Irish abuse report is 'shocking'

[ckempston]

You may be right.

I do not think this is something which can be attributed to the Catholic Church as such. This is a human thing and occurs everywhere. I believe that at different times in the history of mankind there have been attitudes attributable to the mentality of the times. This is terrible and certainly if people in the Church are responsible it must be exposed and the people punished. Compansation in the form of money is not the answer I would think.

I wonder what will be revealed about “our times” in years to come? What with the drugs and the sex - sex is in our face all the time. We see young girls as young as 12 admitting on Television that they practice “oral sex” and people like Oprah offers their stories as “entertainment” on her shows. Can you imagine what is not being revealed at the present day? The paedophile rings which are active on the Internet. Children are being abused and spoiled.

I am of celtic French descent and grew up in South Africa where I attended Convent schools. Most of the nuns were Irish and they saved my sanity. They loved us and made us very happy. I always say that I have an Irish rib because they were such good caretakers. I criticise the religious instruction we received but then that is probably the way it was done then. Today we need more apologetics. We need to know how to defend our Faith. I wish we had apologetics then. Anyway I drifted from the Church for 27 years but found my way back and perhaps it is partly due to the early religious instruction I received when I was young.

My husband and I attend daily Mass at a Chapel in a nearby Convent and I have got to know the nuns who are mostly Irish. Most have retired. They are so devoted. Even though they still visit their families about every 3 years or so in Ireland they come back here and will spend their last days here. There is a frail care centre run by nuns for the old nuns and it is beautiful and there is such devotion.

I am so sorry for those who suffered abuse. I will pray always for them and I do pray every day for the youth and ask God to “deliver them from evil”. The media will have a field day because bashing of the Catholic Church is a favourite activity of theirs. If they can’t find something to write about there is always the CC.

God bless us all
Cinette

As

This is absolute insanity that the Catholics on this board are pointing fingers at the media. If your church took care of business like it was supposed to, the media wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. As it stands right now, the Catholic church deserves all the negative attention it gets on this subject.

 

[Cinette]

This is absolute insanity that the Catholics on this board are pointing fingers at the media. If your church took care of business like it was supposed to, the media wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. As it stands right now, the Catholic church deserves all the negative attention it gets on this subject.

I agree that this kind of thing must be exposed. I believe there should be zero tolerance on matters of this kind.

However, if you think the media is a noble and upright entity then that is your choice. The media has a great responsibility to us all but often fails miserably. I have experience of media and am entitled to my assessment - I am not an irresponsible person. I am selective and I do not accept anything out of hand.

I have spoken from my own experience on this thread and defended people I know to be noble and good. I do not deny that there are those who have abused their power and betrayed the trust that was placed in them. This is a horrible thing.

If you want to stand up and defend the media that is your choice. I will stand by what I know and will defend the good and the innocent.

Thank you

 

[ckempston]

I agree that this kind of thing must be exposed. I believe there should be zero tolerance on matters of this kind.

However, if you think the media is a noble and upright entity then that is your choice. The media has a great responsibility to us all but often fails miserably. I have experience of media and am entitled to my assessment - I am not an irresponsible person. I am selective and I do not accept anything out of hand.

I have spoken from my own experience on this thread and defended people I know to be noble and good. I do not deny that there are those who have abused their power and betrayed the trust that was placed in them. This is a horrible thing.

If you want to stand up and defend the media that is your choice. I will stand by what I know and will defend the good and the innocent.

Thank you

Did I give a blanket endorsement of the media??? No. Once again, you’re throwing up a straw mand and trying to shift the attention to the fact that the media at times lacks credibility. In this case, their criticisms are completely justified.

In the words of Christ, if anyone causes one of these little ones to sin, it would be better for a millstone to be tied around his neck and thrown into the sea.

Contrast that with the Vatican’s response: cover up the truth and protect the paedophiles.

 

[dixieagle]

I would hesitate to pass judgement like that on the Church.

The Church is both devine and human and the devil is always stalking.

