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Post by hibernicus on Apr 29, 2009 18:06:34 GMT
Doers anyone have any comments on the recent events in Cork in which a pro-euthanasia lecturer was shouted down and not allwoed to give his talk? My own views are as follows - I consider Dr. Doyal's views repugnant (his paper, as published in the IRISH TIMES, basically glossses over the distinction between actively killing someone and ceasing to take extraordinary measures) and I don't think the HSE should have invited him. It was legitimate to protet against his speech; it was not legitimate to prevent him from giving the speech at all, both because it actually harmed the protestors' cause and helped Dr. Doyal to present himself as a martyr, and because this sort of disruption of a meeting called for a particular end is wrong in itself - people have a eneral right to express and hear unpopular views. in general I believe that the right of people to organise and hold meetings (especially in private or semi-private venues) should take precedence over the right of others to disrupt them as a form of protest. The CATHOLIC VOICE issue 3 (26 April 2009) p.6 cites with apparent approval the following: "Fr. Paul Kramer, a Catholic priest and author [some of us will have come across him in another context - he's associated with a very dodgy movement called the Fatima Crusade] confronted Doyal, shouting "Nazi criminal! Get out of our country [Kramer is Canadian]! Nazi eugenicist! Get out of our country!" HE turned ot the crowd of about 200 and announced "We say no to Nazi eugenics!" The crowd chanted "Out! Out! Out!" At that point Professor Doyal was escorted from the room and the lecture was cancelled." Does anyone on the board think this is helpful? I don't.
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Post by hazelireland on Apr 29, 2009 18:27:15 GMT
A lot said in that short post there Hibernicus, some of it to do with the mans position and some of it to do with the events surrounding the talk.
First on his position, I do not think it is as clear cut as you summarise it here and I urge all people interested to go and read ALL of what this man has said and written before you make your decision. Do not count on snippets or on second hand synopsis. There is some things from him I agree with and some I do not.
Secondly, this is an impossible subject to talk about. The willingness to obfuscate the boundries while discussing it is rife. Someone will bring up the topic of patient consented doctor assisted suicide and others will go off talking about doctors having the right to take your life without consent and so on. The differences between patient consent, doctors choice, state choice and more blur to the points that this topic is one that is impossible to discuss at the best of times without spending hours formalising the discussion first.
My own position on this, since Hibernicus alluded to his own, is that (similar to writing a will when you are as verifyably of sound mind as it is possible to assertain yourself to be) one should be able to dictate a legally binding document where one can state in advance the scenarios you fully expect doctors to allow you to die and to even speed you on that course. This is a patient consent position ONLY and has nothing to do with and tangents people keep insisting on bring up such as state and doctor decisions on same.
Finally on the note of the talk, I fully meet hibernicus here. No one has the right to protest in such a way as to silence the target from airing their views. This is not free speech that they are exercising as they would claim, but the use of their free speech to remove the same right in another. It was pathetic, it was abhorant and as Hibernicus rightly said it was ultimately futile.
To me someone who acts in this manner is guilty of exactly what I said in the Pro-life thread on this board. They have no good points to back up their position, or they have no good rebuttals to the points of their opposition, so they find some tactic to excercise in place. With the pro-life movement that practise is to use shock pictures and the like, all of which I detailed in that thread and can be read there. In terms of the people at this talk it is to shout down the opponent so the good points he would make that they are too weak to refute would go unheard. I have NO respect for anyone who acts in this manner, nor do I expect I ever shall, nor do I know of any reason that I should. In the words of Stephen Fry "My spleen is not big enough to contain the splenetic juices of bile that arise in me" when one is seen to act in this fashion.
