|
Post by Noelfitz on Jan 25, 2009 3:04:11 GMT
How prevalent is anti-Catholicism in Ireland?
I refer to the recent Roscommom abuse case. I hear that priests were considered responsible for not reporting the abuse. Was the family Catholic? Did they attend a Catholic Church.?
I also hear the length of time taken for the case to reach court was due to a right-wing Catholic/Christian group who sponsored legal delays. What was this group, was it supported by the hierarchy or the official Church?
I am told that there will be a huge outcry when the report on abuse in Dublin will be produced. When will this occur and what should be done?
|
|
|
Post by Hemingway on Jan 26, 2009 12:19:57 GMT
I'm not sure showing anger towards some people within the Catholic Church can be considered Anti-Catholicism.
If we adopt this stance (in dealing with the Roscommon case), we would have to make the claim that people who are angry at the social workers in the area for not picking up on the abuse are "Anti Social Worker".
This is a very emotive case and generates aggressive and knee-jerk responses.
Anti-Catholicism, I would suggest, is a hatred or excessive dislike of all thing associated with the Catholic faith. I think this is a separate thing to some individuals in the community where the abuse took place venting anger at local priests.
However, anything we say at this point is mere speculation as all the facts of the case are not yet in the public domain. I think a wait and see policy is the best course of action for now before we start pointing the finger of blame at sections of society or claiming mistreatment of bias for or against certain groups.
|
|
|
Post by Noelfitz on Jan 26, 2009 23:04:09 GMT
Hemingway,
I agree with you in part, as I often do.
However I would like to hear more about this conservative Catholic group that has supported the legal challenges.
Is it all just one post-mistress?
|
|
|
Post by Hemingway on Jan 27, 2009 9:05:13 GMT
Hemingway, I agree with you in part, as I often do. However I would like to hear more about this conservative Catholic group that has supported the legal challenges. Is it all just one post-mistress? Indeed. Its interesting but macabre stuff to be sure. I'm sure when more facts emerge there will be a flurry of posts on here about this particular group if there is any credible proof of their wrong doing.
|
|
|
Post by Askel McThurkill on Jan 27, 2009 11:44:15 GMT
Here is some info about said post mistress carried on one of the Latin Mass threads: Monkeyman, Got the Palma business in Santry in one: the oratory (still standing) and school, are the property of Mina Bean Ui Chribin. Bean Ui Chribin was the foremost supporter of the late Gregory XVII in Ireland from many years. She had the Oratory built to host his priests, including Bishop Michael Cox. Her daughter Aine was a nun in the 'Vatican' complex in the south of Spain and she was a regular feature in the Irish media in denouncing JPII. After Aine spent about 10 years in the Palmarian complex, she had to be more or less 'abducted' to get out of it. She was the topic of a TG4 documentary and she is now married. Her disillusioned mother switched to the SSPX. After the following she built a Gaelscoil: Scoil Paipin Naofa on her property, which was served by the SSPX (Father Couture listed himself as 'chaplain', but don't ask me who other than himself sanctioned this appointment). There seems to have been bad public relations, because a number of unmarried mothers from Ballymun sent their kids to Santry on the understanding it was a mainstream school and I saw Senator Joe O'Toole of the INTO on television defending the idea of Catholic ethos in the schools as to 'Tridentinism'. Anyway, the grieved parents (and not all of them unmarried mothers) withdrew their kids, but the school retained recognition and grants for the rest of the year. But when Scoil Paipin Naofa had more students than the SSPX school 'St Thomas Aquinas School' Mounttown Road (which was a doomed project from the outset), Bean Ui Chribin expected some of the collection would come to Scoil Paipin Naofa. This never happened. So Bean Ui Chribin broke with the Pixies and came to St Audoen's from then on. So, there you have the history, Monkeyman. As Peig Sayers would say 'Ma ta breag ann, ni mise a cheap e'. Alaisdir. This is some background regarding Bean Ui Chribin. I gather the 'right wing organisation' cited 'Ograchas Paipin Naofa' has something to do with the school referred to, but I refer you to Brenda Power's piece in the Sunday Times: www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article5580610.ece
|
|
|
Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jan 27, 2009 11:59:40 GMT
Regarding Mina Bean Ui Chribin, I have a couple of observations, which I will correct as further evidence emerges. First of all, I can't see how her small group in Santry could have funded a High Court action unless they were acting on behalf of something much bigger, and secondly, I wonder how a local North County Dublin outfit could get in contact with a Roscommon case.
