive clergy. If a child is abused or molested, why don't his parents speak out?

Sorry, Joe, but you really have no sense of the reality of the Catholic church in 20 C. Ireland. None at all...

I continue to maintain that, at this point, the emphasis needs to be on the hierarchy - not on the abusers. The latter are slowly being dealt with and conditions (including a generation of parents who are much less likely to take clerics at face value) put in place to reduce the risk of further incidents - only a fool would expect that it can be prevented completely. The bishops, however, continue to fail to acknowledge their motivation in covering up abuse cases. To me, this represents a moral bankruptcy which can only lead on to further abuse of POWER by a caste which cannot acknowledge its own wrongdoing.

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: MartinRyan
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 03:18 PM

In fairness, the latest statement by the Irish Bishops Conference (just released) goes some way to acknowledging their own wrongdoing.

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 03:23 PM

"Certain individuals in leadership positions have violated those teachings - does that means that I am bound by conscience to abandon MY religious beliefs and hand over MY church to the transgressors? That's absurd! Send them to prison if they committed crimes, but don't tell me I have to give them my church."

I didn't, Joe. I said I found it 'very hard to see how' (etc.). Not being a Catholic, I can only see it from that point of view. You're a Catholic and obviously see it from a different angle. Do what you think is right - beyond that I'm not telling you what you have to do; I have no right to do that.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 05:01 PM

The problem is widespread throughout society;, a hockey coach was charged here yesterday, the most recent in a long line of abuse of young by people in charge of them.

"No significant curative treatment for pedophilia has yet been found." A statement in Wikipedia, probably correct since no collective efforts or funded investigations into the causes and treatment, medical, psychological, environmental, or other, have been undertaken by society.

In Canada, those convicted from the general society are sent to prison, but after serving sentence, they are released, but with tags that label their propensity to repeat. They have not, and cannot be cured. What is the answer?

The situation in Ireland seems to reflect a more concentrated occurrence of abuse, but the situation is widespread and not confined to Catholic institutions. Native children in Canada were subjected to similar treatment, not all in Catholic institutions.

Ireland had (has?) a situation where most children were funneled through a religious educational system, not true in the U. S. and Canada with public secular schools for the majority in the U. S. and public Catholic day schools in Canada for perhaps half the kids. The singular nature of the system in Ireland undoubtedly contributes to the problems there because people are afraid to talk about them.

Certainly the Catholic schools in Canada, mostly non-residential, have dedicated teachers and turn out a good 'product'.
The small city I was raised in had a majority Catholic population and an archdiocese, but being small, everybody knew everybody else, and kids in Catholic schools were free of abuse (kids at one Catholic school told of one brother who would throw his inkpot at miscreants in class, but that was about as close to abuse as we ever heard about).

Joe has tried to put the problem in perspective; individuals, not the institution are to blame, a SOLUTION is needed.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: mg
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 06:39 PM

The difference between a hockey coach and a priest or nun is that the p or n can convince you that you are going to hell.

And it is an institutional problem, as evidenced by the massive, prolonged, insane coverups. Throw the enablers in jail, at least a couple of them. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 07:02 PM

Jim Carroll says:

There is to be a meeting tomorrow in The Vatican between Pope Benedict, Cardinal Seán Brady and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin - subject "How the Catholic Church should deal with the damage caused by the child abuse scandal. I wonder if anybody finds this offensive as I do?

I think you're reading far too much into it, Jim. Yes, there was damage, terrible damage - and not just to the children who were molested or abused. I've read a lot about this scandal, since it first surfaced in the United States in the 1990s. Religions are supposed to heal the injustices of the world. In this case, religion was the seat of injustice in all of Ireland. The Catholic Church in Ireland betrayed trust and faith, and put bitterness in the hearts of an entire people. That's a lot of damage to deal with. As far as I can see, the Catholic Church is trying to deal with that damage honestly.

Rarely have I seen a description of the problem that was as eloquent and incisive as the post from caitlin rua. Finally, I've seen a post that really helps make sense of the matter. As caitlin rua describes it, the problem was very similar to the racial situation in the Deep South of the United States, where racism was "the way it was," and nobody dared question it. As a result, a small number of truly evil people were able to control all of society, allowing a horrible evil to continue for a full century after slaves were freed from bondage. I've often heard it said that racism and the extermination of American Indians are the "original sins" of the United States - terrible injustices for which all Americans were and are responsible. Now, there were certain individuals who actually committed the horrible crimes, and they bear primary responsibility. However, all those who knew of the problem and did not speak out, also bear responsibility. Yes, it requires a great amount of courage to speak out injustice - but in the face of injustice and tyranny, we are morally required to show courage. Otherwise, we must accept at least part of the blame. If we did not speak out ourselves, how can we blame others for not speaking out?

And yes, I think that one could argue that the "original sin" of Ireland was the tyranny of the Catholic Church, and the silent acceptance of that tyranny by the Irish people. Dublin had a chain of notoriously tyrannical archbishops. John Charles McQuaid was the Archbishop of Dublin and the Primate of Ireland from 1940-1972, and he was particularly notorious. I knew that name from long ago, because my grandmother was a McQuaid (not that she ever said anything critical of a priest or bishop). And yes, I understand that there was a network of functionaries all over Ireland to carry out the wishes of the Archbishop. This wasn't a secret - it's part of Irish literature, just as the secrets of American racism weren't really hidden. In the United States, everybody knew - and in Ireland, everybody knew. And as a result, everyone is guilty. Non-Catholics and Former Catholics in Ireland may think they're blameless and that it should only be current Catholics who take the blame and pay the price, but they're living a lie, a big lie.

Running away from a problem does not mean that you escape the blame. It's ironic to see these people who ran away, now turn and point the finger of blame at those who stayed to "deal with the damage caused." There are many that contend that priests and nuns should have spoken out against this evil, and indeed they should have. Some did, and they were silenced, or transferred to a missionary country. Priests and nuns are entirely dependent on the Church for their livelihood - a small, organized group of parishioners has far less to lose by speaking out, than does a parish priest. And an organized group of parishioners can have a far better chance of being heard by a bishop, because the bishop depends on parishioners, not priests, for financial support.

So, to absolve oneself of blame and to pass the blame on to priests and nuns, is cowardice. There is no question that there were priests and brothers and nuns who committed crimes of molestation and abuse, and there were bishops and archbishops who committed possibly more serious crimes by enabling the molestation and abuse to continue. They are the ones who are primarily to blame - but most of them are dead, or retired and feeble, or penniless. But the remainder of the blame rests on ALL who failed to fight this evil, ALL who failed to speak out, ALL who failed to show courage in the face of this evil. Those who ran away from the Church, have no right to turn around now and place the blame on those who stayed to clean up the mess.

Now, I know that there are people here at Mudcat who are offended at any attempt to compare any injustice to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, but I disagree. The Holocaust was an absolute and unspeakable atrocity and tyranny - but all tyrannies and all atrocities follow the same pattern. Tyrannies and atrocities happen all the time, all over the world - and NOBODY is blameless. Tyrannies start with a small group of evil men (and some women). And tyrannies grow and prosper because of two things: people are silent and afraid, and people tend to place the blame on others. The injustices of Ireland and the United States and England and Iran and Cambodia and all over the world, are the responsibility of ALL the people of those countries.

Injustices and tyrannies eventually come to an end, but the aftermath can often be nearly as painful and destructive as the tyranny itself. After racial segregation ended in the United States, riots ensued. In Ireland, the tyranny of England was replaced by the tyranny of the Church. Soviet tyranny was replaced by a wide array of petty tyrants. And so on, and so on, all over the world. I think that one major reason why tyrannies are so often replaced by other tyrannies, is blame. Too often, the only things people can do after a tyranny has ended, is point the finger of blame. They fail to have to courage to acknowledge their own blame for the travesty that has occurred.

And that's what's happening in Ireland - mass denial of blame. The voices of outrage are directed at the Catholic Church, and at all who remain Catholic. The Catholic Church has apologized time and time again, and has paid huge sums in settlements and will undoubtedly pay even greater sums by the time this is all over, and much has been done in the Catholic Church to set up structures that will prevent such horrible injustices from happening again. Is it enough? No, certainly not. No amount is enough to repay an injustice of this magnitude. The Catholic church should never be absolved of its guilt in this matter, and should forever bear the shame of the horrible things done in its name. The detractors say that the apologies from the Church are insincere and insufficient, and I'm sure that is sometimes the case. The whole of the Catholic Church is appalled and embarrassed to the core by this scandal. However, the sincerity of an apology can be limited, when the crimes were committed by a past generation and reparations must be made by those living in the present. And when those demanding apologies and reparations are equally responsible for the wrongdoing, it can affect the sincerity and generosity of those being forced to pay and apologize.

Let me give an example: If the priest in Parish A is molesting little boys, to what extent is this the responsibility of the priest ten miles away in Parish B, or the bishop fifty miles away in his ivory mansion? If the people in Parish A did not speak out and keep speaking out until the injustice is ended, aren't they more responsible than the neighboring priest, or the far away bishop who lives in a world of power and unreality?

I have been told here many times, that I should be ashamed to be a Catholic. Here's a quote from above:

I find it very hard to see how anyone with a conscience could continue to support such an institution.

Well, I tend to think that the "institution" is morally neutral. It's people who do evil, not institutions. And it's only people, not institutions, that can prevent evil or bring it to an end. I don't support injustice, and I don't support evil. I suppose that I haven't always done as well as I could have in opposing injustice and evil in the Catholic Church, but I DID speak out to the point where I lost my job - and I have continued to speak out since them.

I live in a redneck area, one of the most politically conservative counties in the United States. There is constant pressure to force the school districts to teach "creationism," even in the community college. Barack Obama is viewed as the Devil Incarnate by many people here. People with progressive bumper stickers, risk getting their car's paint scratched with keys - and if it happens, the Conventional Wisdom is that the people with the bumper stickers were asking for trouble. My friend the Methodist minister was voted out of his job because he opposed the war in Iraq and supported homosexual marriage. The Catholic parish in town has been ruled by a small group of angry Catholic lay people for many years. This group works hard to bully the priests into submission. In a parish that normally has two or three priests to staff three churches, we went through forty priests in ten years. The priests just couldn't stand the constant battering they got, so they left as soon as they could - some to other parishes, some to lay life, some to alcoholism treatment, and at least one to early retirement and an early grave. Some just left without saying anything to anybody, and weren't heard from again.

The diocese finally sent in a temporary Parochial Administrator to fix the problem. This man had spent ten years away from the priesthood, working as a law enforcement officer, including several years with the FBI. When he came into the parish, this man "didn't take no shit from nobody," and he broke the power of the bullying circle of lay people. He hired me to handle adult education and RCIA, the program for instructing people who want to become Catholics. And just after I started work, he was reassigned; and we had no pastor for almost a year. Two young, foreign-born priests were left in charge, but most of the real power was held by a woman who held the position of bookkeeper and office manager.

It was hell working a new job without a boss to stand behind me. There was a stream of letters to the bishop, complaining about the heresy I was teaching. I was called to a hearing with representatives of the bishop's office because of a complaint that I was denying the 'creationist' view of the beginnings of life - even though what I was teaching was exactly what was stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I was exonerated, but the hearing scared our 40-year-old priest who had recently immigrated from Poland. He demanded that I change my program of instruction, not that the changes really made any difference. The parish was eventually split. Half was run by an ultraconservative pastor who immediately made it clear that he no longer wanted my services. The other new parish got a pastor I had known for twenty years. After a few weeks, he told me he was getting financial pressure from the diocese and had to lay somebody off. I voluntarily resigned, and he agreed to let me keep doing things as a volunteer. But after that, he never let me teach, and he got a "deer in the headlights" look every time I asked if I could teach. And a year ago, he removed me from education programs completely. I just recently found out that he had been under constant pressure from the parish bullies, and he was having enough trouble defending himself and just couldn't defend me. I guess I can't fault him or the Polish priest - you have to choose your battles, and it's tough to defend others when you yourself are under attack.

So, I spoke out, and lost my job because of it; and I continue to speak out. Over the years, I have spoken sternly to priests because they were drunk in public (and on the altar), because of inappropriate conduct with women, and for being petty dictators. Most of those priests respected me for what I had to say, and most are still my friends today. But I got shot down by anonymous lay people who made anonymous phone calls and wrote anonymous letters about my teaching "heresies" like evolution.

You'd think I should have learned my lesson, that I should have had the good sense to leave a church where the bullies can have so much influence. Well, I'm not going to do that. I missed Mass last Sunday because I had the flu, and my substitute was amazed how many people asked what happened to me. By being who I am and doing what I do, I'm able to bring joy to a lot of people. And I find that there are a lot of people in my parish who really love me, and who take comfort in the fact that I speak out when they feel they can't. I can't fix everything that's wrong with the Catholic Church, but somehow I'm able to function within it and do a lot of good. So, why should I leave?

So, before you place the blame, look at a mirror. If you live in Ireland, YOU are responsible for the absolute travesty that has occurred. Yes, the Catholic Church is guilty - but it has already shouldered much of the blame and paid much of the cost. What has not happened, is for the Irish people to acknowledge their share of the blame for the abuse and molestation of children that was endemic in their society for so long.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 07:59 PM

I'm stunned, Joe..
Their share of the blame?

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 08:43 PM

"If you live in Ireland, YOU are responsible for the absolute travesty that has occurred."
Joe,
Far too late to deal with all the points you have made - but a couple of quickies.
It is totally unfair to lay the blame for this obscenity at the door of Irish people.
All of these atrocities were allowed to take place directly because of the place the Catholic church occupied in Irish society - the power it possessed reached deep into the lives and minds and souls of the Catholic population, far beyond that of the Nazis or of Stalin's regime. It was complete control of the minds of the people; it even reached beyond the grave. If you defied your priest, you could be humiliated, beaten, ostracised, lose the goodwill and necessesary suport of your neighbours, your home, your occupation, even your country, (not forgetting persecution of other members of your family - including your children). On top of all this you also stood a fair chance of eternal damnation thrown in for good measure - spiritual blackmail, which was used to terrifying effect. Can you name any despotic regime in history which has ever achieved that position over its subjects? What was it the Jesuits boasted - "Give me a child five years old and I will give you a Catholic for life".
My own position.
I was born and brought up in England up to ten years ago when we chose to move here, mainly because of our interest in music.
My father went to fight fascism in Spain in 1937; because the Catholic Church threw its total support behind Franco's Fascist regime he was excommunicated from his church and my three sisters and I never received a Catholic education.
Some of our family remained Catholic, but my father's experiences, and that of his younger siblings, who were tormented by the priests and nuns for having a 'Commie' brother who had 'sided with the Devil in Spain', prevented them from being fully sucked in to the Catholic mind-machine.
I kept in fairly regular contact with one of my aunts in Dublin right up to her death a few years ago. She was one of the bravest people I ever met. She and her husband defied the anti-Catholic mobs in Derry in the 1950s, and only fled the city with her husband and three young children, the youngest a babe in arms, when their house was burned down about their ears. A hard lady - yet she was scared shitless of the priest to the day she died - what kind of organisation instils that sort of fear in its supporters - perhaps you can explain that to me?
G'night all,
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Alice
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 08:53 PM

Call it coercive persuasion or undue influence, but it is a common tool used by organizations who control members, and the GREATEST control is over the beliefs people have about eternity and God. If you are told that your soul will be damned for eternity unless you obey the authority figure, then you will do almost anything to obey. It may seem unbelievable, but I know of parents who put their children in harm's way because they believed their religion had more power over them than even protecting their child. As I said, this kind of control over people can happen in other groups, too, not just the Catholic church.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 02:12 AM

Great posts!

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 04:03 AM

I find it absurd to say that all Irish are guilty for the cover up of these crimes.

Religious organisations try to influence society and in order to do that, they crave the moral right to do so. This sets them up as almost unaccountable. After all, they are not part of any democratic process, so are not answerable to anyone other than their own hierarchy.

And that's why for me, the hierarchy should be in the dock. Harbouring criminals, failing to report a crime, perverting the course of justice... How many laws on the Irish statute can we come up with? Quite a few I reckon.

And then, just suppose they are right. Just suppose for one minute that there is a bloke with a great white beard judging us.

It isn't just the child molester who would be damned to their vision of Hell, it would be those who have statues erected in their cathedrals too.

