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Post by hibernicus on Dec 10, 2008 18:33:01 GMT
Given the fact that the various scandals (including child abuse, past abuse in religious-run institutions, the silence and ineffectiveness of various bishops and religious superiors in dealing with them etc) are so horrible in themselves, have had such a damaging impact on the Church in Ireland, and have already come up on this board (cf hazelireland's posts) I suggest that we begin a thread discussing them. Questions which might be raised are: What was the impact of post-Vatican II changes on them? They are clearly not a post-Vatican II phenomenon; many of the priest perpetrators were ordained before Vatican II, and one of the nastier minor revelations in Leon Podles' survey SCANDAL is that already in the 1950s American priest-therapists had noticed a distinctive homosexual subculture among some priests coming to America from All Hallows College. Magdalen asylums and industrial schools had existed in Ireland since the nineteenth century. The wretched Fr. Brendan Smyth is said to have been attached to the Tridentine Rite and regretted its disappearance (quite believable; he was Master of Ceremonies at Kilnacrott) and he had already begun his depredations in the 1950s. On the other hand, the breakdown of seminary discipline from the late 1960s may have helped some perpetrators to slip through; I find it hard to believe that someone as flamboyantly disturbed as Fr. Sean Fortune would have been accepted for ordination in the 1950s. How far did extreme forms of obedience and excessive concern to avoid scandal contribute to the failure to avoid these horrors? How can these be distinguished from authentic forms of obedience and authority? Why did so many superiors fall down on their duty? - a particularly disturbing question; monsters and failures will be found in any large organisation, but the coverup implicates a much larger section of the hierarchies. How much attention should be attached ot the issue of false accusations? My view is that this is an important but subordinate question - for example, Herman Kelly's book KATHY'S TRUE STORY fairly conclusively shows Kathy O'Beirne is a fantasist, but I think towards the end he generalises from it too much to imply that a very large proportion of the accusations are fakes. We wouldn't have a credulity problem now if real accusations hadn't been ignored or dismissed for so long. I certainly would not have believed the horrors that have been revealed if an angel from heaven had told me 15 years ago. It has taken a lot of reading on American Catholic blogs and sites to come to some sort of terms on these abominations and try to develop some sort of response - it was at the time of the Boston scandals in 2001 that I first started reading US blogs in a big way, and that is one reason why I recommend them all to you. What should be the Catholic response, and especially the traditionalist response to these, and how do we distinguish righteous criticism from illegitimate (e.g quite a few accounts of the Magdalen asylums use them to imply that any disapproval of sex outside marriage is wrong)?
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 10, 2008 18:36:03 GMT
I'll leave you for tonight with a real-life story from America which sums up many of the questions this raises. Remember that a priest is called Father because he is supposed to give up the chance of physical fatherhood in order to serve the people under his charge, who are his responsibility and his spiritual children. An American bishop is being examined by a lawyer in connection with child-abuse scandals and cover-up in his diocese: LAWYER: You have heard what was done to those children. How would you feel if those were your children? BISHOP: But I have no children...
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Post by Michael O'Donovan on Dec 13, 2008 18:30:40 GMT
Gabriel We all know that the number of priests who sexually abused children was only a very small part of the total, and that the percentage is no greater than in other walks of life. That isn't really the point. The stories that have come out have done huge damage to the Chuch in Ireland for a number of reasons: - The Church was associated in people's minds with a strong emphasis on sexual continence and chastity (secular commentators actually exaggerated this because it represented the aspect of the Church that they found most inconvenient).
- For a priest to do something like this is more horrible and shocking because of what he is and what he represents.
- Some bishops or superiors completely failed to grasp the wickedness of what was done and acted to protect the abusers from discovery and punishment.
- Those two things taken together allowed militant anti-Catholics and commentators in the secular media to give the impression that the entire Church was corrupt and that its teachings on sexual morality had no moral authority.
So there is no point in trying to play it down. Instead, we have to acknowledge it and repudiate both those who did these things and those in authority who did not take the right action when they found out.
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Post by guillaume on Dec 14, 2008 11:58:56 GMT
Gabriel We all know that the number of priests who sexually abused children was only a very small part of the total, and that the percentage is no greater than in other walks of life. That isn't really the point. The stories that have come out have done huge damage to the Chuch in Ireland for a number of reasons: - The Church was associated in people's minds with a strong emphasis on sexual continence and chastity (secular commentators actually exaggerated this because it represented the aspect of the Church that they found most inconvenient).
- For a priest to do something like this is more horrible and shocking because of what he is and what he represents.
- Some bishops or superiors completely failed to grasp the wickedness of what was done and acted to protect the abusers from discovery and punishment.
- Those two things taken together allowed militant anti-Catholics and commentators in the secular media to give the impression that the entire Church was corrupt and that its teachings on sexual morality had no moral authority.
So there is no point in trying to play it down. Instead, we have to acknowledge it and repudiate both those who did these things and those in authority who did not take the right action when they found out. Completely agree with Michael. There is no point to resuscitate this debat, which please the enemy of the church, and in which they find an argument to destroy it.
