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Post by hibernicus on Mar 12, 2015 22:30:11 GMT
Yes, the priest whistleblower mentioned was Fr McGinnity. (I might add that in one respect Podles is a bit over-positive; Fr McGinnity never had concrete evidence that Ledwith was an abuser, he simply took up the concerns of some seminarians who felt Ledwith was behaving oddly towards them.) I think Christina Gallagher manipulated him; the book IMMACULATE DECEPTION mentions that she told him God had singled him out for a great spiritual trial and he would be the new St Patrick. (The significance of this, which the author of IMMACULATE DECEPTION does not realise, is that according to his CONFESSION St Patrick was initially turned down for the episcopate after his confidences were betrayed by a friend.) I would not like to speculate - certainly not on this forum - about his present state of mind. Leave that to God - but I hope Archbishop Martin restrains his appearances at the House of Prayer.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Mar 16, 2015 9:16:31 GMT
One declaration of interest I need to make, I was a student in Maynooth (not in the seminary though) when the former Mgr Ledwith was president and I obviously met him on a few occasions.
I don't give myself prizes for insights into people - I've been wrong often enough in judgement in both directions - but I didn't like Ledwith, though I never had any great reason to dislike him. I found he was very obliging - I remember that a few requests were put through his office and he always tried to facilitate student requests (within reason). The clerical students held him in awe at the time, predicting a glorious future in the church for him. Sic transit gloria mundi. I remember a particular president of the students' union who secured a glowing reference from Ledwith saying something similar, but a couple of years later it wasn't worth the paper it was written on.
With regard the earlier participation in JZ Knight's shananigans, when I thought about it, I wasn't surprised. I often attended Mass in the college chapel and Ledwith preached from time to time. At one stage, the Philosophy Society invited him to give an address. He frequently touched on topics which might be termed New Age or post-modern. He usually quoted Teilhard de Chardin; he could sound like a Green Party councillor (not that there were too many of those at the time); and he had a big interest in the New Physics. No one of these things is an indication in its own right, but the combination and frequency was noteworthy. I mentioned this in private correspondence to a lady who wrote to him about Teilhard (playing dumb) and received an extremely pro-Teilhard reply (Ledwith said that Teilhard was a poet rather than a theologian).
There was of course a folklore in the college which we would have been recipients. I know something about both folklore and hearsay evidence not to take anything at face value, but at the same time, there is rarely smoke without fire. The picture I got of Father McGinnity was hardly positive (this was before I heard about him in the present context); certainly, Maynooth in the 1970s and early 1980s was no paragon seminary - this only changed when Ledwith became president, but this was more to do with Father Frank Duhig becoming Junior Dean at the time. But Ledwith was nothing if not an effective PR man and lost no sleep in taking credit. From what I know of the McGinnity/Ledwith conflict, I could not fault the bishops for deciding against McGinnity as he had no concrete proof at the time. I heard that Maynooth clerics addressed problems about the then Fr Ledwith to the Papal Nuncio in the early 1980s too in an anonymous letter. I also heard that there is some anonymous correspondence regarding Fr McGinnity at that time which suggest people in glasshouses should not throw stones.
The only definite conclusion I could make is that Maynooth was a sorry mess from the early 1970s (if not earlier) into the mid 1990s (if not later).
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Post by Ranger on Mar 18, 2015 19:31:08 GMT
From what I hear the situation has improved marginally since the apostolic visitation, by which I mean the seminarians I know there now no longer feel that they will be expelled for showing signs of orthodoxy or traditional devotion, which was a big fear up until the AV three years ago, but the standard of formation is still lacking. The secular college seems to be the same as all of the others; Pure in Heart had complaints filed against them for distributing flyers promoting chastity, even though they had gone through the proper channels.