I do accept that in criticising institutions, it can be seen as criticising peoples' individual faith. But if you can separate your faith from the actions of your church, then why aren't you out there shouting "Not in my name!" And withholding support till it blows over? A few less idiots running around the Third World telling people not to use contraceptives would be a great help, and if enough people stopped funding it, then it might stop. After all, don't expect The Vatican to use their enormous corporate wealth to fund their missionary work...

Similarities here with the thread about Uganda possibly executing people for being gay, egged on by so called Christian organisations in The States.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 04:08 AM

Sorry, Jim - you write with passion and I know you believe what you say, but I don't believe that level of mind control was possible in Nazi Germany - and I certainly don't believe it was possible in Ireland.
My Irish ancestors were not sheep. If they knew of child abuse and molestation and did not speak out, they MUST bear at least a portion of the responsibility for their silence.
I certainly will agree that many injustices were done in the name of the Church, but I also insist that those who do not protest injustice, are partly responsible. It wasn't just the Catholic Church who condoned abuse and molestation - it was the entire Irish people.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 04:10 AM

"this kind of control over people can happen in other groups, too, not just the Catholic church."
This is true to an extent Alice, with one important rider - in most countries the church gives its allegience to the State - in Ireland, in practical terms, up to now, it has been the opposite with the State owing its allegience to the Church. Hence the collusion between Church and State over the abuse scandals.
When I was growing up (in Liverpool - therefore not directly under the influence of the church) there used to be a joke about particularly fierce priests "I'll bet Father ***** gave Jesus water-walking lessons").
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 07:45 AM

I know it's a bad idea to post when you're angry, and I've been trying to wait until I calmed down. But it's been over twelve and a half hours and I still haven't calmed down.   


> If you live in Ireland, YOU are responsible for the absolute travesty that has occurred... What has not happened, is for the Irish people to acknowledge their share of the blame.

> It wasn't just the Catholic Church who condoned abuse and molestation - it was the entire Irish people.   

Joe, I'm sorry, this is simply NOT TRUE, not acceptable, and not even close to fair. You cannot seriously be equating the guilt of the actual perpetrators of child-rape with the general public, many of whom DID speak out. The reason you don't know that is because you didn't hear about it. And that's because the only thing that got results was when the actions started to get official. And embarrassing.

You are doing exactly the same to "the Irish people" as you complain is being done to all the many innocent clergy. Mass, blanket blaming. What's the difference between saying "if you live in Ireland you're also responsible for this" and "if you're a priest/Catholic you're an abuser". Both assertions are monstrously unjust. How can you dispute the latter (which certainly should be disputed) and then turn around and state the former?

Anyone who has sexually abused a child is "responsible". Anyone who has knowingly enabled this is also responsible. The ordinary populace - including the huge number of genuine priests - who have not perpetrated such acts are not. (Are the non-molesting priests equally to blame for not speaking out? Or is it just the rest of us?)

> I don't believe that level of mind control was possible in Nazi Germany - and I certainly don't believe it was possible in Ireland.

It's not mind-control, it's fear of the consequences. When an organisation has power over so many aspects of your life, it doesn't have to be jackboots in the face to intimidate you. That is NOT CONDONING. Facilitating cover-ups is condoning.

But you're never going to accept it, are you? Irish society is how you choose to perceive it rather than how people living in it and shaped by it are trying to tell you it WAS. Anything anyone attempts to explain merely gets met with a polite version of "I don't believe it, therefore it isn't so". It's just starting to sound like denial. But I guess seeking to dilute the blame and project it onto the rest of us is one way of throwing some of the heat off the Church.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 08:46 AM

[i]It wasn't just the Catholic Church who condoned abuse and molestation - it was the entire Irish people.[/i]


There were actually examples in the Murphy report of parent complaining to the Gardai (in 1972 if I rememebr correctly) where the two detectives receiving the complaint didn't even bother to take notes.

What action would you suggest the parents should have taken? The authorities refused to take action, the files of complaints made to the church ended up in the private safe of the archbishop out of reach of anyone willing to follow up on complaints.

Let's call a spade a spade Joe, this is a well documented situation. What would you suggest those you blame collectively should have undetaken against the power of state and church combined?

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Alice
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 10:20 AM

I see this issue from a "bigger picture" point of view because of what I've seen first hand, not just as a Catholic, but from the abuse I've seen of members of other religions. Unlike Ireland, in the USA, anyone can start their own religion and since colonial times, small new religious groups thrive. It leads to terrible abuses like People's Temple in Jonestown. There are thousands of religious groups, most relatively small, and even when there is fraud or abuse, the victims are afraid to speak up. But I won't steer this thread that way. My comments just come from a point of view about how people believe what they believe and allow themselves to become victims of abuse or fraud.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 11:02 AM

Allow themselves to become victims? You don't think it's ever because they are at the mercy of a stronger force, who are not acting in their best interests?

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 11:12 AM

My apologies to Alice. I've just had an interesting PM from her, and I withdraw the question.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jack Campin
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 11:16 AM

What Alice is describing is the way American Protestantism works - but the kind of American Catholicism Joe is describing has virtually the same power structure, i.e. a (fraction of the) laity running the show with no real accountability to the official hierarchy. They're effectively Baptists who go to mass. That isn't the way it works in Ireland, as I understand it - the hierarchy there does exert real power, and the laity very little.

That affects where you might want to fix blame.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Alice
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 12:12 PM

Especially when someone is born in to a religion, like most Catholics are, it is harder for them to recognize abuse of power, because they've lived with that power over them their whole lives, as did generations before.

Now that there is greater communication world wide about this issue, more people feel there is support to speak up.

(Bonnie, that's ok, you can leave your posts, "allow" was a poor choice of words on my part. With that kind of influence, people's defenses are down, which is what I meant).

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: mg
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 12:53 PM

Let's bring the theologians into this who I think are very very culpable..mg

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: mg
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 01:23 PM

You know what really scandalized the American Catholic Church? When the handsome young Cuban priest (he was some sort of radio or TV personality) fell in love and married a woman. That was the big, really big, scandal. He talked about it on Oprah I think. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 01:34 PM

Ah well, Ireland during the nineties has had Bishop Casey and Father Michael Cleary. What can you say (well, when these men's families came under scrutiny it the women who bore their children were the ones who took the blame, not the priests).

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Alice
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 03:08 PM

NPR radio reported on the Pope's response today:

transcript, Pope Will Write Letter To Irish Catholics On Abuse

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 03:42 PM

The "power structure" of American Protestantism is too divided ideologically to have any real power over its believers.

The ideological conservatism seen in the South and interior West extends from Roman Catholics to Baptists to Anglicans to evangelists; religion is not the main factor.
Opposition to big central government and its spending, dislike of change, opposition to people "who are different" (gays, Muslims, etc.) extends across religious distinctions.

Baptists, often singled out, are not uniform; there are two main groups, one very conservative (Southern Baptist Convention), the other moderate (Cooperative Baptist Fellowship).
Georgia, e. g., is 70% Protestant (24% Baptist), 12% Catholic, 13% non-believers; Savannah and Atlanta have strong Jewish elements. (Wiki data on percentages).

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 03:54 PM

Bonnie, I am certainly not denying that the primary responsibility for this scandal lies upon the people who molested and abused children, and on those who covered it up. They should be bankrupted, and should spend the rest of their lives in prison. I don't deny the crimes, and I don't deny the coverups, and I don't deny the need for punishment and reparations.

What I DO deny is the appropriation of secondary blame and fiscal responsibility solely to "the Church," meaning all those who are currently Catholic. At the time these crimes took place, almost all of Ireland was Catholic, and all of Ireland stood by and watched as these crimes took place because "nothing could be done." They did nothing, because they were afraid. I can't see how they are absolved from blame and liability simply because they left the Church in the time since. The worst of the crimes happened in government-owned schools that were staffed by members of religious orders. There is a huge outcry because tax money is being spent to pay reparations for these crimes, and the Church has been assessed only partial responsibility for payment.

How is that different from a teenage gang beating a teenager, with hundreds of people watching and nobody doing anything, because they were afraid to get involved? Are only part of the crowd responsible for failing to stop the beating? Is "I didn't help because I was afraid" a reasonable excuse for failing to show courage when courage is demanded? Didn't the same phenomenon happen in Germany and in the Deep South of the United States? Where was the Martin Luther King to defend these Irish children from oppression? Where was the Willi Brandt, joining the forces of resistance to Catholic oppression? Wasn't there anyone in Ireland who spoke out at the time these crimes were happening?

Whenever and wherever there is widespread and endemic injustice, there is an element of community responsibility. When something bad is happening and nobody does anything about it, then everyone who fails to act has a partial share in community responsibility for the injustice. And whenever there has been a community-wide injustice, there is a need for honest shouldering of community responsibility in the aftermath. I don't see this happening in Ireland.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jack Campin
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 04:37 PM

The "power structure" of American Protestantism is too divided ideologically to have any real power over its believers.

It has a LOT of power, but not centralized power. The US is unique among developed nations in being mostly a small-town society, and in a small town it's quite easy for church-based groupings to exercise effective dictatorship (via bizarre abuses like using zoning law to regulate sexual behaviour). And the norm is the Baptist democratic-cum-mob-rule paradigm of autonomous local churches, ideologically quite homogeneous.

As Joe has discovered the hard way, this way of running a religion can sometimes mean convergence in disciplinary practice between organizations with quite distinct foundational dogmas. A version of Islam that took root in the same small-town society would end up as a good-ole-boy ulema that ran progressive imams out of town.

This is NOT what Ireland is like. It's equally sick but in a different way.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 07:09 PM

> ...responsibility solely to "the Church," meaning all those who are currently Catholic

Let's clarify one thing first: I have not been using or thinking of the words "the Church" to indicate all people who happen to be Catholic, but merely as a shorthand name for the specific organised structured religion and those who run it. This is how I've always understood this term, which is used a lot in Ireland, and that's the context I believe it tends to have here. But: that's my own perception and I would be interested to know how many of the Irish interpret the word the same way as you do and how many don't. As you say, the majority of them are Catholic, so it seems as though they would need a phrase to distinguish between themselves and the (for want of a better word) authorities. I'm not trying to quibble about semantics, but to unpick the differences in what each of us means when we say something.

If you are stating that ordinary Catholics should not be blamed for the atrocities, we have no disagreement at all. Of course they shouldn't and it's as offensively wrong as hearing all _____s described as _____-_____s. (Fill in the blanks yourself, people. In another thread. I'm not going there.) But it's exactly the same process.

But do not tell us, from a distance of 6000 miles, that we "stood by and watched" or "condoned abuse and molestation" or any of those other few-word phrases. It's just not true. Where do you get that from, except as a long-distance observation through a mental telescope-lens? You are making an unfair and blanket judgement when you don't know WHAT went on. (You probably saw, at the bottom of the article in Alice's link, the statement: "Police and social workers charged with stopping child abuse didn't start getting cooperation from the church until 1995. This opened the floodgates to thousands of abuse complaints...")   

> The worst of the crimes happened in government-owned schools that were staffed by members of religious orders.

Really? I never knew the state owned the Magdalene laundries. Or don't those count if they weren't officially Documented? The industrial schools were only part of the story and it's disingenuous to just ignore the parochial ones. But in any case, what on earth difference does it make, given the close collusion between the two authorities? We will never really know where the worst of the crimes took place, or the actual extent of them, because we're not going to ever have the full truth. There are too many blanks in the story, too many heartbreaking silences from spirits defeated by shame, despair, mental illness, and suicide. Or plain old age.

> How is that different from a teenage gang beating a teenager, with hundreds of people watching and nobody doing anything, because they were afraid to get involved? Are only part of the crowd responsible for failing to stop the beating?

Such a beating is PUBLIC, visible and obvious, and a crowd is pretty much equal in number to a gang (interesting analogy, that). And people have been known to join forces to throw off attackers. But how are you supposed to stop assaults that have already happened, or which were not known about because they occurred behind closed, well-protected doors and the victims were too terrified or ashamed to complain? (Don't underestimate the horribly unreasonable amount of self-blame that sexually abused kids incur, which usually makes them withdraw inside themselves and clam up.) This gang-beating scenario is far too simplistic to be a valid comparison.   

Your perception just appears selective to me, taking on board some factors of the story in Ireland while deflecting others, to fit a preconceived theory. You're arguing from a standpoint of ideological generalities which vastly oversimplify and reduce the individual human population of a country you have not lived in to an abstract, which you then pronounce blanket judgment upon. It almost sounds like an exercise in dialectical logic. You don't like it (nor do I) when people do that to you.

I have lived in Ireland for nearly 19 years and spent another 20 years in London's strong and active Irish community. But I was born and raised only about 60 miles (? or however far away Stockton is) from where you are based; and I can tell you from first-hand experience of both that there are significant differences between the two regions, and those arguments are neither fair nor properly informed regarding life here as it was realistically lived (I'm not referring to matters of the faith itself). You cannot condemn one from the matrix of the other.

I want out of this thread now. There's no point. You do not appear willing to entertain anything that runs counter to your established ideas, and it's just become a circular argument. Why waste further emotional energy or Mudcat bandwidth going round and round? We're never going to change each other's minds. Certainly I have a lot of respect for the travails and battles you have faced in your own spiritual journey, and wish that you had not been made to suffer for this black episode.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 07:25 PM

"we're not going to ever have the full truth. There are too many blanks in the story, too many heartbreaking silences from spirits defeated by shame, despair, mental illness, and suicide. Or plain old age."

Yes - I have inherited stories from dead relatives of what went on. But what can be said now? Most people would never speak. I certainly understand that - it takes a *lot* to speak, let alone under the oppression of such a powerfully all-pervasive & long-standing institution.

Bonnie, please don't abandon this thread. Your contributions are potent, lucid, informative and extremely valuable.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 07:41 PM

Jack Campin with his "Baptist democratic cum-mob rule" type statements obviously knows nothing about southern American social, political and religious demographics.

No point in further comment to him.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 09:00 PM

Joe - this sounds very much like "They were asking for it" as applied to rape victims - and it really leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. You appear to have no idea of the spiritual grip that the church had over the whole population of Ireland - think Jonesville on a national scale.
To blame the relatives of victims is outrageous, and it really does let the real criminals off the hook.
Did you know that peadophelia is not a crime in the eyes of the church, but rather a sickness - a legal defence, rather than an indictment (according to a legal expert on Church matters writing in the Irish Times earlier this week)?
Rather like saying Hitler, Goebells.. et al were insane and the German people as a whole were the real criminals.
Is this what you really are saying?
Your defence of the church goes far beyond any attempt to justify or neutralise the affair that I have ever come across.
At least the Vatican has only chosen to stay silent on the matter.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 09:24 PM

The Irish people have, in effect, all been victims of this crime. They have practically all been abused in one form or another by the Catholic church for a great many years. To expect them to shoulder any communal blame for the child abuse is just plain wrong, not to mention offensive. It also begs highly contentious comparisons and parallels, as has been already pointed out. I do, however, agree with Joe that the Catholic church is "morally neutral", though I prefer to think of it as half rotten. I'm referring to the staff, not the members. I have no problem with Catholics; it's Catholicism I have trouble with, and from what I've seen most of them do as well, one way or another.

I applaud any Irish people disillusioned enough to have left the faith, because they have done something about it - voted with their feet, and in Ireland that takes a great strength of mind. It's a great shame more of the clergy don't have that much courage or integrity, though I can see how it might be undesirable or even virtually impossible for some.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Alice
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 09:30 PM

I think most people don't realize the scope of what I was referring to. You have to realize that there are religions in the USA based on new-age beliefs, UFO's, all kinds of mixtures of things you probably have never heard of. I'm not talking about just mainstream Protestant and Catholic churches. You don't realize how many "new" religions are created and also how they can pressure and abuse members. They often have more power to control, as there is not usually a historic oversight established.

Back to the main subject of the thread now.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 11:08 PM

Well. in a way Alice, what you just wrote is very germane to the main subject of the thread — someone above, re the responsiblity of the Irish community as a whole for not speaking out, suggested a very cogent parallel between the Church in Ireland & 'Jonesville' — surely an extreme but excellent example of what you have just posted about.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Alice
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 11:32 PM

Yes, (and it is Jonestown, site of the People's Temple mass murder, not Jonesville).

But we've talked about all this on other threads.





More in the news today from the Vatican about Ireland.
"The pope promised that the Catholic Church would continue to follow the issue and try to develop "effective and secure strategies" to make sure the abuses don't happen again."