I recounted my experience as a very small child in an earlier posting but in that case the nuns were not to blame - it was the consequence of a wounded society and there was no physical abuse.

Apart from that I have wonderful memories of the Irish nuns throughout my school life. As for priests, those with whom I had contact were mostly wonderful hard-working and dedicated men. I feel sad and as I said I suffered when the news of abuse broke out. I know that there were people who lumped all priests in the same category forgetting that there is a majority of good and upright priests. So many highly educated men who could make a lot of money in the corporate world have given up everything to serve God and His Church.

At the same time I hope that all abuse is exposed and those responsible severely punished. No child should endure abuse of any kind.

It will be up to God to “pass judgment”; however, anyone who thinks that the institutional Church in Ireland acted the way it should have has his head in the sand. Shame on everyone involved - Church, department of education, everyone.

 

[Mom_of_5]

Seems that this story appeared some years ago, it is being re-run because the allegations are sufacing and re-surfacing. Covering up and secret stuff has been rampant in the church for longer than anyone can remember. My 3 aunts, all nuns, spoke of horrible abuse by their mother-superior. One aunt left the convent, the other two stayed and died there. There was a mentality that “suffering” for Christ was a wonderful thing. “offer it to God” was the theme of the day, even in my own young life when an adult decided to pull my ears, hit the side of my head, slap my hand with a ruler, etc. The more I suffered, the closer to God I was. We were taught to fear God, not love Him.

There is no excuse for any of this abuse, no matter what religion. Yes, the CC church is to blame, they did know about this and had enormous pride. Secret stuff, don’t tell anyone, after all, we are Godly men and women. There was abuse in these United States as well as in Ireland. There was abuse world wide. I am tired of overly zealous folk saying, “it’s not the church , it is the people in it”. Our church on earth is the people in the church. When is it going to stop? We get lip service and priests just keep getting moved around, out collection plate dollars go to pay off the abused and around and around we go. Time to put the brakes on. No more abuse, no more secret stuff!!

I will stay in my religion. It is my comfort zone. I have learned to love my God, not fear Him. I have also learned to not be so trusting of our priests and bishops Sad!!

Pray for those who have been abused and the abusers.

Love and peace, Mom of 5

 

[Detales]

Part 1

Clearly, many of us are affected deeply by this ongoing revalation concerning the abuse in Irleand. It is important in the way of resolving this issue that things be called by their right names, that the innocent are kept clear of taint, and that the origins and contexts of the occurances are clearly cataloged in order to facilitate an overview of the dynamics involved so that prevention of any reoccurance is assured.

It is difficult for me to believe that any such thing is completely clear cut, that there were perpatrators and non-perpatrators only. Is it not reasonable, knowing how we work, that as many as did the abuse, there were also those who knew of the abuse and to some degree either suported it or didn’t do enough to expose or stop it? There must also have been those who did thier rightful duty in this way and were silenced or ignored. In any case, this dynamic brings us to the question of cultures of complicity.

As we know, we as individuals tend to cover our behinds, so to speak. That means, in symbolic terms, that we do not wish to feel, on our posterior or elsewhere, the actual consequences of our actions. This has a multiplier effect in groups who are as a group accused of an imprpriety. The poster above who did the work with lying relative to institutions deserves to be read and listened to in this matter, as his concerns bear heavily in this case.

What might be important in that regard, in the ways of lying in institutions, is that it is, again, a broad spectrum human problem and not a strictly Catholic problem. That means we addres all of it or are bound agin to fail by particularization. We might take care of our own house, but fail to see the patterns it has in common with the city, etc. and therefore invite reoccurance.

Another issue here is the culture of poverty. I mena by poverty not just the lack of funds, whether inadequate by absence or by ill distribution, but poverty of spirit. A major factor in this is overcrowding. Overcrowding of both facilities and of emotions. It is known that the behavior of animals and humans deteriorate rapidly when they are faced with inadeaquate means to fulfill simple basic needs. In the case under consideration, both the what seems to be the wholesale dumping of kids into institutions, and the consequent burden of having so many bodies to deal with by untrained clerics, we have an emotional pressure cooker designed to fail in the way of producing mature and sane memers of society of whatever religion.