I have a few theories as to how, but no evidence.
As for Mina, it is not the first or second time she landed in a mess like this and she seems to thrive on media attention, no matter how negative.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Jan 27, 2009 23:37:40 GMT
I don't remember any criticism of local priests specifically, though the local community as a whole have been criticised for not intervening. Several journalists have also suggested that the case shows that the Catholic-influenced emphasis in the constitution on the rights of the family is harmful, and that an amendment should be passed emphasising the rights of the child (i.e. the right of the state to intervene on the child's behalf). I think this last claim is overdone. The dominant tendency in social work these days is to take children into care only as a very last resort and to be non-judgmental about unconventional family lifestyles. Anyone who has read Denis Lehane's novel GONE BABY GONE will be aware that US law makes it almost impossible to remove children from a parent however unfit. (The Ben Affleck film is somewhat different from the novel on this and takes a somewhat less hostile view of the mother.) If you want to discuss anti-Catholicism in Ireland this is not a good place to start, because it involves criticism which is entirely justified. However well-intentioned and limited Bean Ui Cribin's intervention may have been, if it contributed to the continued suffering of those children then she should be called to account for it. The dark insinuations of certain papers about a "Catholic organisation" as if we were talking about an international religious order rather than Bean Ui Cribin and possibly a few cronies, is another matter.
|
|
|
Post by Harris on Jan 29, 2009 9:05:06 GMT
"If you want to discuss anti-Catholicism in Ireland this is not a good place to start, because it involves criticism which is entirely justified."
Agreed!!
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Feb 17, 2009 0:16:25 GMT
Here's a much more sinister development. The current issue of VILLAGE magazine has a piece by John Colgan of the Campaign to Separate Church and State on religious broadcasting in which he basically argues that any form of religious broadcasting which does not incorporate criticism as part of the broadcast (he gives as an example the broadcasting of religious services for the benefit of the sick or housebound) is an unconstitutional endowment of religion. What we have here is an interpretation of the separation of church and state which goes beyond the view that the state may not endow religious bodies as such, but may facilitate their members by enabling them to receive services from these bodies. Instead, Mr. Colgan is saying that religious believers (who pay their taxes like anyone else) are not to be facilitated in any way by the state if the effect of such assistance is to aid religious bodies. Mr. Colgan goes on to ask the following questions:- -Have institutional religions, which enjoy charitable tax status, the right to subvert the civil law, for example by secretly marrying persons under the lawful age or engaging in the genital mutilation of infants? - Have religious institutions the right to subvert public norms, such as the equality of the genders? - Have religious institutions the right to undermine personal self-assuredness, contrary to the best interests of individuals and society, through fatalism and dependence on miraculous intercessions and cures? The Campaign to Separate Church and State would prefer if religions did not have these rights, nevertheless we respect the right of others to differ, but only on condition that none of them is allowed to dip their hands into the State purse to benefit their institution.." This appears to me to be an exercise in weasel words, framed in such a way that the speaker can insinuate certain views without being pinned down to them. For example:- The reference to "the genital mutilation of infants" might simply refer to female genital mutilation as practiced in certain African and Arabic cultures, which is indeed an abomination; but it might also be read as advocating prohibition of the circumcision of male infants as practised in Judaism and Islam, a prohibition which would be tantamount to prohibiting the practice of these religions. The reference to "subverting public norms, such as the equality of the genders" could refer simply to such practices as forced marriage or the denial of education to women; it could also mean, for example, that the mere expression of the view that there are natural and ineradicable differences between the two sexes, or such doctrines as the wrongness of abortion and contraception, should be prohibited by law. The reference to "undermining personal self-assurance... through fatalism and dependence on miraculous intercessions and cures" could be read as advocating the legal suppression of any religion which believes in intercessory prayer, divine providence or the possibility of miracles. It will be noted also that Mr. Colgan also refers to "religious institutions" in this context as if a restriction on the rights of religious institutions were not also a restriction on the citizens who are their members. His whole article, in my opinion, is based on the assumption that atheism is and/or ought to be the established religion of the state, that religious freedom extends only to the right of the individual to hold certain beliefs in one's own mind but not to communicate them or form associations possessing legal personality to propagate them, that anything beyond mere toleration of private individual belief is not a matter of right but a privilege extended by the state at its sole discretion and revokable if and when it sees fit. (Leaving the question of religion out of it altogether, this assumes a right of the state to dictate citizens' beliefs and associations which appears to me to be quite incompatible with democracy as commonly understood.) I am not saying that all atheists, or anyone other than a tiny minority, openly espouses such views; but their appearance in a public forum is a worrying sign. I may of course have misinterpreted Mr. Colgan's views. If anyone on this board has read his VILLAGE article and thinks I have misread it, will they please give a response here?