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Alice
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 11:42 PM

Mudcatters who have been around the forum for years know from past discussions that I worked with people who were leaving abusive cults and also produced a short film on cults and thought reform, the methods used by groups to recruit and control members.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 12:02 AM

Sorry - Jonestown of course. My watchword ever is 'accuracy matters', so thank you for setting me right, Alice.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 05:03 AM

Bonnie and Jim, I don't mean to downplay the guilt of the Church, the priests and nuns who committed crimes of molestation or abuse, or the bishops and other administrators who covered up these crimes. I've said that more than once. Caitlin rua said "People in Ireland didn't question the Church." I can accept that as true, because that was more-or-less the case when I was growing up Catholic in the United States in the 1950s - but I never knew of a case where a priest or nun abused or molested a child, or did anything else seriously wrong.

And when someone in authority does something wrong, a tradition of never questioning authority seems like a pretty lame excuse for failing to challenge an injustice.

Now, Bonnie Shaljean and Jim Carroll describe an Ireland that sounds like a concentration camp, where every movement was monitored and controlled by a watchful Church. I would like to note that Bonnie and Jim have both been in Ireland for somewhat under twenty years - so I wonder if they actually were witness to the controlled society they describe. I also question whether Bonnie and Jim ever participated in Catholic parish life in Ireland, and I wonder if either one has ever actually suffered under the rule of the Church that they consider oppressive. I wonder what it is that they have actually witnessed themselves. It is my perception that their perception of the problem is distorted, although there was undeniably a real and extremely serious problem.

I've been very concerned about this matter since the Ryan Report was first discussed here in May, I've taken the time to read the report. The Sacramento area has dozens of diocesan priests and Sisters of Mercy who came to Sacramento from Ireland - the last arrived here about 1975, so these are people who grew up in Ireland during the period from 1950-65. I've seen it contended above that it was mostly middle-class people who became priests and nuns, but most of the Irish priests and nuns I know came from working-class families from all over Ireland. I asked several about the Ryan Report and about the conditions they lived under while growing up. They said that the schools, both Catholic and national schools, were strict and did practice corporal punishment, but that actual abuse was uncommon and not the rule. They found their Catholic parish churches to be a center of social life, and their experiences in their parishes were mostly positive.

The impression I get from my friends is that while Ireland was impoverished at the time, they had reasonably enjoyable lives as children. One priest, a farmer's son, grew up in County Clare, not far from Frank McCourt's Limerick. He said that McCourt was thought of as a "whiner" by people from County Clare, and my friend said that life for most kids was nowhere near as bad as what McCourt described.

So, my question is mostly one of proportion. I'm sure that there were poor children in Ireland, and that life was tough for many of them. But how many lived lives in fear of constant abuse? Some did - there's no doubt about that. And that is a horrible scandal that can never been forgiven.

So, where's the reality in all this? Where's the proportion? And I ask again - who is supposed to pay the cost of all this? In the United States, it is the current generation of Catholics who are paying the bill, and most of them were children at the time the offenses took place. I have to imagine the same will be true in Ireland - that the current generation of Catholics will pay for the offenses committed by people who are dead or near dead.

Another question I need to ask: what period of time are we talking about here? It is my impression that the worst cases of abuse took place before 1970, almost forty years ago - although the Ryan Report says some happened as late as the 1980s. It seems to me that a lot of the people who committed these crimes must be dead or at least old and feeble. So, who is there to punish for these crimes?

It is indeed a huge and terrible scandal - but it is my impression that the vast majority of Irish children did not suffer abuse or molestation, and that the vast majority of Irish Catholic priests and nuns did not commit crimes of abuse or molestation. Therefore, it seems to me that an overall condemnation of the Church is unwarranted. Rather than a hysterical "buckshot" attack on all things Catholic, there needs to be an honest, soul-searching review of the entire problem.

Jim and Bonnie, I think you have both taken anecdotal evidence and broadened it to support a sweeping and unfair condemnation. I think you both need a more proportional and realistic and rational perspective. Take a look at the Ryan Report. It takes a rational, balanced, realistic approach to the problem. It brings out the hard, horrible facts of this era of abuse, but it doesn't cloud the facts with unrealistic, sweeping condemnations.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: MartinRyan
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 05:45 AM

Joe

a tradition of never questioning authority seems like a pretty lame excuse for failing to challenge an injustice

"tradition" is a very lame description of the situation in Dublin, in particular, during the reign of John Charles. Any challenge to church authority was dealt with quite ferociously - and was rendered unlikely from the start through the education system.

I have little doubt that some of the comments in this thread are ideologically driven and reflect, in a sense, a secondhand perspective on Irish life. Mine are not - and don't. Like Fergie in the original thread on this topic, I know whereof I speak.

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 05:56 AM

No, it comes from knowing people here and having lived in their houses and yes, meeting some of the victims and their families first hand. But you will just find some reason why that doesn't count or is wrong.

You're taking the view that you want to take, and distorting what I said accordingly. I'm done explaining and writing and arguing. You will never be convinced because you don't want to be. But please don't dismiss my lived experiences here and the people I have interacted with when you know nothing about them.

Your post is full of "the impression I get" and "I'm sure that" and "I think". Fine, Joe. Whatever.

> who is supposed to pay the cost of all this?

Well, for starters there's that 20 million they made from the sale of the Magdalene Laundry in Cork.

Out of here now. No point trying to explain further.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 05:58 AM

My opening line was actually in reply to Joe, not Martin, with whom I cross-posted.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 06:42 AM

Joe - please do not try to score points - you're better than that.
Yes - I have only lived in Ireland for 10 years. My family left Ireland for England during the famine and have continued to live in both places ever since.
You only lived in America as a Catholic - you didn't live in Catholic America - a not too subtle difference. Remind us again - how long have you spent in Ireland?
Every movement WAS monitored and controlled by the Catholic church.
I have just been reading of the murder which took place in Sligo forty years ago and was never properly investigated because the chief suspect was a priest. Yesterday I read of the church selling a field (to a building developer) containing many bodies of children denied Christian burial by that same church because they had died too early to be baptised.
I think I'm going to take Bonnie's advice and refrain from posting while I am angry.
Watch this space
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 06:50 AM

I meant to add that I am appalled that you haveresorted to the squalid legal technique of putting the victim in the dock
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 12:20 PM

"Out of here now." Yeah. Right. That's a good one. Maybe when I get a bit more detachment from this whole thing.

Having my right to a viewpoint on Ireland invalidated because of a mere 19 years' residence, by someone who has never spent more than a holiday visit here, who then pronounces guilt on the whole country, is still chewing on me.

Since I apparently need to defend my right to speak: I should also have added that, in addition to the things I wrote above, I also used to work for Samaritans in Cork. The callers there confided some of the most agonising, despairing, heartbreaking experiences relating to this issue that anyone could ever imagine hearing. I'm certainly not going to repeat anything told to me on the phones, but DON'T YOU DARE sit there and tell me I have "taken anecdotal evidence and broadened it to support a sweeping and unfair condemnation".

You're the one who is doing that. I am speaking of LIVES AS THEY ARE LIVED. Please try to get that.

> I keep trying to think up theories

It shows, Joe.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 02:59 PM

This red herring of 'blame' is stifling the discussion. The relevant thing is the question of who is to be held accountable and punished, and how to actually stop it happening. The Ryan report covers abuse up to 2004 and there is no reason to suppose it has been stopped yet. The Catholic church has been feigning shocked apology for years and so far has done nothing effective. That's one way of being "morally neutral" I suppose.


Here's an eyewitness account that came to light in 1999, just to put some 'reality' and perspective on the matter:

"There are moments these days in Ireland when it seems that the once-omnipotent Catholic Church is slowly imploding. In the living-room of his neat Dublin flat, Michael, 45, has been remembering the day he was first summoned at school to a Christian Brother's private room. He was 10 and had spent a year at Artane "industrial school" - a home for 1,200 boys run by the religious order on behalf of the state, for orphans and children from broken families. What took place was horrific. "This brother beat me and raped me until there was blood everywhere," says Michael.

When the crimson flow could not be stemmed, Michael was taken to the order's private infirmary. No questions were asked about his appalling injuries, and when he was healed it was only so that he could be abused again. Over the next five years, he says, he was raped and sexually assaulted by seven Christian brothers.

As Michael tells his story, the faces of four elderly men flicker on to the television set. Four Christian brothers, aged 59 to 81, the newscaster announces, have just been charged with 55 sexual abuse crimes between 1952 and 1970 at another industrial school, St Joseph's in Tralee.

The current shaming of the Catholic Church is relentless, and seems continuous, with former residents queuing up to describe the brutality of the religiously run schools. Last week, Nora Wall, formerly Sister Dominic, became the first nun to be convicted of child sex abuse. Wall, 51, was found guilty of raping a 10-year-old girl in her care in 1988. She pinned the girl by the ankles while a homeless schizophrenic raped her at St Michael's, a home run by the Sisters of Mercy in Waterford. Wall was its director.

The girl had been sent to St Michael's when she was six, following allegations that her father had sexually abused her. Wall began sexually abusing the child soon after she arrived. The rapist, Paul McCabe, 50, was a former resident who met Wall while looking for his mother, who had left him at St Michael's as a child.

Amazingly, what has been exposed so far is probably just the beginning. Hundreds of former residents of children's homes are preparing to sue religious orders and the Catholic Church. A police investigation into abuse at Artane, for example, has received 230 complaints against 75 priests. More than 40,000 children passed through the industrial schools between 1950 and the Seventies and thousands more through the "enlightened" regimes that replaced them. Michael, it is now clear, was far from alone.

Christine Buckley was the first to break the silence in the mid-Nineties when she exposed the horror of her years in Goldenbridge orphanage in Dublin, run by the Sisters of Mercy in the Fifties. Miss Buckley says children were subjected to hard labour and beaten every day. The nuns stole their names from them on entry and gave them a number. Miss Buckley remembers babies strapped to potties and girls not knowing their names or the day they were born. Not that it mattered. Birthdays were not celebrated. Bernadette Fahy, 45, also a Goldenbridge pupil, says: "It was just like a concentration camp. That is no insult to people sent to real concentration camps. The only thing they did not do to us was send us to the gas chambers."

The avalanche of abuse allegations has forced Church and state into a corner. And there is hard cash at stake, as well as reputations. Which may explain the current vogue for saying sorry. Over the past two years the Sisters of Mercy, the Christian Brothers and the De La Salle Brothers have gone so far as to make public apologies to those who "may" have been abused.

Last month, propelled partly by States of Fear - a three-part television expose of the industrial schools - the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, offered a surprise "sincere and long overdue" apology to the victims of abuse, and for "a collective failure to intervene". He was not being magnanimous. States of Fear exposed official files that proved that the state had known about, and ignored, allegations of abuse.

Ahern also announced an independent commission into abuse, the primary focus of which would be to provide a forum for victims to tell their stories. Interestingly, both Church and government claim that recognition, not compensation, is the victims' main concern. That looks like being wishful thinking.

Josephine Baker, who runs a support group for 200 male supporters of the industrial schools, snorts. "Once the apologies are sorted out, compensation will, in fact, be a primary aim," she says. "It is only fair because the kids' labour and allowances went into the order. The kids subsidised the growth of the Catholic Church." Her next sentence will chill Irish bishops. "And for the number of compensation claims, the sale of Church land and property is not just a possibility but a necessity."

Mrs Baker's own husband Don was beaten by Catholic Brothers at a reformatory school. She argues that the brutality pushed victims to the fringes of society, into alcoholism, drug addiction, criminality and psychiatric wards. Compensation may just bring some back.

She says the government's proposal to relax the conditions under which victims can sue for sexual abuse - but not for physical abuse - is simply an attempt to restrain costs. But once the ball is rolling, she says, the government may be forced to reconsider.

Miss Fahy agrees that compensation must be paid and suggests that the Irish government does not realise the forces it is unleashing with the commission. "Most of these kids left school practically illiterate. There was a class element to it all. They were raised to be labourers, domestics and cleaners, even for the religious orders."

The commission must also present a complete picture of the causes, nature and extent of child abuse. Explaining the endemic brutality will not be easy, but those whose childhoods were destroyed have their theories.

Jim Cantwell, a Catholic Church spokesman, said this week that industrial schools had been poorly funded and under-staffed and amounted to "childcare on the cheap". But Miss Fahy says that does not explain the abject cruelty. That had everything to do, she argues, with the history and ethos of a "political, bullying and controlling" Church whose influence then reached into every area of Irish life.

"The Church was about oppression," she says. "In their schools they tried to kill the spirit of a child and they called that moral formation. At Goldenbridge we were meant to strive to be little nuns, completely submissive and obedient and virginally pure in body, mind and spirit."

Miss Fahy, who has just published a book about Goldenbridge, says that the nuns were obsessed with all things sexual, taunting the girls that their mothers were prostitutes, and disgusted by any signs of sexual development or identity.

Michael now believes that he suffered at the hands of a paedophile ring. He thinks word spread among the Brothers that he was a perfect victim: shy, withdrawn, terrified and unassertive. And he thinks that there must surely be a connection between what they did to him and their own repression. The Brothers, he points out, entered seminaries in their early teens, lacking any sexual experience. And since sex, and even masturbation, was sinful, it is not surprising that so many of the sexual attacks he suffered were accompanied by violence.

The Catholic Church has promised to co-operate fully with the commission and claims to want "all the cards laid on the table". Victims' organisations, meanwhile, fear a partial whitewash and an assumption that the bad old days are over. Many would like to see all childcare responsibility removed from religious orders.

Miss Fahy believes that much of the abuse took place simply because it was allowed to. No one dared to question the Church and there were few outside checks on the schools. And most children had no outside adults to turn to. Even if they had spoken out - and a few tried - who would have believed that the pious brothers and the saintly sisters could be so cruel?"

(The Independant, Friday, 18 June 1999)

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 03:13 PM

Pardon my spelling..

This is a link to the above article.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,999
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 03:14 PM

The Christian Brothers: they keep going from strength to strength, don't they? Same crap in both Australia and Canada.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 03:38 PM

Their 'teaching methods' caused my mate's little brother to hang himself back in the early 70s, and they got away with it. The school is still open and making plenty of money.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 03:48 PM

Sorry, that was actually the Jesuits. My apologies to the Christian Brothers for besmirching their good name.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 07:06 PM

Martin Ryan says, "I have little doubt that some of the comments in this thread are ideologically driven and reflect, in a sense, a secondhand perspective on Irish life." He says he lived through this time in Ireland's history, and I have found his comments to be harsh but very credible and balanced. Martin says Fergie's message in the other thread is a good description of life in Ireland at the time. I find Fergie's observations a little too strong to believe, but I accept them on Martin's word.
My perspective is based on having many Irish-born priests and nuns as friends here in California, and they have expressed a more positive perspective while not denying the facts of the stories of the Ryan Report and the Magdalene Laundries. I visited Ireland for two weeks about five years ago. And I have to say I did not like the harsh, severe atmosphere of the Irish parishes I visited.
But hey, I spent twenty-five years as a U.S. Government investigator. I've learned to separate emotive from factual language. I was also trained not to make decisions based on third-hand information. This is a very emotion-packed issue, but it is important to explore it dispassionately. I think the Ryan Report did an excellent job of exploring the problem dispassionately, and I understand that many in Ireland are distressed about it because it merely reported facts without issuing condemnations.
In this discussion, it is still my impression that the condemnations are so far-reaching that they are unbelievable. I still find it hard to believe that any human institution could be as profoundly and universally corrupt and evil as some have described it here.
I have a great deal of respect and a good amount of affection for most of the major participants in this discussion, even though some are upset with me in my quest for the truth. But I think it is very important to establish the truth, as dispassionately as possible.
Fergie's post is below. It's a first-hand account, and I think it's very worthwhile to read it.
-Joe-

---

Thread #125363   Message #2775864
Posted By: Fergie
28-Nov-09 - 10:21 PM
Thread Name: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)
Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children

I really don't want to get involved in this debate, but I feel compelled to add some comments.
I was reared in the Ireland of the fifties and sixties. I witnessed the phenomenon that was the Irish Catholic Church at that time. The clergy were almost exclusively the sons of the middle classes and wealthy farmers. The victims were almost exclusively the sons and daughters of the working and rural poor. The RC church was extremely powerful, they controlled the education system and the health system and many institutions that were properly the responsibility of the Social Welfare system. The Church and the clergy was fascist in nature, antidemocratic, paternalistic, misogynistic, sectarian and believed that the Irish State should be a Catholic State for a Catholic people.
Many of the politicians of the time (including Eamon DeValera the prime-minister and later president of the state, and many members of his cabinet and government) held similar views, and took a diffident stance when it came to questions regarding "moral authority" and they actively colluded with the RC church when it came to questions regarding the rights of citizens of the state.
The Catholic Church in the Republic of Ireland were not answerable to the authority of the state, on the contrary the state was answerable to the Catholic Church, (for those who are sceptical of the truth of this assertion, let them Google Noel Browne and the Mother and Child Act or just go HERE).
The clergy had immense power and position (for instance it was almost impossible for a person to get any meaningful employment without the imprimatur of the local parish priest or curate), and they abused that power over and over. They infiltrated every aspect of civil life and ensured that they themselves or some self-serving and obsequious lackey was appointed to every civil committee and organisation in the land, everything from local football clubs, youth club, cultural festival etc, etc, etc. many of the men (and some women) that were attracted to "religious life" were drawn by the obvious power and prestige that came with the collar or the veil. Many evil people were aware that they could perpetrate their "deviances" without fear of exposure if they could operate behind the collar or veil and they joined the ministry in their hundreds, where they had access to children in many institutions, schools, orphanages, hospitals, industrial schools, choirs, sports clubs, etc. etc.
To be a child, especially a Catholic child from a working class or from a poor background in the Irish Republic in the fifties and sixties was a dangerous thing to be, for you were at the mercy of these predators.
To be beaten in school by some sadistic bastard of a brother, priest or nun was the daily experience of tens of thousands of Irish children, (I was one of those children), to be subjected to daily criticism and humiliation for the quality of your home or your clothes or your father occupation was your daily experience (I was one of those children) to be branded a fool, ignorant, worthless, dirty, sinful, unworthy and shameful (I was one of those children).
But I was one of the "lucky" ones for I never suffered the pain, degradation and anguish of sexual abuse. Yet I know many, many children that were groomed for and sexually abused and raped by these predators that covered their crimes behind a collar, because they knew that the authorities (both clerical and civil) would never take the word of some working class brat over the word of a respectable middleclass ordained man of the cloth.