That does not absolve fault, but gives us material to work with in the way of prvention, if we choose it. We may, by default, not do that. Thus another culture of complicity is generated. Such cultures are rampant, and noticable only by contrast from the outside. The Canadian fiasco,wide spread female genital mutilations in Africa and the Middle East, the Inquisition, Nazi Germany, the Russian pogrums, Khemer Rouge, racism and slavery in the US, Apartheid, and pages more come easily to mind. The point is that we are here in fact dealing with just a small part of the entire human condition. This particular manifestation, abhorant as it is, is before us because it happened on our own doorstep, so to speak.

 

[Detales]

Part 2

It is not sufficient therefore that the Church, after avoiding and attempting to suppress the issue, appologizes, or even that it gives the victims money. This is a rampant tactic in corporations that outcost in order to keep prices low, allowing the poor in the countries they ravage to bear the brunt of our comfort and convenience. In our case the outcosting has been in the lives of the children effected. It is an example of a cycle of the immature being incapable of a task too big, incompetently wreaking havok, and producing in many instances more of their same kind. No one so far has mentioned the interesting datum that victims of abuse, in order to survive emotionally, often take on the role of the abuser as an avoidance of and a protection from the feeling consequences and implications of being a victim.

A major aspect of the whole dynamic is the nature of awareness and emotional maturity itself. We are often trained by circumstance and education to feel that we are in an adversarial relationship with the world. Feeling, upon exmination, is found to almost always trump intellect. So despite religious training and the holding up of Jesus and Saints as examples, the emotions are telling us that we are in an adversarial situation, needing to defend ourselves and take care of our own survival. That is an emotional dictum mostly incapable of mitigation by the influence of religious doctrins of any kind. That means that the Golden Rule, about the only theing that religions generally have in common, becomes a sham doctrin. It is for many a platitude, not a living experience.

But that very Golden Rule, and the more actual, not the professed, reason behind it, is the only thing universally applicable in mitigating adversarial behavior. Unless one is mentally disturbed or deranged, (OK, these perps were or are,) one does not harm theirself. In order for kids to be treated as ther are in these ongoing situations, in order for abuse of any sort, in order for wars, cheating, greed, all of the things we do to each other to feel comfortable and superior, the victim has to be objectified in the mind of the perpatrator, and the perpatrator has to feel in need of an action relative to the object.

This, I think, is where the churches, governments, institutions, etc, all fall down. They have no way of instilling in people the feeling that the “other” is not separate in value from themselves. this evaluation, in action, is not an intellectual assertion. But that is how it is taught. It is not taught as a living experience save by few. It is a transmission, not a teaching by books or traditions.

Until the Church and anyone else interested in the public welfare, or in their own children does not see this and embrace it, we will have theoretical knowledge of love only. As they say in Borneo, “All knowledge is theoretical until it is in the muscle.” Was the Golden Rule in the muscles of the beaters of the children? Get the Law of Love by experience into the muscles of our clergy, and we won’t have this kind of thing smearing our Church. Get it into the corporations and the governments they run and we will have peace on Earth.

 

[HolySpirit08]

Well said as always. God bless you!

 

[Snerticus]

This is not the devil attacking “the church” this is “the church” doing the devil’s work for him.

And you my friend are cooperating every bit with the evil one in attacking Christ’s church.

I haven’t scattered, and I am clinging to the Shepherd: his name is Jesus Christ.

You are correct when you say you haven’t scattered. You may never have been part of the flock. And… is there an echo in here?

Well, even if you don’t want my prayers, I’m still praying for you. I’m praying your tunnel vision widens to the vision God gave us and meant us to have.

 

[Detales]

Dear God, dear Snerticus, DON’T pray for us…

 

[Snerticus]

Dear God, dear Snerticus, DON’T pray for us…

Why not?