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Post by veritas on Apr 30, 2009 4:29:17 GMT
Doers anyone have any comments on the recent events in Cork in which a pro-euthanasia lecturer was shouted down and not allwoed to give his talk? My own views are as follows - I consider Dr. Doyal's views repugnant (his paper, as published in the IRISH TIMES, basically glossses over the distinction between actively killing someone and ceasing to take extraordinary measures) and I don't think the HSE should have invited him. It was legitimate to protet against his speech; it was not legitimate to prevent him from giving the speech at all, both because it actually harmed the protestors' cause and helped Dr. Doyal to present himself as a martyr, and because this sort of disruption of a meeting called for a particular end is wrong in itself - people have a eneral right to express and hear unpopular views. in general I believe that the right of people to organise and hold meetings (especially in private or semi-private venues) should take precedence over the right of others to disrupt them as a form of protest. The CATHOLIC VOICE issue 3 (26 April 2009) p.6 cites with apparent approval the following: "Fr. Paul Kramer, a Catholic priest and author [some of us will have come across him in another context - he's associated with a very dodgy movement called the Fatima Crusade] confronted Doyal, shouting "Nazi criminal! Get out of our country [Kramer is Canadian]! Nazi eugenicist! Get out of our country!" HE turned ot the crowd of about 200 and announced "We say no to Nazi eugenics!" The crowd chanted "Out! Out! Out!" At that point Professor Doyal was escorted from the room and the lecture was cancelled." Does anyone on the board think this is helpful? I don't. Dear Moderator of the forum. It should be worth noting that a smear on Father Paul Kramer B.h, S.T.B., M.Div.,S.T.L. (Cand.) is not helpful to the discussion. He is now residing in Ireland and a blessing for Ireland. I would hope the poster, "Hibernicus" will offer a retraction and apologise for attempting to smear a good and holy priest.
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Post by hazelireland on Apr 30, 2009 6:02:24 GMT
will offer a retraction and apologise for attempting to smear a good and holy priest. I think you better read what he said again before calling censorship and foul. He never said anything wrong about the priest. He said there was something wrong with the "Fatima Crusade". Saying someone is associated with something that is dodgy, is not the same as saying that the person themselves is dodgy. You would do well to try and engage in discourse rather than calling offence every time you read something you do not like. You are no better than the people this thread is being written about.
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Post by veritas on Apr 30, 2009 13:36:41 GMT
will offer a retraction and apologise for attempting to smear a good and holy priest. I think you better read what he said again before calling censorship and foul. He never said anything wrong about the priest. He said there was something wrong with the "Fatima Crusade". Saying someone is associated with something that is dodgy, is not the same as saying that the person themselves is dodgy. You would do well to try and engage in discourse rather than calling offence every time you read something you do not like. You are no better than the people this thread is being written about. Ok, but a bit unfair to attempt to regard Fr Kramer as a priest on the fringe. I'm delighted the Doyal lecture was cancelled.
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Post by hibernicus on May 1, 2009 13:35:07 GMT
The question is not whether the Doyal lecture should have been cancelled (in my opinion it should never have been held in the first place) but whether it the way in which it was prevented achieved anything worthwhile. In my opinion it did not; Doyal was enabled to pose as a martyr and got more publicity for his views than they would otherwise have received, and the focus of the debate changed from his advocacy of killing the aged and ill to the reprehensible tactics used by the protestors. Wouldn't a picket outside, and a stiff question and answer session exposing the implications of his views, have been preferable? The Fatima Crusade to which I refer is run by Fr. Nicholas Gruner, a priest of the Diocese of Avellanoin Italy. Fr. Gruner maintains that his interpretation of the Fatima apparition (which in any case constitutes a private revelation which does not possess doctrinal significance) is superior not only to that of the Pope but that of the original visionary Sr. Lucia, who specifically contradicted it, and that his "duty" to preach this interpretation takes precedence over his duty of obedience to his bishop, who ordered him to return to Avellano and assume priestly duties there. Fr. Gruner refused to do so; for this disobedience he was declared by the Holy See not to be a priest in good standing in 2001, and he remains suspended to this day. Teh Fatima Crusade is a fringe organisation run by a suspended and disobedient priest. Michael W. Cuneo 's book THE SMOKE OF SATAN: CONSERVATIVE AND TRADITIONALIST DISSENT IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH SINCE VATICAN II has a chapter on the Fatima crusade, in which he records that Fr. Kramer personally told him that E. Michael Jones (who then criticised the Fatima Crusade, though they have since made up as Jones becomes more demented) was a secret Jew ("a Marrano Jew") were his exact words, and that this provided the only explanation necessary for his criticising the FC.
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Post by hibernicus on May 1, 2009 13:37:02 GMT
I may add that my original criticism referred to Fr. Kramer's statements and actions at the lecture, which are a matter of public record. Can "Veritas" address these, instead of making general statments about Fr. Kramer's goodness and holiness?