The abuse was widespread within the church. As children we knew what was going on and some of us knew which priests and brothers to avoid. The vast majority of clerics also knew what was going on but they choose to ignore it and to do absolutly nothing, the arch bishops, the bishops, the canons, the parish priest and the clergy, along with some police officers, politicians, social workers and medical staff, lied, covered up, and protected the perpetrators and branded the innoccent victims and their parents who dared to speak out as liars and guilty sinners.
Please read the report, you can find it in all its harrowing details here
Murphy Report part 1

Part 2 Here

Joe, did you ever hear of the concept of "mental reservation"? Well I never did until I read this report, It seems it's an RC doctrine which allows you to tell "untruths" without being guilty of telling lies. Below is Cardinal Connell's explanation of how this piece of bullshit works and how he justified his cover-up and protection of the clerical filth (ten percent of priests in the Dublin dioceses) that spent half a century defiling the children that they were entrusted to protect.

Read it and weep for the Catholic Church

"Well, the general teaching about mental reservation is that you are not permitted to tell a lie. On the other hand, you may be put in a position where you have to answer, and there may be circumstances in which you can use an ambiguous expression realising that the person who you are talking to will accept an untrue version of whatever it may be - permitting that to happen, not willing that it happened, that would be lying . . . So mental reservation is, in a sense, a way of answering without lying." Cardinal Connell

Personally I divorced myself from all this RC hypocracy a long time ago and I hope that I will be followed by droves of the congegation as they begin to realise how they and their children have been utterly betrayed by their church and their clergy over decades.

Fergus Russell

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 08:01 PM

Oh, and yes, I did hear of "mental reservation." It's not Catholic doctrine. It's a theory in moral theology that says that on may tell less than the entire truth when serious harm would be done by telling the entire truth. The usual example is when telling the truth would result in the death of another person. Absolutists would say that one is not permitted to lie even in such a situation, but that one may withhold the entire truth when revealing the truth would cause serious harm.
Applying this principle as justification for lying or withholding the truth about child molestation because it might damage the Church, is just plain wrong - and any honest moral theology professor would agree with me. They'd probably also agree with me that the whole concept of "mental reservation" is silly.

But in this case, I think that the entire truth is essential - and I'm not convinced we've achieved it. The Ryan Report says the period where the problem was the greatest, was from 1936 to 1970. I wonder if those who were there, can tell us what was good about life in Ireland during that period; and about how it was in the 1970s and 1980s and later. It's often harder for us to recall the good parts of life - but if we do, it helps put things into perspective.

My friend Fr. Mike grew up in Cork, son of a building contractor. Mike's father died when Mike was young, and the parish made sure Mike's Catholic school tuition was paid, and that the family was taken care of in many ways. I've heard many other stories of generosity from Catholic parishes in Ireland at the time. Now, I suppose a cynic could say that families in need were "taken care of" to ensure their loyalty, but was that really the case?

I'm sorry, but I've always had a positive view of humanity, and it's hard for me to believe that most people are as bad as some people think they are. So, I still need convincing.

On the other hand, I've been a Catholic all my life and I've spend a lifetime questioning the Catholic Church. Many people have told me that I'm "not really Catholic" because I don't accept things without question - but I have a Theology degree from a Catholic seminary that says I'm not required to accept things without question. So, I'm in the unenviable position of questioning both sides of this issue.

But still, I want the truth and I'm not convinced we've found it.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 04:31 AM

Joe,
I have little to add to what Fergie has offered except to reiterate that I find your apparent attempt to shift the blame from where it squarely belongs, in the lap of the Church, on to the shoulders of the ordinary people of Ireland, particularly the parents of the victims, a form of abuse in itself. I would have thought that they have suffered enough, don't you?
Much of my own evidence is, as you say, anecdotal, but it is 'from the horses mouth'. From my father's family who, as I have outlined, got out from under the influence of the Church (partially - all of them carried the great gift of 'guilt' that all Catholics were bequeathed). And from my mother's side of the family who remained totally in fear of the church till the day they died.
We also have the evidence of singers and musicians we recorded (all of them without exception devout catholics), who described dances being broken up by stick-weilding priests, of musicians being beaten, of having their instruments smashed, of being humiliated from the pulpit, of living their lives under he threat of eternal damnation... I've told you of the singer who was beaten so severely by a priest that he burst her ear drum. If you ever make it to Clare I'll introduce you to her - but you'll have to speak up - she's somewhat hard of hearing!
Then there was my having been born and brought up in Liverpool, surrounded by the influence of the Catholic church which, though somewhat diluted, was still very much a fact of life for me and mine.
The only unbelievable thing to me in all this is that they lived and died devoted to the organisation that abused them.
You speak of searching for the truth, but your arguments appear to suggest that you are seeking a truth that somehow lets your church off the hook.
This truths of this affair have been evident for a considerable period of time yet, yet so far the victims have received no official admittance of their suffering at the hands of the church, no apology or acceptence of blame, there have been no resignations by those guilty of facilitating the abuse (as I write the Bishop of Limerick is still doing his Hamlet "to be or not to be...." act) - in this way, the abuse continues.
The Vatican has accepted no responsibility and has attempted to hinder the search for your 'truth'; giving its national rather than its spiritual status as an excuse for its non-co-operation with the investigations.
For me, it is stating the obvious to suggest that the abusers and ALL their accomplices should be prosecuted as the common criminals they are for their crimes. But on top of this, the church, ANY CHURCH, must never again be allowed to mess with the minds of the nation and should never again be given access to either the minds or the bodies of children. - surely they have proved themselves untrustworthy?
One of the sideshows to all this that has gone relatively unnoticed is the somewhat unseemly quabble that is going on between the Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland as to who should receive the largest slice of government (public) funding in order to continue educating Irish children - bizarre or what!!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: MartinRyan
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 05:20 AM

Jim

One of the sideshows to all this that has gone relatively unnoticed is the somewhat unseemly quabble that is going on between the Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland as to who should receive the largest slice of government (public) funding in order to continue educating Irish children - bizarre or what!!!
Jim Carroll


That's a misleading and somewhat tendentious oversimplification of a complex situation which has marginal relevance in this context.

Joe

I'm not sure why you seem surprised that individual generosity and caring behaviour could coexist with abuse in the context of religious organisations. Of course it did - I could tell you tales of both! Nonethless, the prevailing culture in 20C. working class Dublin was of clerical domination of the lives of those people - overwhelmingly so until the mid '70's. I'm making no commment on the middle class or rural situations simply to emphasise that I speak from direct experience.


Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 05:32 AM

Joe
Sorry - I missed a bit!
You asked earlier where the money money was going to come from to recompense the victims of the Church. I was tempted to reply "Not our problem" but there have been enough cheap shots on this thread already without my adding to them.
A few years ago we visited The Vatican and though we had some idea of what we would see there, I don't think that either of us were quite prepared for what greeted us. I reckon a few yards of paintings in just one corridor alone would more than adequately deal with any financial settlement, no matter how generous.
I would guess that the Church's possessions could eliminate world poverty for a few centuries to come at one flick of the cheque-book signing wrist... but perhaps we shouldn't go there!!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 07:26 AM

Joe, thank you for having the honesty to copy Fergie's post, though it must have caused you pain to do so. But I am having a hard time getting my head around your continued response of partial-denial.

> I find Fergie's observations a little too strong to believe, but I accept them on Martin's word.

What does "a little too strong to believe" mean? Either you do or you don't. Saying you accept them on someone else's word is not quite the same thing. Do you think those events happened as Fergie says they did, or do you not?

Do you not accept the veracity of all my suicide-helpline callers? Those are first-hand accounts too, given directly to me. But because I am not native-born, or because they are probably dead and can't speak for themselves, do their experiences somehow not count? What does your continued "I-don't-believe..." actually mean? Do you not think these things took place unless they have passed some pre-set standard of narrative? Since you will accept at least some things on someone else's "word", why won't you accept these on mine?

I know a man whose own story is much the same as Fergie's, except that he wasn't one of "the lucky ones". But you've found a way of dismissing him, because you've ruled out anything I say as being "distorted". That's an outrageous insult, not so much to me (though I am offended by it) as to the people whose stories these are.

Do you think they're lying? And if you don't, why do you try so hard to bury them beneath a landslide of extraneous data and irrelevant side-issues? In any case, restricting the allowed sources to only those who meet certain criteria and eliminating all others is a very effective way of manipulating the evidence and influencing statistics, whether you intend it this way or not.

> I never knew of a case where a priest or nun abused or molested a child, or did anything else seriously wrong.

"I never knew of" are the operative words. I'm not suggesting that any of your priest/nun associates ever did do anything wrong, but if they had, and it was in the interest of the leaders to hide it, do you think you would know? The root of whole problem is that very secrecy.

> it's hard for me to believe that most people are as bad as some people think they are.

Excuse me? How did "most people" get into it? This is disingenuous. The whole topic at hand is focusing on specifics - victims and perpetrators. That is not "most people", no one said it was, and to introduce a statement like this which utterly distorts what has been written above, is totally unfair.

> I still find it hard to believe that any human institution could be as profoundly and universally corrupt and evil as some have described it here.

Those are your words, which reduce the specific down to an abstract and then summarise - in other words, blur all the human detail out until only safe generalities remain. It's the verbal equivalent of airbrushing. We've been trying to give you the facts, from which you persistently eliminate as many as you possibly can and then cliché-ify the rest. Or else just pooh-pooh it.

> I have a hard time believing in the helplessness of the poor lay people

> I don't believe that level of mind control was possible


And: I also continue to be trouble by your blanket condemnation of the Irish:
[1] They're all guilty
[2] Their lived experiences aren't as bad/extensive as they say (subtext, they're liars? deluded?)

I still haven't seen an explanation as to why you think this - only an overgeneralised summary which is so large as to be nearly irrelevant, plus analogies to other societies that have as many demographic differences as similarities. It therefore provides no real information of use. It's like trying to distinguish human figures in a photograph take from forty feet away, with the lens de-focused.


> I think it is very important to establish the truth

> But still, I want the truth

Which truth is that, Joe? The one that people are trying to tell you - or a safer, more comfortable one?

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 07:40 AM

I know what's been bothering me about this, and I didn't quite manage to express it a minute ago:

> I find Fergie's observations a little too strong to believe, but I accept them on Martin's word.

> What does "a little too strong to believe" mean? Either you do or you don't. Saying you accept them on someone else's word is not quite the same thing. Do you think those events happened as Fergie says they did, or do you not?

I can understand why you accept them on Martin's word. But why couldn't you accept them on Fergie's word in the first place? Why the distancing tactic?

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 08:11 AM

"I can understand why you accept them on Martin's word. But why couldn't you accept them on Fergie's word in the first place? Why the distancing tactic?"

Ditto Bonnie - I was going to raise this exact point myself.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 08:59 AM

For me, the main question isn't 'good' and 'evil' - there are all shades of this in all walks of life.
It boils down to the power and influence of the church and whether it is acceptible in the light of these and many other issues.
All this has stirred up the 'mental mud' and has jogged my memory as to how that power and influence has been used and abused throughout the Catholic world.
I vaguely remembered an incident which once outraged me to the point of tears, of both anger and of compassion, but which had passed into the 'yet another...' filing cabinet compartment of my mind, so I chanced my arm on the internet, and it all came flooding back.
In 2003, a family of Nicaraguan itinerant agricultural labourers were working in Costa Rica. The 9 year old daughter was sent to a local farm for water, where she was raped by the farmer, resulting in her contacting two sexually transmitted diseases and a pregnancy.
The nuns running the hospital where she was treated hid the fact of her pregnancy from her parents until it was past the legal limit for her to be aborted (the law there allows abortion in rape cases only - and only then when the life of the mother is threatened).
On being told that the girl would not survive giving birth at her age and in her condition, the family appealed to the Archbishop and were told that the girl should "Accept her martyrdom with pride". The parents eventually 'went illegal' and were threatened with prosecution by the church, who finally withdrew their threat in the light of adverse publicity.
Can any human being argue that any body should have such a malign influence on peoples' lives?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 09:52 AM

"That's a misleading and somewhat tendentious oversimplification of a complex situation"
Sorry Martin - overlooked your posting until it was too late.
I beg to differ; I think that the role played by the church in education, or any any non-religious area is fundamental to everything that has happened here. The question of denominational, multi-denominational and even non-denominational education has to be part of this debate if it is to mean anything. The polarisation of Ireland into different and opposing religious groupings is extremely germaine to all that has happened in modern Ireland.
Something quite trivial maybe, but earlier this year I spent some time in hospital. When filling in my details I entered "none" in the 'religion' box. It was registered as "not disclosed" in the final version.
It both amused me and at the same time, pissed me off slightly. I have no objection whatever to my views on religion being opposed and argued against (I quite relish it really), but I object strongly to their being ignored or misrepresented.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 10:34 AM

When filling in my details I entered "none" in the 'religion' box. It was registered as "not disclosed" in the final version.

Yes, that happened to me as well in Galway Academic hospital two months ago while I clearly told the admissions clerk there was no religion to declare.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: MartinRyan
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 11:02 AM

Jim

My remark referred to your comment on the "squabble over who should receive the largest slice of government (public) funding in order to continue educating Irish children". There is no such squabble. There is a dispute over whether the government should continue to provide what is regarded by some as preferential treatment of Protestant schools. That's a very different "squabble". As I said, I thought your description was tendentious - not to say sensationalist! Such overkill is unhelpful IMHO.

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 11:12 AM

Your almost certainlt right Martin - I withdraw my statement
Not in the best frame of mind at present - Happy Christmas all!!!!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 11:12 AM

This transformation of a 'none' in the religion tickbox to 'non-disclosed', which would appear from two above posts to be standard practice over there, is offensive, is it not? — with its implication that we all must have some religion, but some of us are too pusillanimous or cagy for some reason to declare what it is. The concept that some people can manage perfectly well without one seems beyond some Irish bureaucrats' tiny minds, doesn't it? I can well see why you found it so irritating that it still slightly niggles, Jim.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: MartinRyan
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 11:56 AM

Jim

No problem! Happy Christmas to yourself and Pat - and many thanks for all the help through the year.