 

[Snerticus]

Oh I see, because I insulted someone by implying that perhaps their eyes were covered and couldn’t see the truth?

Sorry if my post offended, but I’m kind of tired hearing nothing but complaints about the Catholic Church. It’s one thing to have an opinion but it’s entirely another thing to go on and on ad naseum with it without giving any insight as to how to remedy the situation. Complain complain compliain without relief. That type of relentless negativity does grate on my nerves. Perhaps I shouldn’t have worded it that way, as I guess it could be misconstrued as something else.

I probably shouldn’t respond to those types of posts. Perhaps you could pray for me that I learn to do as such. Besides, God know what to do with prayers even if they are given in good concience but perhaps not what He wills.

God Bless,
Snert

 

[Detales]

I worked for a man who was a man of such accomplishment in his spirtual life that Jesuit scholars came to him to ask his aid in resolving metaphysical impases. Mother Teresa was his guest for a week. Yes, that Mother Teresa. Her assistant didn’t want to leave. My Mentor, as I regarded my employer, was called by some Catholic clerics “The new St Chrysostom.” He was equally highly regarded by the teachers of other denominations, and Eastern sects from Sufis to Buddhists, some of whom regarded him as “living Vedanta” and others who thought he was the prophesied leader of their order. One Tibetan nun said that in her tradition such living teaching as his had not been given in 2000 years.

This man who was so well regarded by all faiths because of his fundamental stance that was such a solvent for all religions feared little. But one of the things he feared was the prayes of his students. I asked him why, and it was because of the fact that most of them prayed from an incorrect metaphysical standpoint, despite their sincerity. He didn not care to have such attention focused on him.

Snerticus, I regard you as a brother in the world of creatures here by the grace of the Loving God. But I have read your posts. I am simply requesting that you do not include at least me in your prayers, as sincere as they might be. I’m sure that your sincerity will save you in the end, but in the mean time, please don’t include me in your prayers. Thank you.

If you wish to do something useful, please arduously inquire as to what are the origins of your religious beliefs beyond what you were told and accepted. I assure you beyond the shadow of a doubt that you will find the results of such an inquiry exceptionally fruitful if you persist.

Bindar Doondat.

 

[Snerticus]

I worked for a man who was a man of such accomplishment in his spirtual life that Jesuit scholars came to him to ask his aid in resolving metaphysical impases. Mother Teresa was his guest for a week. Yes, that Mother Teresa. Her assistant didn’t want to leave. My Mentor, as I regarded my employer, was called by some Catholic clerics “The new St Chrysostom.” He was equally highly regarded by the teachers of other denominations, and Eastern sects from Sufis to Buddhists, some of whom regarded him as “living Vedanta” and others who thought he was the prophesied leader of their order. One Tibetan nun said that in her tradition such living teaching as his had not been given in 2000 years.

This man who was so well regarded by all faiths because of his fundamental stance that was such a solvent for all religions feared little. But one of the things he feared was the prayes of his students. I asked him why, and it was because of the fact that most of them prayed from an incorrect metaphysical standpoint, despite their sincerity. He didn not care to have such attention focused on him.

Snerticus, I regard you as a brother in the world of creatures here by the grace of the Loving God. But I have read your posts. I am simply requesting that you do not include at least me in your prayers, as sincere as they might be. I’m sure that your sincerity will save you in the end, but in the mean time, please don’t include me in your prayers. Thank you.

If you wish to do something useful, please arduously inquire as to what are the origins of your religious beliefs beyond what you were told and accepted. I assure you beyond the shadow of a doubt that you will find the results of such an inquiry exceptionally fruitful if you persist.

Bindar Doondat.

If you wish me not to pray for you, then I will desist, however, I never said I was praying for you so I don’t know where you got that idea.

Your eloquence is exceptional to the point that I don’t understand what you are saying. I am a simple person and only speak in middle-class American english. So I may or may not get what you are trying to say.

