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Post by hibernicus on Jan 25, 2014 21:12:46 GMT
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Post by shane on Feb 7, 2014 0:11:17 GMT
Referring to the UN report* on the Vatican's child abuse record, Justine McCarthy on the RTE Radio 1 Late Debate said that "99% of it needed to be said" but she felt the report should have given the Irish Church credit for its earnest attempt to deal with the issue. She said she knew of priests who were found innocent in civil courts but defrocked in canonical courts. She was very critical of the state's handling of abuse in wider society and lamented the low conviction rate of abusers. She seems to think the issue will explode in future. You can listen to the podcast here: t.co/cdQTy3OX*A report which is itself open to serious criticism: cvcomment.org/2014/02/05/how-the-holy-see-was-ambushed-by-a-un-kangaroo-court/
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2014 16:23:45 GMT
"99% of it needed to be said" That depends. What % was given to discussion on child abuse, and what % was given to discussion on things like abortion, homosexuality, etc?
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 11, 2014 20:26:33 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 26, 2014 20:19:57 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Mar 15, 2014 19:45:02 GMT
This is about a week late but I saw a laughably stupid piece in the Irish Mail on Sunday by Mary Carr (if I remember the name correctly). It was full of the usual nonsense. Pope Francis was talking about statistics in regards to child sexual abuse, so Ms/Mrs Carr makes it out that the Pope was somehow trying to deny or deflect blame from the Church. The quote she used was about how, in Francis' words, the Church has been more transparent than other groups and how you have less chance of being sexually abused in the Church than in other areas. I believe the point the Pope was making was that other groups are not come down upon as heavily as the Church was. Carr then goes off on an anti-Catholic rant about how the Church was forced to "grudgingly" accept responsibility for what happened, as well as creating a straw man argument that suggested the Church was claiming it should be treated with utmost respect for now attempting to deal with the problem.
But you know, this is the same old boring argument I have heard from morons like Carr many times, so there wasn't particularly anything to get excited over. No, it's the last point in her last paragraph that really got me. She started off the article talking about how Senator Norris suggested inviting the Pope to Ireland, then concludes that this is a good idea. Why does she think it's a good idea? The reason she gives is that the Pope could come to Ireland and see (trying to remember the quote as best as possible here) "the trickle of grey hairs that still attend church", which she claims is evidence of the faith people lost in the Church due to the scandals. Oh, she also claims that secularism leads to better education (moron) which in turn results in less believers in the Faith.
Now here's the thing, I don't know if Carr is an atheist or a "catholic". She speaks like your typical Ouroboros atheist (I don't think I need to explain what I mean by this), but I wouldn't be surprised if she was just one more person claiming to be a catholic while not bothering to be a catholic in any meaningful way. If she is catholic then I have to wonder if she even goes to church, and if yes then what kind of church does she go to? If it's the kind of church in line with what I suspect is her political way of thinking then I find it ironic she is criticising the mass attendance. Whatever the case, her final comments are made either in complete ignorance or else a delusional arrogance conceived by her own little dream world. My own Church, admittedly has a lot of elderly people. A lot of young people do not attend Church, true, and of those who do I'm sure a lot could hardly be called Catholics. Still, there are young Catholics at my own Church, whether they be young families or just young people. There are also older people who I wouldn't consider to be elderly - certainly no more elderly than Carr herself. Of course, Carr also completely misses the point that Catholic doctrine just isn't being taught.
My final point is this. I don't know for fact, but I find the idea that anyone left the Church because of the sexual abuse scandals - that is, anyone who wasn't personally affected - to be a bit off. As I say, I could be wrong. However, I find it hard to believe that truly devout people would leave, and anyone else I figured would have left before then, or at most just used it as an excuse. People personally affected is understandable, but the thought that people who weren't somehow involved just upped and went seems a little optimistic - on Carr's part - for me. I also find it ironic that Carr's claims that Pope Francis is out of touch with the Church in Ireland has done nothing but fanfare her own ignorance of what the state of the Church in Ireland really is.It's in bad shape for definite, but Carr is a woman living in her own little girl's imagination world.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Mar 15, 2014 22:03:48 GMT
She speaks like your typical Ouroboros atheist (I don't think I need to explain what I mean by this) It took me a few moments but I got it!
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 16, 2014 0:13:01 GMT
Sadly, I am not at all surprised that people would leave because of the scandals - here are some reasons why they might, as seen by a Devil's Advocate: (1)Since 1922 the Republic of Ireland was one of the most overwhelmingly Catholic societies in the world and prided itself on that. Its having produced such horrors would lead many people to say that if this is what happens under such favourable circumstances there must be something wrong with the Faith itself.
(2) There was also a widespread idealised self-image of Irish Catholicism, and when that was broken down some people would react to the opposite extreme. The popularity of Patrick McCabe's novel THE BUTCHER BOY, whose protagonist is reduced to homicidal mania by his inability to reconcile the idealised Ireland of kitsch Irishness and Catholic devotion and the squalid suffering and isolation to which he is being reduced, is a significant example of this.
(3)The most damaging feature was not the presence of individual clerical abusers but the extent to which they were covered up for by their superiors and left to abuse over and over again, with much more concern being shown for them than for their victims (and, in the case of institutional abuse, the way whole institutions run by religious orders became hell-holes).
(4) I've seen it said that whereas evangelicals tend to lose their faith when their confidence in Biblical inerrancy is undermined, Catholics tend to lose it when the clergy are shown to have feet of clay. In one way this is irrational (the sacraments are not affected by the vices of those who administer them) but at the same time it is understandable because they're supposed to be better.