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 01:26 PM

In fairness Mike - it's a slight improvement on the UK where, when you say 'none' you quite often get 'Church of England'
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 01:48 PM

That's never happened to me, Jim. I sometimes put CofE [I am after all a baptised & confirmed member of the Anglican Communion even if I have long since returned to my entirely atheist default setting; so fully entitled to the designation if I want to reaffirm my membership of that particular club]; but when I have put 'none' no-one has ever argued, to my knowledge. Tho probably best to put 'atheist', which nobody, surely, could mistake for an eccentric spelling of CofE.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Alice
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 02:14 PM

Here is another voice of experience.
Link to the full article


snip
"...One of those who was physically beaten on a regular basis by members of the Christian Brothers order that ran Artane was Patrick Walsh, now a businessman who lives in north London....'
snip

..."It is unlikely that officials from any government department will ever be held accountable having presided over an illegal, cruel and wicked system that led to untold suffering for tens of thousands of innocent Irish children and their families since the foundation of the state.".... snip

Link to the full article

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 06:41 PM

This is from the horse's mouth, nothing third-hand about it. The Sisters of Mercy's idea of childcare.

I've nothing to add to what Jim and Bonnie have said except my agreement.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,999
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 09:14 PM

While the Catholic church (priests within it) are getting the remarks they deserve, please remember that the same shit is going on in the Anglican, Baptist, Methodist and Lutheran churches, too. (I stopped there because I'm running outta Protestant religions.) Doesn't excuse it, but it sure makes the notion of "Christianity" seem a bit strange when the chief proponents of the belief system seem to be involved in that kinda thing.

Anyone not believing that simply Google

anglican church, abuse
etc
and there you'll have it.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 09:28 PM

I know you're right, 999, but you have to admit no-one organises it quite so well as the Catholic church.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,999
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 09:38 PM

The Anglicans--a breakaway group--sure give 'em a run for it, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 12:49 AM

Martin says:

I'm not sure why you seem surprised that individual generosity and caring behaviour could coexist with abuse in the context of religious organisations. Of course it did - I could tell you tales of both! Nonethless, the prevailing culture in 20C. working class Dublin was of clerical domination of the lives of those people - overwhelmingly so until the mid '70's. I'm making no commment on the middle class or rural situations simply to emphasise that I speak from direct experience.

Martin-
That's exactly my point - but I see no recognition of that coexistence in most of the posts in this thread. I just can't buy the blanket demonization that has come from so many posts here. I don't see anybody or any institution as all good or all bad - they are what they are. All my life, I've been so highly critical of the Catholic Church as to be told by some that I'm not really Catholic. And here, I'm seen as a participant in the coverup because I'm seeking balance and fairness in the assessment of the situation. I'm sure that if I lived in Ireland, I would be one of the more vocal critics within the Catholic Church - but I would be within the Catholic Church, because I don't like the idea of abandoning my church to the likes of Archbishop McQuaid.

You mentioned the rural situation, and there may be a key there. I have a feeling my friend Fr. Martin had a far different experience growing up a farmer's son in County Clare, than Frank McCourt had growing up in Limerick. My pastor, Fr. Mike, grew up in Cork with an alcoholic father who was a building contractor. Still, Mike had a pretty good existence growing up, though they didn't have much money. Most of the other Irish-born priests and nuns I know in Sacramento, came from rural areas and from towns I've never heard of, not from the bigger cities.


-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 03:57 AM

> I don't see anybody or any institution as all good or all bad

Will you please cut and paste the quote above that makes this charge? Stop paraphrasing everything we write, and oversimplifying it all down into these reductive single-sentence statements. This is insultingly simplistic, and distorts the contents of our posts to the point of meaninglessness.

But turning everything into a one-line cliché does make it a lot easier to dismiss. STOP RE-WORDING THINGS AND THEN CRITICISING US FOR WHAT WE DID NOT SAY.

> I just can't buy the blanket demonization that has come from so many posts here

This from someone who has accused the entire population of Ireland of being guilty?

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,MG
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 04:21 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtrEzjXwTNw

tHERE IS A Lot on you tube. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 04:34 PM

I was very abused by religion as a child. Not by priests and nuns, who by and large were wonderful..the Irish ones especially..but by my mother, who relished the hellfire and damnation. She was Baptist to start with and converted. She was able to get people within minutes of meeting her to say to us how lucky we were to have such a wonderful, saintly mother. As soon as they were gone, back to the abuse. Her religion did not condone marrying Catholics. My father's did not condone marrying Protestants. But she was able to find not just a shelter for abuse, but a place where she was glorified almost. I don't know who knew what but it was ugly. Abusive people will seek out abusive religions ..and I don't think Catholicism itself is necessarily, although it certainly tolerates great suffering and condemns people to it...or if they are born into a religion and are abusive, they will find a way to express it via the religion. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 06:54 PM

Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie...
Calm down. I said I don't see any institution as all good or all bad, and I find it worthwhile to examine both the good and bad aspects of anything to achieve a balanced, realistic view. And no, I haven't heard any comments about what was good about life in Ireland from 1936 to 1970, which leaves me with the impression that everything was dark and bad. That doesn't make sense to me, so I'm trying to get some realistic vision of what everyday life was like for a kid in Ireland during the period.

As for the entire population of Ireland being guilty of accepting oppression from the Catholic Church, I think there's truth in that, just as there's truth in the guilt of the entire nation of the United States accepting slavery and later racism as "just the way it is." Even if you're a victim or an innocent bystander, you don't have to accept abuse silently. We all share responsibility for the ills and injustices of our society. Americans must share guilt for the homelessness that is endemic in the United States, and for the mistreatment of aliens, and for the lack of health care for a few. Germany has some responsibility for the Nazi years - Hitler did not happen in a vacuum.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: MartinRyan
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 07:14 PM

As for the entire population of Ireland being guilty of accepting oppression from the Catholic Church, I think there's truth in that, just as there's truth in the guilt of the entire nation of the United States accepting slavery and later racism as "just the way it is."

A poor analogy, I'm afraid, Joe. Your "entire nation" phrase suggests that both white and black elements "accepted" slavery in that sense. Do you really believe that? The oppressed "accept" oppression only in the sense that many of them become innured to it.

Blurring the distinction between the oppressed and the oppressor is unhelpful, at best.

Regards.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 07:16 PM

if you will recall, half of the nation went to war against the other half and at least for some it was to rid the country of slavery. Those on the slave-holding side -- some guilty, some had no slaves, lived in dire poverty, did not benefit, no matter how it is spinned, from slave labor. They were caught up in something, as have most combatants from time immemorial. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 07:56 PM

"I find it worthwhile to examine both the good and bad aspects of anything to achieve a balanced, realistic view."
So if a school teaches good math, but many of its teachers abuse the children that is acceptible as a balanced, realistic view, is it Joe?
"As for the entire population of Ireland being guilty of accepting oppression from the Catholic Church, I think there's truth in that,"
If this monstrous insult is true - perhaps you can say why the people stood by and allowed abuse they knew was happening to continue? Were they indifferent to the suffering of their and other people's children; did they believe that the abuse was doing no harm; was it some sort of payment to the church for all its goodness - a human sacrifice; are Irish people apathetic, cowardly, unaware, insensitive.... why?
If it is because the church mesmerised both the victims and the families to the extent that they did nothing, is that not a impelling reason to abolish the church as a threat to Irish society, as has been proposed for so many of the cults?
It's hard not to notice that there have yet to be any acceptences of guilt by the church as a body or by the Vatican, and the Bishop of Limerick is heading back to Rome without either an offer of resignation from him or a demand for same from his employers, which puts all the mealy-mouthed regrets expressed so far into context.
But that's o.k. - the responsibility really rests with the people of Ireland.
The only comforting thing about this indecent display of inhumanity is that the church, if it survives, will never again have the credibility it once had - if I were a Christian I'd offer up a prayer of thanks to that!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 09:20 PM

Jim, you're being a bit theatrical. I think your "mesmerized" description give far less credit to the Irish people than they deserve. I'm sorry, but it sounds incredible that an entire nation could could be "mesmerized" to the point where they could stand by and watch the abuse of children and say that nothing could be done. No, of course the children who were abused weren't to blame; and neither were the blacks and Jews and Irish and others who suffered discrimination and worse in the United States.

It's not religion that abuses. It's not Islam, it's not Judaism, it's not Christianity, and it's not Catholic Christianity. None of those religions teaches or condones the abuse of children. It's people who abuse children. And it's people who observe abuse and do nothing, allowing the abuse to continue. And it's people who pervert religion and use it as an excuse for abuse and molestation - no religion teaches those things.

And in Ireland, the people who committed the abuses were born in Ireland, came from Irish families, and lived in and were respected in Irish society. This article says that in 1970, 90 percent of the people of Ireland called themselves Catholic. So, it seems to me that the problem is seated in all of Irish society, not just in the 25 percent who currently call themselves Catholic. Yes, the Catholic Church was responsible for the abuses in Ireland - the Irish Catholic Church, not some foreign entity imposed upon the Irish people.


-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 11:15 PM

Still just sounds like blame-deflecting, Joe; a dogged determination to re-frame the facts to fit your theories and shift some of the heat.

And trying to make the good elements of Irish life offset or somehow dilute the abuse is a non sequitur. When a bad element is as perverted and locked away from normal society as child-rape is, one does not modify the other.



PS: I think you may have misconstrued what Jim was saying in his 3rd para - though I haven't been in independent contact with him so have no confirmation of this. But it looks as though you could have picked it up the wrong way -

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 03:56 AM

Well, Bonnie, the same thing happened in the United States, although the problem was more molestation and not widespread physical abuse. The Catholic Church was identified as an appropriate scapegoat, and every parish in the country paid a million dollars in damages and made the victims wealthy and quiet, and the problem was largely forgotten - but it was not resolved.

The dual problems of child abuse and child molestation are not understood, and they have not been resolved. Most of the preventative measures that have been taken are just expensive shots in the dark, and aren't really effective measures - things like fingerprinting all employees and volunteers, and giving them and children sex-abuse training. And yes, there are tighter and more expensive psychological screening programs for seminarians, but how does a psychological screening detect a potential child molester? So, a lot of money has been thrown at the problem, but I really don't think there's true understanding of the problem.

Yes, the people who molested and abused found the structure of the Catholic Church to be an easy shelter. There is no doubt in my mind that the problem has resided in the Catholic Church, and I and a lot of Catholics are deeply embarrassed and ashamed that has happened. And yes, I have seen repressive parishes in the United States and Ireland which fit Fergie's description, and I hate places like that. The neoconservative movement seems to be gaining strength very quickly, and they want that sort of repressive environment - and they want it imposed on all Catholics. I met a number of Catholic lay people in Ireland who seem to yearn for repression, and that kind of rigidity seemed to pervade every Irish Catholic parish I visited. That kind of thinking just drives me crazy. Now, I've had friends who have been on Jesuit retreats in Ireland, and they've loved them.

But the problem of abuse is much broader than just churches - it's everywhere. Abusers and molesters are very self-righteous about their conduct, and they will grab onto anything they can to justify their actions. If they're connected to a religion, they will twist their religion's teachings to rationalize their conduct.

I don't know statistics, but I found a much higher incidence of child abuse and molestation among applicants for law enforcement positions, than among any other profession for which I conducted security investigations. I still get a creepy feeling about the police sergeant who tried to rationalize his right to molest his stepdaughter - and I remember the creepy power things he did to try to slow me down when I dug deeper into my investigation.

I think there's a tie between law enforcement and priesthood and molestation and abuse - I think it's the moral authority of those two positions. Many of the molesters I interviewed seemed to be obsessed with authority and respectability. They seemed to bend over backwards to win community awards for their service.

As for the bishops, I think theirs is a completely different story. Archbishop John Charles McQuaid of Dublin has often been described as the chief villain in the child abuse scandal, and I think that's an apt assessment. I've heard all sorts of stories about McQuaid and his iron rule. I wonder, though. I think that many American bishops covered up sex molestation scandals out of fear and desperation, not as acts of power. The mystique of bishops was destroyed by the Second Vatican Council (and rightly so), and bishops began to be regarded as managers instead of spiritual leaders. I think a lot of bishops felt a loss of power and credibility, and got to the point of desperation when faced with the child molestation scandal. Relatively few responded in a rational way to the problem, and some bishops were outright stupid in their responses. So, part of me thinks that McQuaid was the bastard he was, because he was desperately hanging onto power - to the point where the preservation of his power and authority were far more important to him, than was the fate of the children who were molested and abused. McQuaid and several other bishops also committed crimes - but they were crimes of grossly dishonest coverup to protect their power, and didn't really have anything to do with protecting abusers.

Many bishops have chancery (headquarters) offices that are well-oiled power machines, and I'm sure that the chancery office staff was complicit in the coverups in many dioceses. But ordinary priests and nuns would know little about anything that went on in the chancery, and most parish priests I know don't want to have anything to do with the chancery. Many priests and nuns consider their bishop to be a nuisance - at best. Good bishops are hard to find in the Catholic Church, and I blame John Paul II for that.

Still, the balance that I'm seeking is this: Most priests and nuns I know were born in Ireland, and they're good people. They don't try to cover up the child abuse scandal at all - they're appalled. Still, they generally had good experiences growing up in Ireland. How does all this fit together? Where's the balance here?


-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 04:09 AM

Now you're blaming Irish society!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 04:14 AM

Joe, you're talking about the catholic church being made a scapegoat as if it isn't to blame for covering up abuse, keeping perpetrators free from the justice system by moving them on to new parishes as soon as complaints became too public. It was reported in the Irish Times after the publication of the Murphy report there were thousands of files kept in the private safe of the arch bishop that were there for the sole reason to keep them out of the hands of investigators. And tha twas well after the McQuaid's reign.

When the scandal of the industrial school broke the church sent out two tough as nails nuns (the words of the government negotiators) who hammered out a deal that entailed limited responsibility for compensation, essentially putting the lion's share of compensation on the shoulders of the tax payer. When public outrage about this became too strong last year the church did a damage limitation exercise in which they offered to take on a larger portion of the compensation. But only a small portion of the total number of orders involved in the running of the schools actually pledged contributions to the compensation fund. Funds and assets were moved out of reach before any promises were made.

Yes, the church has different faces, good and bad. But the institution goes to great lengths to cover it's bad side and in doing so it's only looks worse for it.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 04:21 AM

That's right, Jim. Child molestation and child abuse reside in every facet of society. They seek positions of power and respectability - and churches are a ready haven for these criminals.

And yes, Western society, not only Irish society, has not solved these dual problems. To put the blame on churches, is delusion - the problem pervades ALL of society, although churches certainly provide a safe haven for molestation and abuse to reside.

And there is no question in my mind that several Catholic bishops of the US and Ireland committed serious crimes of obstruction of justice by their cowardly coverups of the molestation and abuse of children.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 01:29 PM

It wasn't several bishops..it was very very many. I read, and doubt it is true, that 80% of bishops..can't remember where..US or Ireland or some combination...

I am sympathetic to the abusers who are victims of a punishing society. Well, so were the bishops, who might have had similar problems themselves. I don't know.

I will say that despite all this, that the system turned out some wonderful people. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 03:18 PM

It turned out all kinds of people, mg, indiscriminately. It didn't care so long as they were Catholics. Its function is the acquisition of wealth and power; everything else is secondary.

Earlier I said that I couldn't see how anyone with a conscience could continue to support such an organisation in the light of what has been revealed, although it was comically misunderstood in an attempt to discredit my point. Now I can see how, and they have my pity. I never fully realised the depth of control that a Catholic upbringing can facilitate over otherwise good and decent people.

I urge any doubters to visit the above YouTube link and hear for themselves what the Sisters of Mercy did to babies. The Catholic church had control, and the Irish people didn't.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 04:07 PM

Well, I would still slap them in jail, especially the bishops and as mentioned before, have a song about them that says the same thing.

I am not convinced it was for the acquisition of wealth and power. These nuns and brothers and priests who did the abusing were in more or less poverty themseleves, the nuns at least taking a vow of poverty. Their lives were miserable. I really doubt whoever said it was the middle class who became priests and nuns..I would sure like some support of that statement.

I think the bottom line is that they were sick individuals raised in a poverty-stricken sick environment in a sick religion. I think the abuse oozed out of that, coupled with lack of oversight by others, coupled with a feeling that this (not the abuse but the rigidness and aesticism etc.) were what God wanted. God plays a big part in this. A lot was done in His name. They at some level thought they were doing God's will and were helping to impose it on others so that the others could avoid purgatory and hell. Beating orphans and schoolchildren was part of what had to be done to keep them from sinning. The sexual abuse is more complicated and mult-factorial. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 04:27 PM

"I think the bottom line is that they were sick individuals raised in a poverty-stricken sick environment in a sick religion. I think the abuse oozed out of that, coupled with lack of oversight by others, coupled with a feeling that this (not the abuse but the rigidness and aesticism etc.) were what God wanted."