One thing I do understand out of the midst of this is that for some reason, I am appearing to you as being disingenuine. Or at the very least misled. Perhaps I am and perhaps I am not. Perhaps you are and perhaps you are not. But I can assure you that although I might not be vigorous in my understanding and attempts at understanding my faith better, I do and have indeed endevoured to learn my faith. That has been my journey since I returned to the Catholic faith. I have learned a lot that I thought was wrong, in morals, and historical truth. I have learned to accept things that were and still are difficult for me to accept. Yet for some reason I am coming across as - I’m not sure as I can’t understand your literary style - but I guess maybe a “know it all”? I certainly am not, but in certain instances I feel a very strong need to defend my faith. Perhaps not so eloquent as you or others might like, but hey, I’m learning. Maybe someday I’ll get to your level.

Until then I will try to do what I think I should according to what I believe. And along the way, I’m bound to make mistakes.

Unfortunately, it seems as you have very clearly pointed out, that all of my posts have been mistakes.

For that I am truly sorry if I offended you and if I see you in another thread, I will humbly decline to comment on it no matter how passionate I am about the subject. However, there may be some that I will miss that you may have posted in, so by all means, please point out to me how awful I am for commenting and of course I will desist further in that thread

Thank you for pointing out my faults - whatever they may be, as I’m still confused as to what is offending (other than an occasional flub on my part), I always appreciate when I am told how I am wrong without any indication of why or how to remedy it.

I will not say what I often do when ending a post because it would be construed to be a prayer, which you fervently object me doing. So without further adieu,

Snert

 

[7_Sorrows]

these scandals are very difficult for all Catholics. i am a new Catholic and they bother me, but for those of you who have been Catholics for many years, i admire your faith.
you obviously love your faith and the Church very much. before i became Catholic, i was troubled by some of the scandals i had read about and just since i became a Catholic less than a year ago, i have to admit, i question how all of these abuses were allowed to continue and how many people kept silent for so many years and the emotional pain they lived with for so long.
if we are supposed to try to change the Church from the inside - how can we, as Catholics,
stop these things from happening and stop further scandal to the Church? i am not one to hide my head in the sand. some very bad things have happened while the Church looked the other way. i find that very sad. especially since we are now in the 21st century.
sometimes i wonder what next.
granted, there are probably some who are making false complaints, but if even one is true
(and i am sure there are more true complaints than false ones) that is too many.
i don’t think we should attack people who question the reaction of the Church to abuse cases and how they were hushed.
it is always difficult to face the truth. until you face a problem head on, you really cannot begin to solve it.
if you believe that the Catholic Church was truly the church started by Jesus Christ, don’t you want it to always set a good example? these scandals show a very dark side of the Church and i wish we could erase that side forever so that no one is ever hurt again by people who they should have been able to trust.

 

[Love_is_Patient]

Kyrie eleison.

Christe eleison.

Kyrie eleison.

This is disgusting.

Anyone else read these stories and wonder if that story about Leo XIII overhearing the conversation between Jesus Christ and the devil was true?

Love is Patient

 

[lwest]

I wondered about teh cultural aspect of this behaviour. Is it more prevalent amongst Anglo/Celts than amongst other cultures e.g. are such abuses alo prevalent in South America, Phillipines, etc?

I think it’s universal and it probably goes back hundreds of years. It’s like a cancer that’s trying to ruin the credibility of Mother Church. Hope that doesn’t sound like wacked out logic! It can grow exponentially, too, IMHO. Some evil priests abuse kids who grow up to abuse, whose victims grow up to abuse. (of course, not all victims grow up to be abusers) Maybe religious orders attract certain deviants because of power/control issues and accessibility to the vulnerable. It can attract pedophiles, sociopaths. But there are rays of light…the saints who remind everyone what the Church is really about.

 

[Snerticus]

Oh and BTW Detales, going back and reading all your posts, you have this commond thread of going back and not looking at the history of the faith.

Yet I submit to you that perhaps you are the one who doesn’t understand the history, since clearly in your posts I am not the only one you are alluding to.