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Post by hibernicus on May 24, 2015 19:22:21 GMT
Since the Duggars, a Protestant fundamentalist family with 19 children from Arkansas who are given to pro-life and pro-family campaigning and are opposed to contraception, have got a mention on this board from time to time, I think it is appropriate to mention that they are currently embroiled in a scandal over revelations that when their eldest son was 15 he groped four of his sisters and that the family covered up on this - because the secular media here are sure to start gloating over it sooner or later (it's already appeared on the BBC website) and because the discussion of the case on Rod Dreher's blog reveals how the Duggars' worldview is rooted in some highly problematic attitudes on male authority and female submission. Prayers for all concerned would be in order: www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/josh-duggar-a-culture-of-abuse/
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2015 10:56:19 GMT
Good thinking hibernicus. It's for the best that this came out. The damage this could have done to the girls (besides whatever pain it has already caused them) could have been tremendous. Lord protect them and guide them.
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 15, 2015 21:03:09 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 28, 2015 19:09:07 GMT
It has been quite widely suggested that the abuse scandals are all down to patriarchy and that if the Church was more open to/dominated by feminist spirituality nothing of the kind would have happened. The fantasy novelist Marion Zimmer Bradley (d.1999), author of THE MISTS OF AVALON (a "feminist spirituality" take on the Arthurian legends, told from the point of view of Morgan le Fay with St Patrick as principal patriarchal villain) after spending much of her life as an occultist and goddess-worshipper, took in her last years to claiming that what was needed was for Christianity to discard patriarchy and incorporate goddess-elements (i.e. to turn into a form of paganism with residual trimmings). As part of this project, she had herself "ordained" by a minor pseudo-Christian sect, and her writings are very popular with feminist-spirituality types. (I have seen THE MISTS OF AVALON prominently displayed in Irish bookshops on several occasions, though I have always decided life is too short to devote any time to reading it) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Zimmer_Bradleyen.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mists_of_AvalonIt was known that the late Ms Bradley's husband was convicted for raping boys, but it was assumed that she herself was not involved. Unfortunately it has now come to light that not only was she complicit in his activities, she was a serial abuser herself: www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/27/sff-community-marion-zimmer-bradley-daughter-accuses-abuseI only came across this horrible story by chance when I was browsing a news-site the other day, and I offer it not to engage in point-scoring (the number of trads who have naively believed professed orthodoxy was sufficient safeguard against abuse, and the number of apparent heroes who have turned out to be monsters, should remind us not to engage in that activity) but to show that the idea that if we got rid of "patriarchal Christianity" such evils will all go away, is severely flawed to say the least. I return to this painful subject because MS Bradley's daughter has now gone public with more about her parents' behaviour to her and the mindset which underlay it. Apparently they maintained that everyone is naturally omnisexual and the fact that most people are heterosexual is due to social conditioning, so they advocated early childhood sexualisation (and this is a polite way of describing their evil actions) on the grounds that this prevented such conditioning from taking hold. One starts to see why such a wide range of sexual radicals in the 60s and 70s were prepared to tolerate or defend paedophilia, and the similarities to present-day forms of libertine ideology about the supposed social construction of sexuality are close enough to be worrying. BTW before anyone feels like being smug at the expense of the feminist-spirituality NEw Agers and fantasy fans who hero-worshipped MS Bradley, it is worth bearing in mind that her husband, brought up Catholic, was apparently molested by a priest as a boy and came to see (or at least to tell his unfortunate daughter and victim) that the molestation had in fact been an expression of affection towards him. This was long before Vatican II, just in case anyone's suggesting it all started then. Link here to a blog which summarises the story and in turn links to the daughter's latest statement. Note that I link for information purposes only and do not necessarily endorse the statements and interpretations made in these posts. www.patheos.com/blogs/godandthemachine/2015/07/marion-zimmer-bradley/?ref_widget=trending&ref_blog=markshea&ref_post=there-have-been-204-mass-shootings-in-204-days
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Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2015 20:19:38 GMT
Bless her. What a horrific experience. May the Lord protect her and guide her.
