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Post by maolsheachlann on Apr 28, 2017 19:51:57 GMT
Not just religious freedom, but civil freedom. I really feel we should be pushing this angle. It should not only be Catholics, but libertarians and classical liberals who are outraged at such rampant statism.
I wish the Sisters of Mercy would tell the government to get stuffed and find another site. And the bishops are a disgrace, but no surprise there.
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Post by Young Ireland on Apr 28, 2017 20:14:06 GMT
Not just religious freedom, but civil freedom. I really feel we should be pushing this angle. It should not only be Catholics, but libertarians and classical liberals who are outraged at such rampant statism. I wish the Sisters of Mercy would tell the government to get stuffed and find another site. And the bishops are a disgrace, but no surprise there. Agreed. By religious freedom, I also included freedom of conscience, so perhaps we should push this line instead. As for the bishops, I probably would not put it that bluntly, but they really do need to speak up here and soon.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Apr 28, 2017 20:22:42 GMT
Yes, we should be respectful of the bishops-- I'm letting my frustration get out of hand.
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Post by Account Deleted on Apr 29, 2017 20:11:25 GMT
Your frustration is understandable maolsheachlann. I do not envy the Sisters their position. Their efforts to assist the State in its need for this facility has been hi-jacked and corrupted into a persistent, aggressive, and organized bullying of the Sisters. If they are cornered to abandon the deal in order to keep to their religious principles - they will be vilified again for scuppering the NMH. The baying secularists who timed this controversy perfectly to coerce their own outcome on the deal (already negotiated) will - of course - claim to be blameless for it falling asunder. We can only hope (and pray) that the sensible still outnumber those increasingly frenzied raucous folk possessed of a desire at any cost for abortion (a procedure still mostly illegal in this country). It seems, those costs, may not be limited to sacrificing the life of the National Maternity Hospital. Do they really expect the Sisters to issue statements rejecting Catholic doctrine, or (for that matter) stating that they will sanction illegal procedures in a hospital under their ownership? If they do expect that, then they truly do not understand what witnessing for the Truth means in people of faith. Which should we fear most - answering for our choices before God ... or before the State? The Sisters of Charity know.
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Post by annie on May 1, 2017 9:56:19 GMT
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on May 4, 2017 10:53:27 GMT
Though front cover of current Phoenix is horrendous,article about maternity hospital is more interesting. Especially regarding the consultants' part of the deal.
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Post by hibernicus on May 4, 2017 21:49:16 GMT
If you look at Fintan O'Toole's recent columns, he is pushing a position which amounts to state absolutism - that all private charity is harmful and that any religious ethos must be superseded by "democracy" (by which he means secularist state control).
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Post by assisi on May 5, 2017 9:43:47 GMT
As a Northern nationalist virtually all my life, the unification of the island of Ireland makes perfect sense from almost all angles. However if there was a poll tomorrow I would not vote for a united Ireland as the majority of the Dail, the media and the political commentators in the Republic are not only anti Catholic, but seriously unlikeable characters with no love for country or people. I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole (and this is me being polite).
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Post by assisi on May 5, 2017 10:41:58 GMT
Yes, we desperately need a confident, aggressive and able spokesman or spokeswoman to deliver the positives of the Catholic Church and stand toe to toe with the secularists. Any such person would need a thick skin as the opposition will be looking to keep introducing the subject of historic scandals. But the ammunition the Catholic would have is very convincing if utilised well and if it is allowed to be heard ( the number of children suffering from broken homes, the increase in mental health problems don't indicate a happy secularist country, the increase in STDs, growing gap between haves and have-nots, the handing over of national sovereignty to EU and UN, the influence of multinationals on politics and morality, spiritual poverty leading to materialist angst). The list could easily be added to. In some ways it would be better if an articulate spokesperson was already in the media light and already had a following and access to the media. Your ordinary man on the street could be deprived of media attention even if articulate. However if a prominent politician, sportsman or celebrity broke ranks then they would attract more attention and would hit the ground running. In the light of the Tuam case, where all the details are yet to be known, wouldn't it be good if someone posed the following scenario to those commentators who believe in abortion: if you are outraged by the children in Tuam being buried in underground chambers, saying that they it was cruel and cold, how can you then support a situation where a baby is forcibly evicted and killed and tossed into an incinerator. No funeral, no sympathy, no prayers, no dignity and this in the 21st century. Maybe somebody prayed or cried over the children in Tuam, who knows for sure. And the Tuam time span covered a world war, economic depressions, rationing, lack of antibiotics and much less hygienic conditions than today, a far harsher reality. But for aborted babies, nothing.
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Post by hibernicus on May 5, 2017 21:19:44 GMT
The doublethink on Tuam is quite remarkable. Several commentators said in one and the same article that(a) the church must be condemned as responsible for the contempt allegedly shown to these babies and their bodily remains while professing to believe in the sanctity of life (b) the best way to show how reprehensible we find such behaviour by the church is to legalise abortion. It says a lot about how twisted the plausibility structures of our society have become (which is not to say they weren't twisted before,in a different way) that this doublethink is treated seriously. David Cesarani's book on the Holocaust quotes a letter from a German soldier during the invasion of Russia where he tells his wife how distressing he finds it to throw Jewish babies up in the air and shoot them to pieces, but he is proud to do it because he knows it's necessary to defend their own babies at home. Certain IRISH TIMES columnists in recent years remind me of that letter.
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Post by annie on May 7, 2017 17:48:39 GMT
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Post by annie on May 8, 2017 8:52:00 GMT
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Post by Young Ireland on May 29, 2017 19:31:05 GMT
And alas, the sisters have handed over the hospital to the state. Though I am pleased that the sisters stuck to their principles, this is still a very worrying development, especially given that Dr. Boylan, who in many ways led this campaign, has explicitly stated that his concerns were about abortion, IVF, etc. and as it now sets a precedent for the possible secularisation of the school system as well.
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Post by Young Ireland on May 29, 2017 20:30:37 GMT
This is especially worrying:
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Post by Account Deleted on May 30, 2017 9:24:41 GMT
It seems we now live in a land where a minority, willing to shout loudly in the public forum, can determine the future shape of key sections of our society. The worry, in such a society, is what now (if no longer the Christian/Catholic ethos) is motivating those few who are shaping our society now? They too will, in future, be called to task for the consequences of their tenure as the self-appointed guardians of Irish society. Dr. Boylan has had to work under the ethos of Catholic hospitals in the past, and his continuing public utterances are doing nothing to counter the perception that this is driven by nothing more than base vindictiveness and his own controlling ideology (i.e. the nuns must be removed from any controlling representation at all costs, and the medical professional given that control.) What is it, one has to ask, that was so awful about the nun's ethos, so deleterious to Irish healthcare in the past, and yet will be so superior in the hands of current/future medical professionals alone? Future generations, unfortunately, will now have to personally discover the answer to that. Dr. Angleo Bottone has an interesting perspective on it: "Without the guiding principle of health, practitioners become simply the executors of someone else’s desires." www.ionainstitute.ie/post-the-nuns-will-a-pro-life-or-pro-choice-ethic-govern-the-st-vincents-hospitals/I can't help but feel this all represents an on-going creeping shift away from the notion of healthcare and the "common good", towards medicine as a customer-driven service.
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