Perhaps you should take a look at the history through a different pair of eyes as well. You might gain some insight on why people defend this Church you see so flawed - as by the way the Pharisees saw Jesus as flawed.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Norminha,

Forgiveness is wonderful and necessary. One can’t lovingly go through life bearing a grudge. What we are primarily concerned with here, I would think, is an assesment of how things work in order to allow or prevent such phenomenon in our or any church or institution. I would also think that if you have children it would be your concern to watch out for their safety. It is also a concern that it is appearant from some evidence that a proportion of the offenders were protected from scrutiny and from corrective action. This means that more children were at risk.

As I have said, this is a “Catholic” problem institutionally, but it is a problem not restricted to the Church. As far as the Church covered up actions sinful by its own definitions, where does that leave us all as being expected to trust such “leaders” not only with ourselves, but with our children? Insofar as churchmen and women commited such acts, being representatives of the Church and its dogmas, they have done damage, serious damage, to the reputation and credibility of the Church as an institutuion.

And what is the moral basis for the authority of these men as teachers or as anything else ? To say, “You must do & believe what we say” is no answer - in something that is supposed (AFAICS) to be a Christian Church, “Because I say so” is not a sufficient basis for authority; Christian authority is moral in character, even if it is nothing else. This is not a matter of “them” versus “us”. It affects the kind & source of the authority these men have; if their authority has no basis in Christian ethics, then they have no authority as Christian pastors, & any obligations to them that we might have, cease to exist.​

What is further disturbing is that the appologies offered are clearly insufficient compensation to those effected.

Which is bad enough​

Those appologies also came only after evasive action on the part of the Church.

Which is worse​

I’m not saying that others, even I, are or am without sin. But if there is a code we are to live up to, why would those promulgating that code be exempt from consequences?

Which is even worse​

Yes, the Universe is just, and we will all recieve our just deserts. But that does not mean we are to be stupid sheep or pious cows. We have gifts to use and develop. The cheif of these is Love.

In the discovered and reported cases the Church has not acted dissimilarly from political or financial figures who have wronged the public. They are covering the part they sit on.

Which makes matters worse yet​

Who wouldn’t, to some extent at least? Remember, it is the most entrenched serial killers who tend to have the highest self esteem.

But we need to stop looking at these things in the context of a church or a government or a social group. These are behaviors that, among others and in many forms, effect all of us in the world. We need to explore a method of understanding ourselves that is not falible in the way that religion clearly is, despite its high ideals. If we look at a generalized human problem in the terms of a particualr faith, again we have dissention and wars. We have to learn to deal in Universal truths, not beliefs systems that purport to be so.

Perhaps there will come a day when we worship the God that IS, not the one we make up in ignorance thruogh politics and greed. We will not have to call that way by any religious name, it will just be that way we live, in communion with God.

That post definitely deserves a ​

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Just on a point of information, lest there be any confusion, the brothers founded by St Jean-Baptiste de la Salle are not the same Christian Brothers referred to in the report into child abuse in Ireland. They are known as the De la Salle Brothers, but in the United States have become known as the Christian Brothers, because his order was originally called “The Institute of Brothers of the Christian Schools”. The Christian Brothers in Ireland who established (and continue to run) hundreds of schools there and abroad were founded by Blessed Edmund Ignatius Rice. He was an Irishman from County Kilkenny, and before founding the Christian Brothers, he followed Cork-woman Nano Nagle’s example (she had founded the Presentation Sisters) by founding the Presentation Brothers.

When the fruit is so bad, one has to wonder whether Rice was any better than the creatures in the body he founded. This is one of the worrying things about all the scandals - were the supposedly holy persons who founded so many of the bodies involved, fit to be honoured as holy people - or were they depraved, but lucky enough not to be found out ? What reason is there to imagine that Maciel is the only dodgy founder ? He had a reputation as a holy man. What is there to suggest Rice was any better; or a host of others ? If they were perverts or psychopaths or sex addicts, who apart from those able to hush up their less saintly activities would know ?​

Sorry to ask that - but how can the question not be asked ? Especially as the Church now insists that canonisation is an ***infallible ***act.