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Post by Hemingway on Dec 15, 2008 16:42:41 GMT
Guillaume, For the record I want to expose the truth that when any Catholic sins it scandalizes the church and damages our credibility in the world, this is not exclusive to Priests or Bishops but all Catholics as we are a Royal Priesthood, a Holy Nation, a people set apart. Gabriel. There is a big difference between a catholic sinning in his or her everyday life and a child being raped by a priest. Surely you can see that one is more scandalous than the other. To suggest that a catholic who misses mass on Sunday, for instance, scandalises the church to the same degree as child rape is preposterous.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Dec 16, 2008 12:29:41 GMT
Gabriel. There is a big difference between a catholic sinning in his or her everyday life and a child being raped by a priest.
Surely you can see that one is more scandalous than the other.
To suggest that a catholic who misses mass on Sunday, for instance, scandalises the church to the same degree as child rape is preposterous.
[/i] Hemingway, This is not at all preposterous as mortal sin is mortal sin. Missing Mass on Sunday is a mortal sin and child rape is mortal sin. Mortal means leading to death. If you or I were mortally wounded, that means that neither of us would live without treatment. To be in mortal sin means that we would not live without Confession, Absolution and Penance. Are you trying to minimize the fact that you are a fallen away Catholic and have not gone to Sunday and Holy Day Mass in quite a while? If so, you can receive Confession, Penance and Absolution as soon as possible.[/quote] No, Gabriel, Hemmingway has a point. There is proportionality in the area of mortal sin and they are not all equivalent. Ireland had a problem when people scrupled over missing Mass even though they might have been ill or when they went on a guilt trip over minor sexual infringements (which is partly a reason why so many middle aged and elderly Catholic laity react so strongly against the paedophile crisis) or they suspended either personal relationships or career ambitions out of a sense duty to parents who did not need their immediate assistance. The sins of offending clergy were much worse: in themselves without reference to any effects; in the overall effect they had on the faith of the people; and also the very sinful way the matter was handled by bishops, religious superiors and administrators, according to some accounts at the express encouragement of the Roman Curia. A priest who violates the innocence of a child is a much worse sinner that someone who willfully misses Mass on Sunday, even if they are in good health and Mass is easily accessible and they are not bound by other duties. Seeing the term 'mortal sin' in legal rather than moral terms is problematic.
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Post by Hemingway on Dec 16, 2008 13:38:00 GMT
Are you trying to minimize the fact that you are a fallen away Catholic and have not gone to Sunday and Holy Day Mass in quite a while? . No not at all. I feel no guilt about not attending mass. I merely used that scenario to illustrate a point. The point being, which it would appear has gone over your head, the rape of a child by a member of the clergy scandalises the church to a much greater degree than a catholic not attending mass on Sunday. Please try to drop the ad-hominem remarks.
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 16, 2008 16:24:56 GMT
Hemingway and Alaisdir are quite correct. There is such a thing as proportionality in mortal sin. (I may add that Hemingway does not now commit mortal sin in not attending Mass on Sunday since he does not believe himself to be under an obligation to do so, and Jibril's assumption that he must still be feeling guilt is a characteristic display of egregious foolishness which moreover directly contradicts his professed non-judgmentalism. I wish Hemingway knew what he's missing, but unfortunately he doesn't.) Guillame and Jibril display attitudes which I was trying to tackle when I started this thread. Guillaume: - How can discussing something which is already common knowledge do any more damage than has already been done? Pretending it didn't happen does no good at all, and assuming it is all in the past without trying to work out what went wrong runs the risk of allowing it to happen all over again. Jibril:- Once more you glide over the distinction between judging a person and judging their acts, and your attitude comes uncomfortably close to actual complicity - your view that we should not judge anybody comes uncomfortably close to letting the perpetrators free to do it all again. Moreover, your use of statistics ignores the important issue of those superiors and colleagues who may not have committed such acts themselves but by their inaction became responsible for, and virtually complicit in, the actions of the perpetrators.
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 17, 2008 13:57:47 GMT
Jibril: Whatever your experiences of bogus victims may have been, and quite frankly I wouldn't believe daylight from you at this stage (another Irish idiom with which you may be unfamiliar) you are engaging in one of the avoidance tactics that I mentioned in my opening post - namely you are pointing to the existence of some bogus victims to imply that all the victims are bogus and to avoid the central issue of how such horrific crimes could have happened and been covered up in the first place. Secondly, if it took ambulance-chasing lawyers to bring these outrages to light, then quite frankly I say good for the ambulance-chasers. Whatever their motives may have been they have done a great deal to stop these horrors, which in many cases the perpetrators' ecclesiastical superiors should have stopped years ago but didn't. Thirdly this board is not a confessional and you are not my confessor any more than you are an archangel - you are the very last person I would choose for a confessor. I may from time to time refer to my own sins in general terms when I am discussing matters to which they are relevant. What we are talking about are scandals which are matters of public knowledge and how they might be prevented in future; your view amounts to saying that when a dam collapses we ought not to discuss why it collapsed because that would involve sitting in judgement on the sins of the builder - we should just let him carry on building dams and have them collapse again. Finally, may I suggest that you stop indulging your ego at the expense of raped children. Go away and read Leon Podles' book.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Dec 17, 2008 16:01:58 GMT
I dealt with this subject earlier on a now deleted post and cited the work of Professor Philip Jenkins on the area. I recall receiving a rebuke then from Royal O'Siodhchain on the grounds Jenkins' work was judgemental and I should stick with the non-judgemental John Jay Report (which is extremely useful, but it is just a set of statistics in the end).