Thanks for that post MG - I understand more fully what you were previously saying now. And yes, I think (without actually being there) it's a good way of reading the possible reality of the situation.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 07:58 PM

I am not convinced it was for the acquisition of wealth and power. These nuns and brothers and priests who did the abusing were in more or less poverty themselves, the nuns at least taking a vow of poverty. (mg)

Absolutely, but I meant wealth and power for the Catholic church, not individuals. They seem to have achieved that with ruthless efficiency since Constantine's time, and they certainly didn't do it by accident. I'm not trying to say that caused the abuse, just that it is a circumstantial contributory factor. The Bishops (and those heirarchically above) don't like their boat to be rocked because, if I'm not mistaken, they are the keystones to the overall financial structure.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 08:18 PM

I'll quote Mary, too:

These nuns and brothers and priests who did the abusing were in more or less poverty themseleves, the nuns at least taking a vow of poverty.

In many nations, young men and women were forced into the convent or the priesthood by a number of factors - economic, social, and familial. When I was in the seminary in Milwaukee, we had a number of students from the Philippines. Some didn't want to be there, but it would bring shame upon their families if they left. One went berserk, and got a pistol and threatened to commit suicide.

Vatican II largely brought an end to that, and I think most modern priests and nuns chose their vocation by free choice.

I'm sure this will get all sorts of people mad at me all over gain, but I think the wealth of the Catholic Church is largely a myth. Somebody above suggested that the Vatican could sell off some art works and raise cash, but I wonder about that. Those artifacts are available for public viewing at the Vatican now- would it be better for them to be in private collections? And yes, the Catholic Church owns many gorgeous church buildings that are open to the public and are very expensive to maintain - would it be better for those building to be razed and the real estate sold? The Vatican does have a very large stock portfolio (compensation from Italy for loss of the Papal States) that serves as an endowment for the operation of the Vatican, but it still needs contributions from Catholics to supplement the endowment income.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 09:29 PM

I think the whole idea of razing churches is probably a little old fashioned, even over here in Old Blighty.. Why do you think the wealth is a myth, Joe? Just one ugly building in Ireland, where prices aren't high, fetched twenty million. I'd guess that they are by far the biggest owners of 'bricks and mortar' on this planet. Buildings and land virtually everywhere. It's no myth.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Dec 09 - 03:22 AM

Oh, there's wealth, all right - but most of it doesn't belong to the Vatican, or to dioceses - and the property that does belong to the Vatican or dioceses, is often historic buildings that are expensive to maintain and unlikely to be razed, or local parish buildings that are in use by the people who paid for them.

I don't know how it is in Ireland; but most Catholic dioceses in the US, lost the excess property they had in paying off the sexual abuse reparations.

But the "vast" wealth of the Church is mostly in priceless art and architecture. The Pieta would bring a pretty price, but does anyone really believe it should be sold to a private collector?

More than that, this problem isn't something money can fix - and bankrupting the Catholic Church isn't going to fix the problem, either. Child abuse and molestation are far deeper problems than that. Putting a lid on the Catholic Church isn't going to end the problem, or even reduce it significantly.

And, as been stated above, the worst of the problems occurred prior to 1970 (although the coverups have continued to the present time). One good aspect of all this, is that Catholics may have learned not to trust their bishops so completely. Those of us who worked for the church, already knew that many bishops were often far more concerned with power and money, than they were with the spiritual welfare of their "flocks." In the United States, I'd say 25 percent of bishops are really good, and 25 percent really bad. The rest are timid, plodding, unimaginative bureaucrats.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 16 Dec 09 - 10:57 PM

So who actually owns most of the land and buildings then? I'm afraid I can't remember where it came from, but I thought the property in any one diocese was registered in the name of the bishop of that diocese. It may well be tripe, though.

I think the wealth that is tied up in art treasures is incalculable - I wasn't even including it in my estimation of their disposable capital assets, likewise the Vatican library and the buildings of historical interest. It doesn't really matter who owns it so long as it's accessible and looked after.

Interesting view of bishops - I can imagine that's true, but it's a lot of bad bishops.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,999
Date: 17 Dec 09 - 12:16 AM

"That the Church has the money to make itself felt is shown by the table given below:


                   Church Valuations in 1926

          Baptist ................ $469,835,000
          Congregational ......... 164,212,000
          Jewish ................. 100,890,000
          Methodist .............. 654,736,000
          Presbyterian ........... 443,572,000
          Protestant Episcopal ... 314,596,000

But the Roman Catholic Church property alone in America is valued at $837,271,000! "

from
this article.

Theodore Dreiser wrote it.

---

' "In a statement published in connection with a bond prospectus, the Boston archdiocese listed its assets at Six Hundred and Thirty-five Million ($635,891,004), which is 9.9 times its liabilities. This leaves a net worth of Five Hundred and Seventy-one million dollars ($571,704,953). It is not difficult to discover the truly astonishing wealth of the church, once we add the riches of the twenty-eight archdioceses and 122 dioceses of the U.S.A., some of which are even wealthier than that of Boston. '

from

this site.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: MartinRyan
Date: 17 Dec 09 - 01:31 PM

First bishop (Murray) has just resigned. Does so because of the impact of continuing on the survivors i.e. no admission that what he did was wrong. Pity.

The four other ex-auxiliary bishops from the Dublin diosesce concerned will come under increasing pressure to follow him.

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Dec 09 - 02:11 PM

I notice that 999 got information from sources other than reputable news organizations.

One reason that Catholic dioceses appear to be so wealthy, is the centralized financial structure. Most Catholic parishes and schools are operated locally, but the bishop holds the title to the property. Our diocese has a hundred parishes, and maybe fifty schools. That's a lot of assets, but they are being used by a lot of people. If the schools were to close, that would be a heavy burden on taxpayers, because all those children would then be educated in public schools.

And that's the crux about my statement about the wealth of the Catholic Church. Yes, it has a lot of assets - but it also has somewhere around a billion members to use those assets.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 17 Dec 09 - 03:49 PM

For some reason fate keeps putting these books etc. in my path relating somewhat to Spanish Inquisition, Templars etc..I am not seeking them out.

I think we need to look at allover evil that has existed in the church and shine a light on it.

one thing I heard of exactly once was that in some parish in east cost US the priests used to essentially draft the exhausted working men of the parish to work after hours on building the church. They had no say in the matter. I say far better to worship in a tent if you have to and leave abuse of working men out of the picture..and from how it was described it was definitely abuse.

I read some bad Irish stuff too..post=famine..looking up information on Dunquin and Blasket Islands...people..perhaps soupers..were denied passage too and from the Islands..and the congragation of Catholics was forbidden to give them rides in boats..or to buy and sell from them etc. It was quite cruel.

I don't know how much the potato famine has to do with all this, but I would say a lot..and I don't know how much the Inquisition has on any of this..probably not toomuch in the Irish church but certainly it must on South American and Italian and Spanish etc. There is a sadistic streak that is there and should be routed out. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 17 Dec 09 - 05:46 PM

Both sadism and masochism have always featured prominently in (at least) European Catholicism. They say the last pope was partial to self-flagellation. Very holy, I'm sure.. Then there's the Opus Dei lot, with their barbed wire leggings (the cilice) and distinctly dodgy politics, especially the treatment of women. I don't have a problem with sexual perversion among consenting parties, but when it's supposedly done for religious reasons and the obvious sexual side (conscious or unconscious) is so righteously denied, it rather points to being something seriously wrong afoot, and the moral corruption it implies is, to me, quite disturbing.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 17 Dec 09 - 06:16 PM

It's not an Irish thing, nor yet a minority thing. It happened in English Catholic schools too.

I spent my teens at one of the best boys' Grammar schools in London, which was run by Jesuits (God's Storm troopers we called 'em), and they had a strange notion of education and discipline.

1. They established an understanding of the school rules with a big stick as the default option.

2. It wasn't a punishment unless it left marks.

3. It was insufficient if the master inflicting said punishment did not need a rest break on completion.

4. Once they had inculcated a healthy respect for the consequences of disobedience, they went on to demonstrate that the same system was in operation in pursuit of the goal of teaching. Mistakes, omissions, or sub standard work, whatever the reason or excuse, invited beatings.

One master in particular, who was in charge of discipline for the whole school and also taught Latin, had his own special method for driving home the lesson for pupils who had difficulty assimilating the data.

He would pick one of us up by the shirt front with his right hand, step toward the nearest wall, and then repeat the lesson in a sing-song chant, emphasising the tempo with alternate slaps with the left hand to the face, and banging the back of the head against the wall. When he felt the knowledge had penetrated, he would, without warning, release his grip, whereupon you would hit the floor on your heels from three feet in the air. The shock would send a shaft of pain up your back to the base of your skull.

I have been giddy for as much as four hours after an interview with him.

This was not a peculiarity of this particular school, as new Jesuit teachers arriving during my five years as a pupil were on message from day one.

I believe that physical abuse, in the guise of education and discipline, were endemic in the catholic church as a whole, and in the Jesuit brotherhood particularly. I don't find it too much of a stretch to believe that sexual abuse, which is generally about power and control, was similarly endemic.

I have stayed out of this discussion because I would prefer not to remember those days, but you, Joe, have been casting doubt on the authenticity of several posters' accounts as anecdotal.

Believe me, there is nothing anecdotal about the foregoing account.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Dec 09 - 07:43 PM

Don, it IS anecdotal, but "anecdotal" does not mean that information is untrue. My dictionary says that "anecdotal" means "based on or consisting of reports or observations of usually unscientific observers." I have no doubt whatsoever about "the authenticity of several posters' accounts" - I have no doubt about the authenticity of any of the accounts posted above. But still, they are anecdotal, describing individual incidents or locations. As I said, it's not the incidents cited above that I question. My doubt is about the validity of the wide-reaching conclusions and condemnations that many have made, based on their personal reading and observations. To arrive at the truth, you need a far more comprehensive study. The Ryan Report, on the other hand, follows the discipline of a scientific study, and is therefore far more credible in its conclusions.

My anecdotal evidence is quite different, and it is also valid and true - but again, not sufficient evidence for a broad-reaching conclusion. Although I have seen misconduct in the Catholic Church on many occasions and I have often spoken out against it, most of my experiences in the Catholic Church have been very positive. I work at least one day a week in an women's center run by Catholic nuns, which operates under the slogan "hospitality with dignity and love" - and the nuns take that slogan very seriously. The center has served the poor of Sacramento generously for 23 years, with never a hint of scandal or abuse. Same with our local food closet and homeless dining room, which serve thousands and thousands of meals a year, never with disrespect or financial manipulation or any shade of doubt about their integrity.

Last night, I spent an hour in church preparing for Christmas, listening to how important it is for us to care for the homeless, and especially for children in need.

The "preferential option for the poor" is official Catholic teaching. So are the Seven Principles of Catholic Social Teaching:

• Sacredness of Life and the Dignity of the Human Person
  
• Call to Family, Community, and Participation
  
• Human Rights and Responsibilities
  
• Option for the Poor and Vulnerable
  
• The Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers
  
• Solidarity of the Human Family/Race
  
• Care for God's Creation

These are the rules. The abuse and molestation of children are violations of the rules, horrible abuses of both moral and criminal law. I am appalled that people have committed these crimes in the name of my religious faith, and I have worked to combat these evil people, ever since I first learned of these offenses when I was in college. I do not defend them in any way, and I am outraged that they have seen fit to make use of MY church for their evil actions. I do not respect any Catholic or Catholic leader who condones or conceals this sort of conduct - and I acknowledge that there are many who have.

But their conduct is not the essence of the Catholic Church, and you will find nothing in Catholic teaching that supports their conduct. The essence of the Catholic faith is living a life in service to a loving God and to all of God's creation. Child abuse and molestation are a sacrilege, a horrible abuse of God's wonderful creation.

I fully acknowledge that these abuses have taken place, and the evidence indicates that these abuses are particularly widespread in Ireland. Should I be ashamed of these abuses, should I apologize for them? Well, I wonder how meaningful it is to apologize for something that I've never supported, enabled, or condoned in any way.

What about the question of compensation for the victims? Yes, I believe that the victims should be generously compensated, and should be given psychiatric treatment and whatever else will be helpful to their healing. However, I do wonder how much compensation is enough. The million-dollar settlements in the US are making the victims wealthy, but they're not healing the victims or preventing future abuse. The settlements are leading to cutbacks and closures in education and social service programs, most of which were not involved in the scandals in any way (one major exception is Covenant House, whose founder Fr. Bruce Ritter was a child molester).

And about those art works and church buildings - they also belong to ordinary Catholics, not only to the child molesters. Must the rest of us lose all of this to pay for their misdeeds? Must we close soup kitchens and homeless shelters, and Catholic Relief Services warehouses for food supplies for Third World countries? Must we auction off the Pieta and the Sistine Chapel to pay for the deeds of these miscreants?

If child molesters were found to be active in an organization that's important to you or to which you belong, how much liability should you have for the molester's actions? If you father molested your brother and not you, should your brother become the sole heir of family property?

So, no, I don't deny the problem of child abuse and molestation in the Catholic Church. It's a huge, serious scandal. And almost universally, the victims were Catholic, so this scandal is something that hurt our own members. But there aren't easy solutions and easy answers. Nobody knows why people do such horrible things, and nobody knows how to prevent it.

It's clear that the offenders should pay for their crimes - but how much should be paid by other Catholics, including by those who were among the victims? I don't know any Catholics who defend or deny the actions of the molesters and abusers, or who defend the bishops who tried to cover up these crimes (although I admit that there ARE some idiots who still defend the bastards). However, while this scandal has implications outside the Catholic Church, the primary effect was within the church. We feel we were betrayed and violated by these bishops and molesters and abusers. We are absolutely outraged by their actions. What we have trouble dealing with, is how people outside the Catholic Church criticize us and demand we make repayment for the outrageous actions committed by others against us and against our children.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Dec 09 - 09:34 PM

You know, come to think of it, I suppose I shouldn't expect better treatment. The same thing happens to peace activists and civil rights activists and whoever dares to speak out. Many of us Americans spoke out against the first war in Iraq, and we campaigned against the School of the Americas and American imperialism in Latin America, and we were against the second war in Iraq from the beginning. The "Johnny Come Lately" outsiders later lumped us together with all Americans and condemned us as warmongering American imperialists - even though we opposed American imperialism long before the outsiders knew about it.

I was concerned about child abuse and molestation in the 1970s. I was employed by the Catholic Church, and I lost my job in 2005 because I was outspoken in opposition to things in the Church that I thought were wrong.

And if you look at a lot of posts in this thread, you'd think I was a major supporter for the cause of child molestation, simply because I'm looking for a truthful, unbiased, balanced, realistic, unhysterical assessment of the problem.

Bullshit.

Absolute, profound bullshit.

We're all seeking the same truth here - please, let's not forget that.

-Joe Offer, a proud member of the "Loyal Opposition" of the Catholic Church-

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 17 Dec 09 - 11:38 PM

I don't think anyone's meant anything personally, Joe. Opinions are bound to differ, and after all, you have said one or two things that were bound to cause a strong reaction, given the sensitive nature of the subject matter.

My 'umble opinion is that to even approach fully understanding anything, it's best to look at it from as many viewpoints and perspectives as possible. Keep them coming, is what I say.

"I'm looking for a truthful, unbiased, balanced, realistic, unhysterical assessment of the problem."

That seems to imply that you don't have one. Nor do I, but this discussion, including your contributions, is helping me form one.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Roughyed
Date: 18 Dec 09 - 01:40 AM

I think the problem in the Catholic Church is that the Christian god has two aspects, the god of love and the god of authority. You can delegate authority but you can't delegate love. This leads to problems in all Christian sects (and other theistic religions too). I think the Catholic Church historically has been an extremely authoritarian church and large areas of it lost touch with the god of love completely. Certainly he was not in a lot of evidence in my own English Catholic upbringing at least at my school which mirrored Don's and still causes damage to my life - although it's not so serious now as it was when I was younger.

Joe seems to have been lucky to have experienced a part of Catholicism that was inspired by the god of love (and for these purposes it doesn't matter whether that god has any objective existence or not and good luck to him and the good people around him. I agree that the Catholic Church is not just an oppressive organisation but it can be at the same as parts of it can be the opposite. Both are faces of the same organisation.