(5)There were a lot of people who were ready to believe the worst of the church, either because they had already departed from church teaching and wanted self-justification (when I was growing up the liberal view of the clergy was that they were basically well meaning but out of touch, old-fashioned and authoritarian - now they are seen as much more actively malign) or because they had painful memories associated with the Church (Christian Brothers' school discipline and the like).
These things should not be exaggerated but they should not be forgotten either, and if we want to re-evangelise we need to begin by acknowledging them.
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 16, 2014 21:17:20 GMT
Two news stories that have come out in recent days have really depressed me, because of their content and because they bring back memories of being fooled. THe first concerns the now deceased Liberal MP for Rochdale, Cyril Smith. IN the 80s I used to respect him at face value, with his claim to be a devout MEthodist and a remnant of the old Liberal NOnconformist tradition - he used to vote pro-life if I remember correctly. Since his death, over the last few years, it has been coming out that he was a serial paedophile, but a detailed expose of the length and extent of his crimes has now been published, and it is truly horrific. The second concerns Bishop Johannes Gijsen, late of Roermond and then of Reykjavik. When I first started reading CHRISTIAN ORDER as a teenager, back in the late 70s and early 80s, Bishop Gijsen (and the future Cardinal Adrian Simonis) was held up as the great hope for the Church in the Netherlands, appointed as a bishop by Paul VI to rein in the excesses with which the Dutch Church became associated. He suffered a number of setbacks (including a scandal in his seminary), and got reassigned to Iceland. He died quite recently and a Church inquiry has now declared it morally proven that as a priest in the late 50s/early 60s he abused two boys in a minor seminary. This is a real abomination and I ask you to pray for his victims and those of Mr Smith. www.charismanews.com/world/43499-catholic-church-abuse-commission-deceased-dutch-bishop-was-child-molestor How easy it is for scoundrels to pose as heroes. How much effort we must make to remember that our trust is not in MPs or bishops, but in Jesus.
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 6, 2014 19:21:46 GMT
The recent revelations about the Tuam mother and baby home have been picked up quite widely outside of Ireland, partly out of real sincere horror and partly because of their own culture wars - neither element in the response should be ignored HERE we see an initial response of outrage from Rod Dreher, an American commentator who went from Catholicism ti Eastern ORthodoxy, partly because of the effect the Scandals and cover-ups had on him: www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/eight-hundred-dead-irish-children/Here is a somewhat more nuanced response in which Dreher responds to a claim by the prominent blogger Andrew Sullivan that these scandals show that traditional Christian teaching on sexuality is evil and demented, and the only way forward is for the Churches to bless and sanctify the sort of everything-goes promiscuity in which Mr Sullivan himself engages. (I should add that this claim is latent in a lot of the comment on the Scandals, Mr Sullivan is unusual only in the clarity with which he expresses himself); www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/andrew-sullivan-gay-catholic-2-plus-2-equals-4/Caroline Farrow comments from England and raises a few caveats: carolinefarrow.com/2014/06/04/tuam-childrens-home-salting-the-earth/A synopsis of Catherine Corless's research on the Tuam home; what it discloses about the treatment of these women and children is quite terrible enough not to need hysterical comparisons to the Nazis. The bottom line is that these children were treated as being worth less than other children, and were treated cruelly because of the circumstances of their birth for which they were in no way responsible. They died in much larger numbers than children born in wedlock in the same society at the same time, because they were seen as tainted and therefore could be neglected. (Even allowing for the well-known tendency for epidemics to spread in institutions with large number of vulnerable infants, more could have been done but wasn't). They were (it seems) buried casually and informally because they weren't seen to deserve anything better. This is wrong for the same reason the pro-choicers are wrong. freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2014/06/catherine-corless-synopsis-of-her-research-on-tuam-motherbaby-home/comment-page-1/
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Post by shane on Jun 7, 2014 3:19:48 GMT
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Post by shane on Jun 9, 2014 22:33:30 GMT
The reaction to the Tuam home has been predictible but the anti-Catholic venom is reaching scary proportions. TheJournal.ie was full of comments calling for the Church to be banned; liberal tweeters called for the Church to be spoiled of her property. Carol Hunt of the Sunday Independent said on Twitter that "it would be worth it" if John Charles McQuaid's body was dug up and desecrated if this made 'victims of the Church' feel better. Irish historian Dr Brian Hanley said: "It’s times like this I get nostalgic about some of the excesses of the anarchists in Spain in 1936" cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/tuam/#comment-230849With unconcealed bigotry, the Sunday Independent asked on its front-page about what makes 'Irish nuns so callous?' It reminded me of the old ultra-liberal Sunday Tribune (thankfully deceased) which did a feature on 'What turns our priests into monsters?' after the Ryan report. When travellers or Muslims commit wrongs, liberals and the Irish media are at pains not to stereotype and remind readers that the individuals are unrepresentative of their communities. But liberal 'tolerance' doesn't extend to the Catholic Church. I wouldn't be at all surprised if we see violence against the Church in Ireland and her personnel in the near future.
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Post by shane on Jun 9, 2014 22:34:37 GMT
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jun 9, 2014 22:36:14 GMT
Shane, how do you bear even to read all that stuff? I can't take it for more than two or three minutes at a time. I'd never reach that far into the combox.
One scary thing about that comment is that it was NOT pseudonymous. Until now I've taken comfort in saying, "These are weirdoes hiding behind aliases, you don't meet them in real life..."
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Post by shane on Jun 9, 2014 22:52:16 GMT
I had to leave Twitter because of it. You would have had to have seen the anti-Catholic vitriol for its intensity to be even credible. The New England Puritans who presided over the Salem witch trials were men of judicious caution compared to our liberal mob.
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