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Feb 19, 2009 0:23:49 GMT
By the way, the IRISH TIMES a couple of days ago published a completely uncritical account of the latest statement by Catholics for Free Choice [read: Catholics for Abortion] as part of their campaign to have the Vatican expelled from its UN observer status on the grounds that it is not a real state. The IRISH TIMES quite regularly pushes similar groups (such as Voice of the Faithful, which has an Irish arm now and which basically argues the scandals would never have arisen if the liberal theological wish-list were enacted). Someone should keep an eye on the Paper of Record and its pets of this sort.
|
|
|
Post by Michael O'Donovan on Feb 19, 2009 22:52:40 GMT
The current issue of VILLAGE magazine has a piece by John Colgan of the Campaign to Separate Church and State on religious broadcasting in which he basically argues that any form of religious broadcasting which does not incorporate criticism as part of the broadcast (he gives as an example the broadcasting of religious services for the benefit of the sick or housebound) is an unconstitutional endowment of religion. This is just spitefulness of a kind that we know well. What encourages me to take such things lightly is the way that the conventional news media are being steadily pushed aside by the Internet. The people who look first to them for information are getting older and fewer, and most people under 50 (and some of us older than that) are now using a much wider resource of independent news and opinion. Organs like Village magazine, RTE News and The Irish Times are still powerful, and will continue to be for some time, but their importance dwindles every day. We, on the other hand, have more and more opportunities to influence people — not through insignificant forums like this one, but through many other resources where our opinions will not be edited or suppressed.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Feb 20, 2009 12:44:27 GMT
Colgan is pretty clearly a minor crank; the trouble is that this sort of opinion will be taken up by more powerful and influential figures as an excuse for further suppression of the public expression of Catholicism/Christianity using the need not to offend the delicate sensibilities of Mr. Colgan, Muslim fundamentalists etc. (Just imagine the rumpus, by the way, if they were asked to suppress the Gay Pride parade on the grounds that it is offensive to the religious beliefs of ethnic minorities, as indeed it is.) I wouldn't be too sanguine about the potential of new media, both because we do not seem to be making a great fist of it here in Ireland at present (look how few regular Catholic posters there are on this board, for instance) and because I would not underestimate the ability of politically correct authorities to regulate them and to penalise both formally and informally those of us who stick our heads above the parapet. That's why I post under an alias and don't like to see other members speculating on the board about the identity of posters who prefer to remain anonymous.
|
|
|
Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Feb 26, 2009 16:24:24 GMT
Sometimes life is like a dystopian novel - 1984, Brave New World or We. Then a Catholic vesion predates all three: Mgr Benson's The Lord of the World. However, Chesterton's The Man that was Thursday is a bit of an antidote to that type of thinking.
I think we have a big problem in Ireland with the prevailing culture of uniformity. When Ireland was Catholic, it was prevailingly so and now that Ireland is politically correct, it brooks no dissent. I think this homogenous nature of Irish society needs combatting. In an unusual way, I think it brings out why I believe in the Declaration of Religious Freedom, which I believe as Father Harrison has argued, does follow from traditional Papal teaching and which certainly follows from the political tradition of this country going back to the time of Daniel O'Connell and which (unusually) Cardinal Cullen actually supported in rejecting co-establishment.
In summary, I support freedom of religion and conscience because I expect this for myself and I don't see this as negating my right to advocate legislation for certain social policy norms. I extend this to others, though not absolutely (I don't believe freedom of religion should allow for human sacrifice, for example).