Amen
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Post by hibernicus on Aug 19, 2015 20:35:50 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Aug 26, 2015 19:11:35 GMT
Lazarus has some more -quite profound - reflections on clerical abuse and how much should be done about it in the context of that Scottish report. Extracts follow: EXTRACT: In turning this over again and again in my mind, I was reminded of a bit in Sean O'Casey's Autobiographies where he basically tells a survivor of Stalin's gulags that he doesn't believe his story of suffering because of his loyalty to Communism. (So my memory tells me. But I've flipped through the indexless volumes and can't find it. It was many, many years ago since I last read them. Did I dream it? Anyway...) When I read that as a teenager, it struck me as utterly appalling. And it is that danger that Catholics must avoid. I love the Church. I will die a Catholic. And yet none of that, indeed because of that, nothing must stand in the way of hearing and recognising the truth. Yet. Yet. One reads Catherine Deveney's piece in the Guardian. The apology 'rings hollow to me' she says. I sympathise. I'm not a great fan of institutional apologies: I'm not quite sure what they are, what language game they're part of. Normally, one expects agency and a resolve to change. I did something. I will not do it again. In the case of Japan, the narrative goes something like this. My nation deliberately inflicted harm on others as a result of a militaristic culture. We are sorry for having done this and we have changed. We are resolved never to do it again. Does this pattern fit the Catholic Church? Deveney clearly thinks so. For her, the Catholic Church is a baroque, Protestant nightmare, full of flickering shadows and whispered corruptions: [DEVENEY QUOTE BEGINS] They process slowly to the altar, Scotland’s Catholic bishops, their elaborate robes and red zucchettos symbols of their power and status. Around them, the light, honey-coloured stone arches of St Andrew’s cathedral in Glasgow soar, Italian-style embellishment spiralling up the slender columns in Madonna-blue paint and gold leaf...I am struck – not for the first time since the resignation of Cardinal Keith O’Brien two years ago – by the way opulence sits cheek by jowl with ugliness inside the Catholic church. [...] The Catholic church had shaped my childhood. Flickering candles and the heavy scent of incense. Shadowy statues in dimly lit churches, the crucified Christ crowned with thorns and stained with blood. For me, those candles now flickered precariously and the bleeding figure of Christ took on the shape of abused children. [DEVENEY QUOTE ENDS] Deveney's Church is one that needs as much of a complete change of culture as did militaristic Japan. (One imagines that the flickering candles and talk of mysteries would have to go just as certainly as did Emperor worship and subuku [THAT SHOULD BE SEPPUKU, ALSO KNOWN AS HARA-KIRI; THE PRACTICE OF REDEEMING ONE'S HONOUR BY RITUAL SELF-DISEMBOWELMENT -HIB].) It is frankly an impossible change. All one can do is to walk away from the shadows into the light (as one assumes Deveney has done). Apologies are made for something to someone. If the 'someone' here is Deveney or Gerry Hassan [PROMINENT SCOTTISH JOURNALIST - HIB] with his glib talk of 'systemic' cover up, then the something is really beyond repair: it must simply be done away with. And that I guess for the majority of Protestant or secularised Scotland is straightforwardly the case. If we sweep away the candles, and the priests, and the doctrine, then and only then might we be in the position of the New Japan. In this narrative, a Japan-like apology does make sense and, even if at some distant point in the future, the need for apology might stop when we are completely new, a completely different Church. But for Catholics -us- that sort of apology is impossible. The candles will not go. The whispered shame of the confessional will not go. The oddity of priestcraft (and indeed, it is odd) will not go. And we are left in the uncomfortable position of not being able blithely to damn the lot, but of sifting, with care. What (precisely) went wrong? What (precisely) can be done to prevent it in the future? What (precisely) can be done to repair the wrongs done? And here there are, I suspect, absolutely no solutions, but only ameliorations... END OF EXTRACTS Read the whole thing, and reflect on it. cumlazaro.blogspot.ie/2015/08/more-on-mclennan-and-safeguarding.html
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Post by hibernicus on Nov 3, 2015 22:28:06 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Nov 9, 2015 23:13:47 GMT
An American nun-blogger reviews (generally favourably) a new film on the BOSTON GLOBE's 2002 expose of the long-running clerical abuse scandal in that city, and reminisces about the way the revelations traumatised her. There are definite Irish echoes in the Boston story, and we can be sure that when this movie comes to Ireland we will be reminded of them at length. hellburns.blogspot.ie/2015/11/spotlight-is-recounting-of-spotlight.html#.VkEn57fhDIV