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Post by veritas on May 1, 2009 14:43:42 GMT
The question is not whether the Doyal lecture should have been cancelled (in my opinion it should never have been held in the first place) but whether it the way in which it was prevented achieved anything worthwhile. In my opinion it did not; Doyal was enabled to pose as a martyr and got more publicity for his views than they would otherwise have received, and the focus of the debate changed from his advocacy of killing the aged and ill to the reprehensible tactics used by the protestors. Wouldn't a picket outside, and a stiff question and answer session exposing the implications of his views, have been preferable? The Fatima Crusade to which I refer is run by Fr. Nicholas Gruner, a priest of the Diocese of Avellanoin Italy. Fr. Gruner maintains that his interpretation of the Fatima apparition (which in any case constitutes a private revelation which does not possess doctrinal significance) is superior not only to that of the Pope but that of the original visionary Sr. Lucia, who specifically contradicted it, and that his "duty" to preach this interpretation takes precedence over his duty of obedience to his bishop, who ordered him to return to Avellano and assume priestly duties there. Fr. Gruner refused to do so; for this disobedience he was declared by the Holy See not to be a priest in good standing in 2001, and he remains suspended to this day. Teh Fatima Crusade is a fringe organisation run by a suspended and disobedient priest. Michael W. Cuneo 's book THE SMOKE OF SATAN: CONSERVATIVE AND TRADITIONALIST DISSENT IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH SINCE VATICAN II has a chapter on the Fatima crusade, in which he records that Fr. Kramer personally told him that E. Michael Jones (who then criticised the Fatima Crusade, though they have since made up as Jones becomes more demented) was a secret Jew ("a Marrano Jew") were his exact words, and that this provided the only explanation necessary for his criticising the FC. Youth Defence and Mother & Child Campaign did picket outside the hospital gates.It featured on Morning Ireland the day after the lecture. Various groups and inividuals were inside the venue.
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Post by veritas on May 1, 2009 14:46:45 GMT
"The Fatima Crusade is a fringe organisation run by a suspended and disobedient priest." This is not true. Please correct this.
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Post by veritas on May 1, 2009 14:50:58 GMT
"reprehensible tactics used by the protestors." So praying the Holy Rosary on Holy Thursday night in a Catholic country is reprehensible to you. I'm sorry to hear this.
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Post by hibernicus on May 1, 2009 15:57:52 GMT
I was not denouncing all the protestors but only those who went into the meeting, disrupted it, and forcibly prevented the lecturer from speaking. I maintain that as a general proposition it is wrong to disrupt a meeting in this way, whether it is done by saying the Rosary or otherwise, and that it also failed in the end to which it was directed since it only allowed Professor Doyal to present himself as a martyr and to smear everyone who opposed him. If the reference is to saying the Rosary outside the meeting that is another matter. www.theotokos.org.uk/pages/fatima/ngruner/wanderer.htmlmatt1618.freeyellow.com/squire.html
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Post by Hemingway on May 1, 2009 16:09:21 GMT
Veritas... I am 100% behind Hibericus on this one.
Nowhere in his post did he find saying the rosary is "reprehensible". This is a gross misrepresentation of what he said and frankly beneath you sir.
I suggest you read his post again. I am of the opinion he was anoyed with the people who carried out the "shouting down" tactic and not the people saying the rosary.
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Post by veritas on May 1, 2009 22:08:44 GMT
Veritas... I am 100% behind Hibericus on this one. Nowhere in his post did he find saying the rosary is "reprehensible". This is a gross misrepresentation of what he said and frankly beneath you sir. I suggest you read his post again. I am of the opinion he was anoyed with the people who carried out the "shouting down" tactic and not the people saying the rosary. Ok, but I can't really see how Professor Doyal is being made a martyr. I agree that the lecture should never of taken place.
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Post by hibernicus on May 5, 2009 17:02:56 GMT
If Veritas can't see how the episode has been used to portray Professor Doyal as a martyr to sweet reason and his opponents as mindless fanatics, he hasn't been reading the IRISH TIMES coverage of the case. Admittedly, the IRISH TIMES would promote Professor Doyal anyway on its usual ecrasez l'infame basis, but this has provided them with ammunition. Generally I think direct action protests should be used very sparingly indeed - and only when (a) there is a central leadership which directs and controls them and can turn them on and off as circumstances dictate, rather than leaving the most reckless activists to make the running and drag everyone else behind them (b) there is some strategic thinking behind them aimed at maximising their impact and minimising the ability of the opposition to spin them. Where direct action succeeds it succeeds because the wider milieu is qlready disposed to favour the protestors' cause and the opposition is already isolated and on the defensive; that isn't the case here.
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