I wonder is there a relationship between the earlier thread and this current thread?
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Post by hazelireland on Dec 18, 2008 7:17:54 GMT
Ahhhh anecdote. When you havent got a valid point.... just make up a story of someone living down the road.
I mean one story is surely MORE than enough to extrapolate a generalisation to all and sundry, right?
Gotta love it.
Lads, really, dont feed the troll.
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Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Dec 18, 2008 12:08:23 GMT
Ahhhh anecdote. When you havent got a valid point.... just make up a story of someone living down the road. I mean one story is surely MORE than enough to extrapolate a generalisation to all and sundry, right? Gotta love it. Lads, really, dont feed the troll. I think that the point is that Hibernicus already addressed this point in his opening post on the subject. That there are false claims isn't surprising - all we need do is look at how high insurance premiums were until the regulator got tough. But a few false claims in any area of tort law or a few false accusations in the criminal law don't negative every claim/accusation. Looking at the Kathy O'Beirne case and then dismissing all claims against Catholic clergy would be like using cases like the Birmingham Six and Guilford Four to judge every conviction in relation to the Northern Ireland troubles (I know I am picking two cases in Britain - I am picking them because they are high profile 'miscarriage of justice' cases).
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Post by hazelireland on Dec 18, 2008 13:50:17 GMT
Well said beinidict9, my point exactly. We can find, or even make up, any story about someone down the road or that we read about and attempt to use that to negate the entire process. It clearly is not an intelligent way to go however.
We must simply dismiss anecdote and trolling on issues such as this and look at the general process and make it as good as we can. Of course the process needs to be looked at if anyone is abusing the system. But anecdote about 1 person who did... even 100 people who did... is not enough to negate the entire litany of abuse claims. We cannot allow it to overrule stories like which appeared in last months papers.
That anyone would try and absolve the clergy of responsibility by showing a handful of people made false claims, or made true claims but benefited too much from them, is sick. Then again when that same person says that abusing an innocent child is morally on the same level as not attending mass on a Sunday, we can be openly unsurprised by their diatribes.
Gabriel, I decided to give you another chance when you signed back up after being banned before. However since you continue to troll AND deliberately misuse the quote function like you did before you were banned last time.... this is officially the last reply you are getting from me. Raise your game then you may get a reply from me again. Try not to get banned a third time.
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 18, 2008 16:38:41 GMT
Jibril: Exactly, correcting the errors of priests is the job of the bishop. So what are lay Catholics supposed to do when the bishop does nothing and allows priests to abuse their position with impunity? I never said that everyone who is accused is guilty. What I am saying is that there are many, many cases where there is no longer any doubt as to what happened - because the perpetrator admitted guilt, or was found guilty in a court of law with strong evidence against them, or where the perpetrator is deceased but the evidence against them is overwhelming. I proposed that we discuss the handling, or rather mishandling, of this matter by the Church authorities who let these men through seminary and who failed to stop them, in many cases after repeated and admitted offences; what it says about the disciplinary and theological weaknesses of the Church or certain aspects of the Church, and what should be done about it. Instead Jibril has hijacked the thread for his own perverted self-gratification. By the way, Jibril, can you make your mind up? First you seemed to be saying that it was wrong to judge anyone at all, guilty or innocent. Now you are raising the question of individual guilt or innocence, which has to be determined on a case-by-case basis. Your point here would only be legitimate if you were claiming that all the alleged perpetrators were innocent which is clearly not the case. Jibril has now run away from this debate and started another thread where he accuses all those who have sued abusers for compensation of profiteering. I would suggest to the moderator that this goes beyond all reasonable debate, indeed beyond the boundaries of basic human decency. In the short period before Jibril is banned I suggest that you visit this new thread so that Jibril can fulfil the only useful function which he has performed on this board - his gross misrepresentations, abuse of logic and perversion of thought give the rest of us an opportunity to sharpen our reasoning skills by pulling his obfuscations to pieces, exposing his fraudulence, and deepen our understanding of truth by setting it against his falsehoods.
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 18, 2008 16:43:18 GMT
By the way, while reasoned comments from the atheist members are welcome, may I respectfully suggest that they keep their involvement to a minimum. This thread was originally started so that Catholics could discuss these horrors and their implications among themselves on the basis of their share faith. If the thread seemed to be turning into a Catholic v. atheist debate (which has not so far been the case - the atheists have behaved very well here and have confined themselves to protesting at some of Jibril's more outlandish and repugnant statements, as they are fully entitled to do) it might lead certain members (I'm thinking of Guillaume) to freeze into an indiscrinately defensive position instead of opening up through dialogue.
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