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Post by hibernicus on Nov 20, 2015 22:16:48 GMT
Another take on the movie about the BOSTON GLOBE expose of the Boston abuse scandal, from CATHOLIC WORLD REPORT. This does point out some inaccuracies, but I think it goes much too far in playing up the "homosexuality not paedophilia" mantra. The central issue is that the crimes were covered up by the archdiocese, and covered up in a manner which allowed the commission of further crimes, and this would be a scandal no matter what way the perpetrators were inclined (if, for example, they had been raping girls - and some were). This passage, on the other hand, is useful in pointing out that the movie presents the Church as still being as powerful in 2002 as it had been some decades previously, in order to exaggerate the David and Goliath theme of the film. I'm sure we can think of some Irish equivalents: EXTRACT ...the reality is that in 2002 the Globe was the most powerful institution in Boston—much more influential than the Church. While Boston was still considered a “Catholic” city because of the large numbers of Catholics living there, by 2002 most Catholics in the Boston area were not attending Mass regularly—or practicing the faith in any meaningful way. Having moved on from the faith of their (in many cases) Irish families, many members of this new generation of Catholics were embarrassed by Catholic culture and teachings—and did everything they could to break free of it. Several such Catholics worked at the Globe... END OF EXTRACT www.catholicworldreport.com/Blog/4366/shining_a_spotlight_on_yesterdays_journalism.aspxOn balance I would emphasise that I don't necessarily endorse this article and link to it only for information - I think it goes much too far in making excuses for the indefensible
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 13, 2015 17:46:01 GMT
Leon Podles has an interesting post on how clerical sexual abuse is not simply a Catholic problem: www.podles.org/dialogue/sexual-abuse-in-protestant-churches-4452.htm This should NOT be read as a tu quoque - one reason why MR Podles can be taken seriously on this is that he has done Trojan work to expose and explain Catholic clerical abuse and cover-ups, and is rightly horrified by it as we all should be. Here we see his thoughts on the new film about the journalists who exposed the abuse scandal in Boston. No doubt we will soon be hearing a lot more about this film when it gets to Ireland - but bear in mind that whatever axes the makers have to grind, and however flawed the journalists in question may have been, they were right on the issue, and sackcloth and ashes, with all that entails in terms of self-education and work not to have it happen again, is the only appropriate response: www.podles.org/dialogue/spotlight-review-4403.htmwww.podles.org/dialogue/spotlight-and-the-prophet-isaiah-4413.htm
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 2, 2016 20:42:39 GMT
Seeing SPOTLIGHT on a plane makes Rod Dreher recall how the experience of reporting on the abuse scandal and the cover-up undermined his faith in the Church, which he had previously idealised: www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/spotlight-on-truth/This comment is really a cause for tears; EXTRACT Liam says: March 1, 2016 at 3:05 pm Finally, I should note something as someone who has continued active practice of the Catholic faith here in Boston. The Long Lent of 2002, as a number of Catholics in the area I know called it, was painful. Many friends of mine with whom I had worshipped for years stopped active practice of the Catholic faith, and the handful that remained moved away in 2005, so that Easter – of all things – for me is a painful reminder of this – I cannot abide holding an Easter dinner for people who no longer observe it as fundamentally religious observance. (Christmas has way more wiggle room; Easter, coming after Lent, not so.) So I don’t. Once every few years I have an opportunity to socially celebrate it with fellow believers, and I cherish those opportunities, and try to offer the rest up ‘cuz I be a sinner no less than anyone else. But it got worse in Greater Boston when the Scandal erupted in Europe (especially Ireland, given how Irish Boston is) several years ago. I could see the number of parishioners at my then-parish and other parishes decline noticeably month to month. Church weddings and funerals also hit a nasty inflection point downward. I realized that this was a resonance-echo from 2002 – this round of people left because they lost hope that the Vatican and hierarchy had really learned the necessary lessons and were not fundamentally interested in learning them. So, when folks raise The Church Is A Victim of The Media special pleading, I have to shake my head. It takes a partial truth (in some circumstances) and overargues it badly and betrays a fundamental unwillingness to see the full reality. And that’s never the way of God. [NFR: Well said. Painfully said, but well said. God bless you, man. — RD] END OF EXTRACT
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