I think the abuse in the Catholic church is because of the unusual level of authority that it was able to abuse. Any authoritarian body will attract bullies and sadists. I wonder whether the celibacy rule attracts people who are trying to deny their own sexuality which could add an extra twist but I don't know. Certainly a few of my teachers use to get a kick out of hurting children but most of them were married laymen.

I think Joe sometines steps over the line in his attempts to put the other side though and fudges things. The abuse was wicked, it was solely the responsibility of the perpetrators and their protectors, not the victims and their families and the Catholic church as an organisation is liable for any abuse of the authority that organisation exercised.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 18 Dec 09 - 03:51 AM

One thing that many religions suffer from is a sense of priority.

Here in The UK, as in any democracy, we have a higher calling, it is called government.

How many times do you hear a priest / vicar whatever say they answer to a higher authority?

No they don't. If they want to enjoy the benefits of living in our society, they have to accept that they answer to the law. Full stop.

Sorry, but the actions of the Bishops and others in high office in covering up these crimes are, under Irish law as I understand it, an unlawful act in themselves.

If a stamp collector was in court for interfering with children and the chairman of the local philatelical society had been aware of it and had taken action to remove him but not report it to the police.... he would be deemed guilty of a number of crimes. So why not the clerical equivalent?

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Dec 09 - 12:13 PM

Just got back from a trip to West Cork and have no intention of becoming involved in the main discussion until I have had a chance to read all the posts - but:
Another incident of abuse to consider, albeit indirect.
A club bouncer in Kerry has just been convicted of rape and sentenced to seven years imprisonment. He was filmed on CCTV, after the rape, carrying his victim to a skip (dumpster?), where he was discovered bending over her unconcious body - he claimed he had "found "the wan*" there" .
During the trial parish priest FR Seán Sheehy appeared as a character witness for the rapist claiming he "didn't have an abusive bone in his body". The judge in his summing up commented on the unsuitable nature of Sheehy's 'evidence'.   
Following the verdict, Sheehy was among the fifty-odd locals (mostly middle aged to elderly men) who shook hands and embraced the rapist offering their support. Yesterday Sheehy appeared on local radio saying he would do exactly the same again, and challenging the validity of the unanimous verdict.
The rapists victim has said that, thanks to the reaction of Sheehy and the locals, despite the fact that she has family locally, she feels that the can no longer continue living in the area.
* Wan - female (slightly derogatory)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: MartinRyan
Date: 19 Dec 09 - 04:39 AM

The parish priest has resigned, the bishop has apologised and praised the victim's courage.

At least the response times are coming down....

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Dec 09 - 09:35 AM

Joe
Sorry - a lot to catch up on, here and elsewhere.
There is a big difference between your "Child molestation and child abuse reside in every facet of society" and people who use the power held by the church to molest and abuse.
It is certainly not melodramatic to describe this power as 'mesmerising' - how else would you explain a priest being in a position to beat a child so severely as to burst her eardum - without consequences to himself? Similarly how could a single stick-weilding priest get away with breaking up a dance, beating the participants and smashing their instruments - as happened on many occasions? This latter also happened in Scotland - different religion and two centuries earlier.
If Irish society or Irish lay people are in any way to blame it is in allowing the church ever to attain and abuse this control of their lives, but this assumes that lay people ever had any say in the matter.
This was a spiritual power, based (to a non-believer like myself) on deep-rooted superstition and fear, which allowed the holy man/priest/witch doctor to become the most powerful individual in the community and above the laws of that community.
The following letter appeared in this morning's Irish Times; I find it extremely moving, but also I believe it paints a vivid picture of how these things could happen.
Jim Carroll

"Madam, -
I am a 62-year-old ex-pat Irishman living in Australia.
As a young child, I was molested by a Catholic priest. I did at one stage approach my local parish priest, who in turn contacted our bishop (of Clogher).
The priest continually abused kids and young men, but the church continually swept it under the carpet. I thought the matter was resolved.
As a result of this, as soon as I became an adult, I disavowed the Catholic Church. I still suffer recurrent nightmares about this priest's abuse. When it first happened, he would have been in his mid-20s.
It did not occur once, but many times. When it first happened, I approached my mother, whom I loved dearly, but, typical of the real Irish Catholic, I got a slap on the face, and was told not to "speak about a priest like that". Unfortunately, that was the attitude from the 1950s.
If this person is extradited from the US, I am prepared to fly to Ireland and testify against him, and also name other witnesses who may not yet have come forward.
Some years ago, I met a lady who gave me comfort and solace from this nightmare, but sadly she passed away three months ago. Now all my pent up anger has surfaced again. All I want is the ultimate justice. -Yours, etc,
MICHAEL CREEDON,
Woodfield Street,
Enfield,
Adelaide,
Australia."

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 20 Dec 09 - 12:40 PM

If Irish society or Irish lay people are in any way to blame it is in allowing the church ever to attain and abuse this control of their lives, but this assumes that lay people ever had any say in the matter. (Jim C)

Which, of course they didn't.. I've met countless people (UK Irish) who very obviously resented that control but knew or thought they were powerless against it. One significant factor being that to go against the Catholic church is, to some, tantamount to being a Protestant. All cults work the same way to a varying degree: if you aren't one of us, you must be against us. The Catholic church preaches 'tolerance' nowadays - I find that rather patronising, although it's obviously an improvement on their past behaviour.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: olddude
Date: 20 Dec 09 - 01:07 PM

Any organization that has a billion people worldwide will have abuse. When that abuse is uncovered it is an outrage to all good people including Catholics.   I could lump a lot of people into the same boat but you know what, I know better than to do such, ... as I know better to lump the sins and abuses of the radical Taliban, atheists such as Stalin and cult believers such as Hitler into the same boat as all atheist or pagan beliefs or Muslim or or or ... What a ridiculous statement that would be. I also don't lump races into some generalized statement. No people who are good will accept abuse from any organization, church or otherwise. You find it, and you get rid of it and you punish those who do it. There are many religious leaders and non religious leaders that are bad people, cause ya know what, there are bad people in this life. There are also many wonderful people who dedicate their life to others in the Catholic church and even people who are atheist, pagans, Muslims and and and and (IMAGINE THAT!). But those with hate will never admit to that either.

If ya haven't figured that out yet, I do so feel sorry for ya.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: olddude
Date: 20 Dec 09 - 01:41 PM

And since I am getting heated, You are typing your messages freely without any concern for censorship because of a Catholic like Joe who freely gives up his spare time and dedicates himself for allowing others the privilege of using his work at no cost to anyone. Me, I moved out of my office, I am renting it (ya renting, the rent won't even pay the mortgage) to a family that lost their house because the husband had 5 heart attacks and have no place to go. I could do my work at home so they are living in that great victorian house now ... mostly at my expense and I am far far from wealthy. Why did I do that (cause it was the right thing to do)
and Oh yea I am Catholic ...and it had nothing to do with my decision.

When you are on mudcat, who are you really railing at, the church or me and Joe and the rest of us, cause that is all who reads it

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Alice
Date: 20 Dec 09 - 01:58 PM

A lot of us on Mudcat were raised in the Catholic church.

This is about the leaders in the institution of the Church who covered up abuse and allowed it to continue.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: olddude
Date: 20 Dec 09 - 02:12 PM

Alice,
the cover up was a disgrace, it was an absolute evil ... and no one in the church or outside the church would even think of attempting to argue otherwise. I just do not like labels on anyone. So much of that any more in the world. I think that is why the hold world is nuts. It is non stop on TV and in all discussions, 'those liberals", those conservatives,those gays, those atheists, those catholics , those Christians ...Muslims, Jews .... on and on

it is a disease that is spreading across the nation and the world and that is why we are in the situation we are in right now at this moment in time.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Alice
Date: 20 Dec 09 - 02:17 PM

I don't see the people concerned with this thread "labeling" anyone.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 20 Dec 09 - 02:20 PM

Old dude, I've spent at least half my life working with, entertaining, socialising with, and breeding with Irish Catholics - what's your point?

I enjoy and value Joe's contributions, and even when we disagree there is no malice in it. I think that's understood - I certainly hope so anyway.

What I don't 'lump together' are Catholics and Catholicism. Whatever criticisms I might make of Catholicism are most definitely not directed at all Catholics. Perhaps I should endeavour to make that more obvious in future.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: olddude
Date: 20 Dec 09 - 02:42 PM

Smokey
your point is well taken, Thank you ... I suppose I am overly sensitive at the moment which I get when I don't feel well ... There is lots of corruption in the church as every where an ymore in everything, lots of good people also but boy when it is bad it is really bad and I can tell you no one is more appalled then catholic people.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 20 Dec 09 - 03:02 PM

No problem, olddude, I hope you're feeling better soon.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 08:53 AM

A letter from an abuse victim in this morning's Irish Times:
Jim Carroll

Madam, - I agree 100 per cent with everything in Mary Raftery's article 'Still far from accepting personal responsibility' (December 18th).
The Irish Bishops Conference admitted they were ashamed of what had gone on in the Archdiocese. They said: "The avoidance of scandal, the preservation of the reputations of individuals and of the church, took precedence over the safety and welfare of children. This should never have happened and must never be allowed to happen again."
They asked for our forgiveness. Yet of the five bishops who were in positions of power in the Archdiocese during the period of the Murphy report all seem to feel they can be excluded from that plea as they feel they have no need of forgiveness.
The damage it causes to the Catholic Church to see these men hanging on with a vice like grip to power, prestige and title is immeasurable. Is there any real repentance in the Church or are the words from the Bishops conference just that "words".
As a survivor I found the resignation statement of Bishop Murray hard to swallow. He was resigning to save "survivors" from "difficulties". Not taking any responsibility at all for his mishandling of an abusing priest, rather he was doing us "the survivors" a favour by stepping down!
Similarly Bishop Moriarty has indicated he might step down if it would serve the people, the church and victims! Not because he feels any responsibility whatsoever.
NO, NO, NO - Bishops Field, Drennan, Walsh and Moriarty you cannot hide the fact that you met month after month in the Archdiocese seeing the policy that was in place and none of you stood up and cried STOP!
You do not seem to realise you must go, not because of how you might have handled individual cases - but because you were part of the regime that facilitated abusing priests to carry on abusing and did nothing to stop it or expose it.
When I was a child I learned of the sin of omission. Have none of these men ever heard of it?
They variously say - we were not criticised in the report (it was only a sample), or we do not feel we did anything wrong etc. . . Examine your consciences and realise standing by and doing nothing was a crime. It left children to be hurt and suffer who should never have been touched.
All are guilty of knowing what the system was and all must take responsibility for being part of that system and not having the courage then to say stop - have the courage now to take the responsibility you should have then and please, please go.
MARIE COLLINS
Firhouse,
Co Dublin

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Chris B (Born Again Scouser)
Date: 22 Dec 09 - 05:33 AM

I think the child abuse scandal and the fallout from it has changed and is continuing to change everything about who and what we are and think we are as Irish people or people of Irish extraction. What strikes me is that we still haven't come to terms with what all this means to us about what sort of nation and what sort of community we have created in the years since the largest part of Ireland has been self-governing.

It's my own view that this will (or should) come to be seen as the worst and darkest episode in Irish history. Worse than Cromwell, worse than the famine, worse than the Black and Tans or Bloody Sunday.   Why? Because we've done it to ourselves - and to our children. The British didn't do it and no matter what political and intellectual gymnastics we try to perform we can't portray the Irish nation as the victims here because it's the Irish nation that is responsible - not just the Catholic church. The church couldn't have gotten away with it if the country, the state and the vast majority of the people hadn't turned a blind eye and colluded in the systematic rape and brutalisation of the most vulnerable members of the nation - it's own children.

Jim quotes from the lady's letter where she talks of the Sin of Omission.   Generations of Irish parents committed the same sin by ignoring what was happening to their own children at the hands of these men whom they allowed unfettered access to the people who looked to their parents for protection. I and many thousands of second-generation Irish people are fortunate in that my parents came to Britain and raised me there where these men didn't have the same power to do what they wanted with impunity - and where they didn't command the same craven, unquestioning, slavish deference from politicians, policemen, teachers, social workers and doctors. Though even in Britain, I'm sure many Irish and other Catholic parents would not have wanted to believe this was happening if they were told about it.

The roots of what has happened to these children lie in the very origins of the Irish state and the sectarian Catholic nationalism that gave rise to that state. And if it hadn't been for emigration, even more Irish children would have been exposed to it.

Even a cursory reading of the government report shows how reluctant and half-hearted the response of the Irish State continues to be. Even at the beginning the report refers to the 'Charitable Work' of the Christian Brothers and other religious orders. They still don't want to confront the extent to which the culture of abuse is woven into the fabric of the state.

To be sure, neither the Irish nation nor the Catholic church have a monopoly on child abuse. And it can't be ignored that partition has played a part in this by creating not one but two corrupt sectarian states. But the fact that partition helped create the problem doesn't mean that the removal of partition would be any kind of solution. Too much damage has probably been done in the meantime.

It's probably too much to hope for to expect that the Irish nation and the Irish community (at least the current generation) will learn from this and start to think differently about the assumptions and myths we have nurtured for so long about who we are and what our history has been but in the long run, perhaps we'll at least learn to take responsibility for our own history and stop thinking like victims. Because it is clear that in the last 90 years, the greatest oppression against Irish people has been committed by other Irish people.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 22 Dec 09 - 05:49 AM

The Savage Eye , last night on RTE. Satirical look at the Irish and religion.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Chris B (Born Again Scouser)
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 04:37 AM

I tried that link, Peter, but the RTE Player is only available in the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland. Not that satire ever changed anything. In England, all it achieved was to enable a few public schoolboys to get rich in showbusiness instead of in the City.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 10:53 AM

A similar cover up within Sinn Fein.
PIRA had a policy of kneecapping child abusers and executing child rapists.
Unless the offender was one of their own.
Gerry Adams knew in 1987 that his brother Liam had raped his own child.
He was not punished, and was allowed to work with a youth group.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 12:58 PM

Another bishop resigns over the Murphy report

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 05:22 PM

Another bishop gone – a little like pulling teeth, and still no acceptance of guilt or apology, but maybe, once the scapegoats have been sacrificed……. who knows?
To me, there is something distastefully perverse in blaming the population of Ireland for the abuse, as my fellow Scouser seems to be doing, continuing Joe's line of thought (if I mistake your reasoning I apologise).
If the people of Ireland are guilty, surely that must include the victims themselves, especially those who remained faithful to the church; so the abused become the abusers – do I have that right?
If everybody is guilty, then, for all practical purposes, nobody is – you can't punish a whole nation – can you? To me, this seems like an extension of the abuse rather than an attempt to alleviate the suffering caused by it..
Rather, I believe the opposite to be the case; that the whole of Ireland was victim to the abuse by having their trust betrayed by their church.

Another moving response from a victim in this morning's Irish Times; if nothing else has been achieved by the two reports, at least the victims have been given a voice.
The writer, having asked the Irish people why they aren't on the streets demanding justice for her and her fellow abused, se ends with the following proposals:

"□ Withdrawing funding from an organization that, in Irish terms, has been responsible for an "Irish holocaust" of physical and mental abuse of hundreds of children, as children and beyond into their adult lives.

□ Outlawing (proscribing) the Catholic organisation until such time as it (like other organisations which we have banned during our history) demonstrates that it has fully reformed itself.

□ Requiring the church to publish the list of churches and timeframes where and when abuse occurred (those listed in the reports and those not listed, ie outside the sample of cases).

□ Forcing the Government truly to separate State and church through requiring Catholic clergy, and the religious, to resign from school boards/management, hospital boards/management, health services boards/management, etc. C3 Requiring any public servant who has expressed support - through inaction or through words of bureaucratic mumble-jumble - for the Catholic hierarchy, or the papal nuncio, to resign.

□   Requiring clerics in positions of governance who failed to act appropriately to resign rather than hide behind word games of "reflection", "mental reservation" and such utterances, insulting to victims such as myself.

As a child I was powerless in the face of my abuser. As an adult victim, I am now required to have strength, to stand up and be counted, to come forward (as Noel Dempsey asked), to understand the nuances of diplomatic procedure (as Brian Cowen asked).
When will it stop for me and others?
When will the people of Ireland stand up for me and others?
When will it be over for me and for others - and unfortunately for others who have yet to come? Everything tells me that nothing has changed, that it can still happen. That it is still happening."