One problem with many Irish anti-Catholics is that they do not see themselves as such - this is the cultural challenge we have to address.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Mar 31, 2009 11:14:42 GMT
A few recent examples: The Sunday before last the SUNDAY TRIBUNE published an article by Diarmuid Doyle entitled "The Pope and the Messiah" - the latter being Barack Obama, which jeered at the Pope and gloated over the thought that Obama was more popular in Ireland than the Pope and that were the Pope to visit Ireland he would face embarrassing demonstrations over his opposition to "civil rights". This last by the way points to a particularly dangerous development. Anyone who has been following the letters columns of the IRISH TIMES and the pronouncements of certain "rights" bureaucrats will have noticed that they are already talking about gay marriage as a human right and declaring that by not introducing it immediately the government are in breach of the human rights of homosexuals by denying them equality. As has been pointed out in the American debate, the logic of this view is that the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman with the primary purpose of bearing and rearing children should be treated by the state as being as wrong as the view that the definition of marriage should exclude unions between blacks and whites - that traditional Catholics, nay Christians doctrine on this matter is as wrong as racism, and that those who uphold it should be treated as racists are treated in terms of exclusion from many forms of employment, restrictions on expressing such views in public fora etc. Last Sunday the MAIL ON SUNDAY published an article on a homosexual artist who has painted pictures of various prominent homosexuals (David Norris, Graham Norton etc) in the style and person of baroque saints (the use of light and colour appears to ape El Greco). These wretched libels on St. Paul the Hermit and other named saints are being taken on tour, with a commentary asking whether the saints in question might themselves have been "gay". (This is helped of course by deliberate failure to distinguish between sexually abstinent and active homosexuals, so that a lifelong celibate will be described as "gay" just as if he had spent his life in a certain type of San Francisco bathhouse. I believe the GUARDIAN'S house-style manual actively bans the phrase "active homosexual" precisely to avoid this distinction.) Last week also (I believe it was last Friday) the IRISH TIMES ran an account of an event for young "movers and shakers" among secondary school pupils. This included a pageant on contraception, in which one of the pupils interviewed described dressing up as a contraceptive pill; he gave particular praise to his teacher for helping and encouraging her class in preparing this precious atrocity. The school's name wasn't given: I wonder was it a so-called Catholic institution?
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Apr 28, 2009 15:58:27 GMT
Some time ago certain posters objected to my referring to Roisin Ingle of the IRISH TIMES by the nickname "Roisin Bungle" on the grounds that it was unChristian and I was accused of smearing a "distinguished journalist". (As I was asked not to refer to her by this nickname I have not done so since; I give it now in case anyone who had not seen the original post thought that I had given her some worse nickname.) Recently for personal reasons I have been looking through back issues of the IRISH TIMES for 2003, and I discovered that in her Saturday magazine column around Easter of that year Ms Ingle published a gloating account of "Good Friday parties" by people who deliberately stock up on booze and then hold drink parties on Good Friday, apparently to show how daring and grown-up they are by mocking its religious connotations. Ms Ingle, wholeheartedly entering into the spirit of the occasion, included in her article some parodies of Our Saviour's Last Words from the cross such as "Forgive them, Father, for they know exactly what they are doing" and "Into thy hands I commend my spirits". Robert Dunlop, the well-known Baptist minister, wrote to the IRISH TIMES to protest against this malicious insult to Christian sensibilities (the IRISH TIMES of course does not care about insulting God, but it usually professes sensitivity to people's beliefs). On the basis of this article, Ms Ingle is clearly a fully-paid-up member of the Tommy Tiernan Association of Scourgers, Spitters, Nailers and Thorn-Plaiters, and the nickname which I applied to her is much too mild to reflect the enormity of her statements. [Note to those who are unfamiliar with irony and metaphor; I am not suggesting that a formal association of the type mentioned actually exists.] To broaden out the point a bit; one source of contemporary anti-Catholicism in Ireland is the view that religion is something for small children (a view which I think is exacerbated by the dumbing-down and anti-intellectualism of contemporary religious education) and that this sort of juvenile blasphemy is a rite of passage to adulthood.
|
|