For the life of me, I can't see anything wrong with any of her proposals.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 06:35 PM

"I believe the opposite to be the case; that the whole of Ireland was victim to the abuse by having their trust betrayed by their church."

I'll second that, Jim, but I also think that Chris B has some very good points.

In a way it's a shame these bishops are resigning, rather than being publicly slung out of office by the Catholic church. It looks like an easy option to me. They shouldn't even be given the option to resign unless they are willing to make full confessions to the police which can (and obviously should) be acted upon to bring about other arrests and track down as many victims as possible. People can only be prosecuted with proper non-circumstantial evidence against them - confessions and witness statements made to the police - and if I'm not mistaken, they don't actually have any yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: MartinRyan
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 07:05 PM

Another bishop gone – a little like pulling teeth, and still no acceptance of guilt or apology

By whom? FWIW, Moriarty HAS publicly accepted that what he did was wrong , apologised and admitted he should have stood up to the prevailing culture at the time. He may have done so belatedly - but at least he has done so.

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 07:55 PM

"By whom?"
Surely by the church and the state bodies that made it all possible?
I am hearing a great deal at the present time of the anguish of bishops who are upset by events - on the other hand the case for the victims is having to be put largely by the victims themselves.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Chris B (Born Again Scouser)
Date: 24 Dec 09 - 05:30 AM

Jim, it's certainly not my intention to 'blame the victims' here. However, we need to remember that the victims were the children and what happened to them and the lack of justice they have received was not just the fault of the priests but also the fault of those who should have stood up for them and protected them. That doesn't just include parents but also the institutions of the State that could have stopped this but which chose not to. And that includes all the agencies I referred to earlier (and more besides, no doubt).

Yes, the church exercised a powerful and frightening influence on the parents of these children but at the end of the day these men were only men. Without the connivance of the State and the tacit complicity of the majority of the population they could never have gotten away with it for as long as they did and on the scale that they did.

To imply that somehow the Irish people (who had stood up to the most powerful empire in history for 800 years and won a kind of freedom from it) were powerless to do anything against a bunch of perverts in frocks seems, to be blunt, a rather condescending view of the Irish people. The fact that such a nation allowed this to happen suggests to me that many, in not most, Irish people made a choice not to challenge the power of the church as long as they thought their own children were OK.

Growing up in the Irish community in England, the church was important to us as something that kept us together and helped us keep our own culture and identity (or at least a version of it). Like Joe, I'm still part of the church and my own child goes to a Catholic school. However, I think I was lucky - when I was a kid our parish priests were American - they belonged to an order (The Society of St Edmund) which was based in Vermont and had parishes in Alabama.

Most of our parish priests had been based there at the time of the early civil rights movement and we grew up hearing more about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King than we heard about Patrick Pearse or Roger Casement (two more men who should never have been allowed near children).

Nowadays I'm still active in Comhaltas and for years I argued that we needed to introduce CRB vetting in the face of entrenched opposition from people in the organisation who said we didn't need it because we didn't have 'outsiders' - and also, I think, because many people in the Irish community in England thought that because they were Irish they didn't need to take any notice of 'English' laws on things like Child Protection. And I think that in part, it's this 'Don't let outsiders know your business' attitude that allowed things in Ireland to get as bad as they did. But perhaps that's another story.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Dec 09 - 06:01 AM

Scouser; you completely understate the position that the church played in Irish society up to comparatively recently, rather nicely summed up in a letter in today's Irish Times; "The Catholic church is so engrained into every facet of Irish life that any move against it feels like a move against yourself".
It was absolutely inconceivable that 'men of god' could commit such horrendous crimes, and anybody suggesting such ran the risk of eternal damnation (as well as all the other penalties that makin such a heretical statement brought with it).
"....as long as they thought their own children were OK."
Now that really is insultingly outrageous. The letter from the Australian abuse victim describes perfectly what any parent's response would have been when told her what was happening - he obviously wasn't OK.
If they were "only men", they managed to convince the general populace that they had 'God on their side' - I saw it first hand in members of my own family over here - the priest could do no wrong'.
In the end it comes down to this; within the protection of the church existed an extremely successful peodophile ring, so successful that it was provided with an infallable escape route and a means whereby it could continue in business, thanks to the co-operation of the church officers.
If you believe that people in general here knew this, I suggest you talk to Irish people in my age group and earlier who were around at the time - but wear a crash helmet.
Sorry - you are blaming the population as a whole, including the victims.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Chris B (Born Again Scouser)
Date: 24 Dec 09 - 06:20 AM

Jim,

The Ryan report contains an observation that within the Industrial School system run by the church (and particularly the Christian Brothers) that children (particularly boys) who came from lower-income families and families with parents of low educational attainment levels were more likely to be abused than kids from families with higher educational attainment levels (the children of teachers, for instance).

This suggests that the abusers in the Church were careful not to abuse the children of parents who would have had the resources to do something about it.

In other words, parents from professional backgrounds were held in sufficient awe by the abusers in the church for the abusers to avoid antagonising them.

It follows that such people would have had the power to take action. They chose not to.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Dec 09 - 06:56 AM

That is incredibly and (coming from a working class background) unnbelieveably insulting
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: GUEST,Chris B (Born Again Scouser)
Date: 24 Dec 09 - 08:13 AM

To whom?

The abuse of children in Ireland (and anywhere else) is an abuse of trust and power. The least powerful in society are the most vulnerable.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 27 Dec 09 - 12:16 PM

I'm sorry to take so long in posting, but I just couldn't face this thread over Christmas and St. Stephen's Day -      

Insulting to whom? Yes, of course the least powerful in society - children - are the most vulnerable, but that doesn't mean they're the only vulnerable ones. Can you really not understand how such statements as the following are insulting?
   
"Without the ... tacit complicity of the majority of the population"
"They chose not to"
"The fact that such a nation allowed this to happen suggests to me that many, if not most, Irish people made a choice not to challenge the power of the church as long as they thought their own children were OK"   

These are not facts, they are your personal opinion based on a single line of reasoning. If, after having read all the posts in this thread, you can't see how reductive this is and how many elements - such as the secrecy and the spiritual blackmail - have been selectively ignored, no further explanations are going to do it either.   

> To imply that somehow the Irish people (who had stood up to the most powerful empire in history for 800 years and won a kind of freedom from it) were powerless to do anything against a bunch of perverts in frocks seems, to be blunt, a rather condescending view of the Irish people.

This is a rather condescending view of the Penal Laws, Cromwell's conquest, and The Famine (which resulted from many factors beyond the potato blight) to name only a few. "Stood up to" paints a misleadingly facile picture and is not an adequate description for the terrible privations and depletions suffered from these events. And this is exactly the sort of over-simplification I object to in the judgements made above. Your dismissal of the extensive social and sacred power the Church had over the Irish people as "a bunch of perverts in frocks" is pretty condescending too.   

"This suggests", "in other words", "would have had", "it follows that", "suggests to me", and "they chose"

are all personal interpretations, based on a process of logical deduction - and omissions - which lead to conclusions so generalised as to distort the situation as it was actually lived.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Dec 09 - 02:20 PM

Thanks Bonnie (and seasons greetings) - I feel pretty much the same.
Update;
Two more bishops have tendered their resignations (with apologies) but the final one, The Bishop of Galway, Dr Martin Drennan, is refusing to do so insisting that he has done no wrong, and though he was named in the Murphy Report he was not asked to give evidence!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: MartinRyan
Date: 27 Dec 09 - 05:03 PM

Bishop Drennan , the last of the auxiliary bishops of Dublin concerned (in whose diocese I now live, as it happens) will go shortly - or the current Archbishop of Dublin will go instead (for Brutus is...). The real question is whether their delay ("the law's delay", given that two of them were qualified barristers) has done more harm than good. For me? - as a largely disinterested outsider by now - I have little doubt but that they have contributed to the ulitimate demise of the suzerainty of the Catholic (the capital is cultural) church in Ireland. How long it will take for some form of collective psyche to put manners on the "nation" is another question entirely!

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 27 Dec 09 - 06:12 PM

These bishops falling on their swords were not, in my opinion, the top of this pyramid of denial and deceit.

Bishops take orders from, and report to, Cardinals, and it is hard to imagine, given the length of time over which this occurred, that there weren't any promotions of culprits to that rank. It is also hard to believe that the cover-up didn't go all the way to the Vatican.

The policy of transferring the miscreants must have raised queries from above as to reasons, surely, and those that sanctioned transfer to other parishes also sanctioned the sacrifice of new victims to the preservation of the church's reputation.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 27 Dec 09 - 07:13 PM

This suggests that the abusers in the Church were careful not to abuse the children of parents who would have had the resources to do something about it.

It suggests to me that the children didn't necessarily even tell their parents, or their parents didn't necessarily believe them if they did. I've known both happen in the UK, with disastrous results. However, if the parents had believed and taken some sort of action, it would have been one small boy's word against an expensive private school full of Jesuit monks. The parents would have looked like fools and the boy a liar. What chance would they have in Ireland, where the authorities are known to collude with the church over such things, and the Catholic church virtually own (in effect) everything and everyone? They never had a choice and they never had a chance.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Alice
Date: 27 Dec 09 - 07:18 PM

It is typical that the molester counts on the fact that most children are afraid to tell anyone what was done to them. That's common in child molestation all over the world, not just in this case in Ireland.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 27 Dec 09 - 08:04 PM

Very true Alice, but 1500(?) years of oppressive Catholic saturation and brainwashing in Ireland has bred the perfect social conditions for what we are now seeing uncovered, and I suspect that is only the tip of the iceberg.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Alice
Date: 27 Dec 09 - 08:27 PM

Yes.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: olddude
Date: 27 Dec 09 - 08:57 PM

There are noble professions in the life, such as teaching, medicine , clergy and the list goes on.   There are and have been terrible abuses in medicine, in education teachers abusing children, and in the clergy. Where there is an institution there will also be people and some people, are evil.

One of my biggest faults with Rush Lindbaugh is his uncanny ability to come up with simplistic one line solutions or comments to complex problems. I would not be simple minded enough to lay the blame on any people such as the Irish or any institution such as the Church but will blame those who are directly responsible with the act or the cover up. Then I would want to know what steps are taken to prevent future abuse while those who have done such terrible things are punished to the fullest extent of the law. And if any institution, the church in this case cannot come up with better protection measures then it is up to the Catholic people to change it . I would not be foolish enough to label all Teachers or the teaching profession abusers or it is the teaching professions fault ... That the good old Lindbaugh approach I think

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Alice
Date: 27 Dec 09 - 09:12 PM

I don't think anyone here labels all clergy as being abusers just because they are discussing the actions of some.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: olddude
Date: 27 Dec 09 - 09:16 PM

1500 year of oppressive Catholic saturation

I could name you ten thousand that would say Opressive British rule ..

and both are equally as bad a statement.   If I wanted to dwell on historical oppression I could go on for 1000 years and they would not all be Catholic that would be a small drop in the bucket ... but if ya hate Catholics rock on ... eliminate it all ... but if you think that is going to somehow stop abuse ... smoking something I am not cause it exists everywhere .. and it is an abomination everywhere it exists ...

Now the question is how do we fix the problem get to the bottom of it and take steps to prevent it ... and I am sure there will be a lot more that surfaces as it did in this country.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: olddude
Date: 27 Dec 09 - 09:36 PM

I apologize, I get set off once in a while and shouldn't ... More at the Vatican level needs to be done to prevent this stuff and find the people before more children suffer from evil people like this .. it is an abomination.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 27 Dec 09 - 09:40 PM

I can't see how the problem can be even discussed, let alone fixed, without mentioning the Catholic church, Olddude.. And I don't think anyone here hates Catholics. I apologise for my 'bad statement'; it was merely my opinion and your disagreement is respected.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 27 Dec 09 - 09:53 PM

And if any institution, the church in this case cannot come up with better protection measures then it is up to the Catholic people to change it .

How? By democratic process, perhaps?

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 07:44 PM

The blame for this situation lies equally upon the shoulders of the miscreants, and on the hierarchy of an organisation which is so afraid of scandal that it is prepared to cover it up, even when such action perpetuates the scandal.

The Vatican needs to take a long hard look at its role in all this, and react decisively and vigorously to ensure that in the future, a much more open and responsible stance is adopted by the church authorities.

Catholics all over the world bear absolutely no blame, and are of course appalled and disgusted by those involved, and do not in the slightest condone what has been done.

But Catholics, as a group, have absolutely no power to make changes, as the Catholic Church is not a democracy. It makes its own rules, and decides autonomously what its members will do, or not do, to remain within its aegis.

It seems likely that all this publicity will force change, and that will be a good thing.

On the subject of the church's influnce and authority over the people of Eire, I have personal observations.

I spent many holidays with my grandmother in Ballyclagh, county Cork, and I was surprised at the way that working class country folk were cowed by the parish priest.

He would visit Gran within a day or so of my Grandfather coming home from England, where he worked on the roads, as a gang foreman.

He would open the front door and enter without knocking, and make himself at home in the most comfortable chair.

He would demand tea and biscuits, and then sit and chat, until he'd had his fill, and at that point he would hold his hand out for a donation, knowing that Grandfather would have three months wages in his pocket.

He would graciously accept £30-£40, and walk out without thanks, saying only "See you in church on Sunday", on which occasion we were all expected to make a further donation.

My Grandparents never said a word against this regular mugging until 1980, when the old man got finally sick of it and threw him bodily out of the house.

This might explain how these guys were able to act in the way they did, and, in some areas still do.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 08:49 PM

What I find amazing is that given their level of personal and political control, their unimaginably vast financial resources, the sheer weight of numbers, and the length of time the Catholic church has had in Ireland, one would have thought that an organisation claiming to be benevolent would by now have had ample incentive and opportunity to create a showcase of a 'state' the envy of the 'Catholic world'. A model of how socially successful Catholicism can be, given the chance.. Instead, they seem to have always done their utmost to do precisely the opposite. I daresay there are countless reasons or excuses ready to be pulled out of the hat, but my (admittedly simplistic) view is that the Catholic church simply isn't 'what it says on the tin'. Hopefully the Irish people are now becoming more enlightened to that knowledge. They deserve better.

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 11:23 AM

"one would have thought that an organisation claiming to be benevolent would by now have had ample incentive and opportunity to create a showcase of a 'state' the envy of the 'Catholic world'. A model of how socially successful Catholicism can be, given the chance.."

Excellent post Smokey. I've alway's had mixed feelings about the Catholic Church as I'm quite a spiritual type person and I have Irish Catholic family. My own Catholic Mother never had me Baptised, and at one time I considered being Baptised as an adult. But the sheer weight of the Church's documented violation of power worldwide and throughout history - including the aiding and abetting of the Nazi's attempted genocide of Jewish people in the WWII - led me away from that path and to Gnosticism (the Catholic Church burned the original Gnostics of course). Even so, I still gave it the benifit of the doubt - those crimes were in the past. The modern Church wasn't what it once was....

I'm afraid despite my family associations and prior attraction to Catholicism, the subterfuge and systemic corruption which led to repression of public knowledge, and collusion with evil Priestly paedophile rings, has utterly shattered any sympathy I ever had for the Catholic Church. It's certainly helped me shed any illusion that it's no longer the monstrous organisation that it was 'once upon a time' in the past.

It's rotten, through and through - to this day. It's never changed, it's the same corrupt power-hungry self-serving institution it was any any era. I have no shred of sympathy whatever remaining for it as an institution.

I hope it finally utterly crumbles and burns upon it's own corrupt foundations!

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Alice
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 01:32 PM

Article in the Boston news today, requesting info from victims of Irish priests who were transferred to the US.

snip---
Victims said Smyth's order knew since the 1940s that he was a pedophile, but moved him to two U.S. parishes. Smyth died in an Irish prison after pleading guilty to 74 counts of sexually abusing 20 Irish children.
snip----

The Web site bishopaccountability.org, which was started at the height of Boston's clergy sex abuse scandal, now has a new section detailing Irish priests in the U.S. accused of sexual misconduct.

There are dozens of names listed, along with stories of abuse. But advocates have now written to the Irish prime minister, asking him to extend his investigation of child abuse.

snip----

link to article, thebostonchannel.com


http://bishopaccountability.org/ to report abuse

Subject: RE: BS: Suffer The Children (Dublin child abuse)-2
From: Smokey.
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 02:06 PM

Thread continues here.