Irish School Abuse Related Essay

[Don_Schneider]

I have a personal website centered on my short story “Pride’s Prison,” which is a thinly-veiled personal childhood memoir of my days in an American Catholic parochial school. The story and website (among other matters) deal with the issue of school bullying, in my case severe due to certain problems I had had as a kid.

The story was published on a free access internet zine and is currently being considered for a print anthology by a major publishing house. (It had been referred to them by someone. I didn’t submit it.)

The purpose of my story was not to bash the Church. What I endured in parochial school could have occurred at any school. However, in light of all the abuse allegations against Catholic schools and institutions, I recently wrote and posted an essay on my website that many might find interesting. I make clear both in my story and on my website that I was never the victim of sexual abuse.

The essay was written in response to the recent revelations concerning the Irish industrial schools. In the essay, I seek to answer a question that might puzzle many, in and outside of the Church. The question is: Why would victims of abuse within Church run schools sometimes fervently embrace the faith instead of being repulsed by it?

The essay is free to read and takes perhaps five to ten minutes. Any interested in reading my short story, can access it from my website as well. Both my website and the publication on which it was published are entirely free access and contain no ads. Here is the URL:

wwwdnschneidercom.xbuild.com/#/miscellaneous-31/4534015510

Thanks.

Don Schneider

 

[St_Francis]

Gotta admit, I didn’t agree with this: As crazy as this might seem to many reading here, such explains why so many kids who suffered far worse than I at the hands of unscrupulous religious operatives would react by fervently grasping and clinging to the very thing making their lives so miserable.

What, or who, made these children’s lives so miserable were sinners. But altho Church membership includes many sinners, the Church itself offers so much more, esp to those who are suffering. God Himself looks down on each suffering soul and hopes that person will use that suffering to grow closer to God. Christ yearns for souls to turn to Him.

I am sorry that your faith was reduced by Vatican 2. The amount of confusion was astounding, but that too was abuse, not physical abuse but spiritual abuse. how many souls were lost because priests thought they knew better than the Church Fathers and the Magisterium and so imposed their own views of how things ought to be upon people?

 

[Don_Schneider]

Dear St. Francis:

Thank you very much for reading my essay. I’ve fixed a few typographical errors this morning, for which I apologize.

Yes, you are quite right. If a priest (or anyone) says murder is a mortal sin and then proceeds to murder someone himself, does that mean that murder is not a sin? One must separate the belief system from those who claim to be its believers, as a friend of mine responded to my essay.

In regard to Vatican II, I used to leave blistering notes blasting it as the most egregious self-inflicted wound of any institution in all history. I’m a born conservative and the last thing such a person wants to hear is: “Do as we say, not as we said.” The natural rebuttal to that is: “If I couldn’t believe you then, why should I believe you now?”

But I’m through fighting yesterday’s battles.

You have taken the screen name of my favorite childhood saint (assuming you mean Assisi). So I like you already! I prayed to him during my trials in school more often than any other saint save, of course, our dear Blessed Mother.

Although my essay was merely prompted by the Irish school abuse report and is not specifically about it, if any would like to read the actual report, here is the link:

childabusecommission.com/rpt/

 

[St_Francis]

Dear St. Francis:

Thank you very much for reading my essay. I’ve fixed a few typographical errors this morning, for which I apologize.

Yes, you are quite right. If a priest (or anyone) says murder is a mortal sin and then proceeds to murder someone himself, does that mean that murder is not a sin? One must separate the belief system from those who claim to be its believers, as a friend of mine responded to my essay.

In regard to Vatican II, I used to leave blistering notes blasting it as the most egregious self-inflicted wound of any institution in all history. I’m a born conservative and the last thing such a person wants to hear is: “Do as we say, not as we said.” The natural rebuttal to that is: “If I couldn’t believe you then, why should I believe you now?”

But I’m through fighting yesterday’s battles.

You have taken the screen name of my favorite childhood saint (assuming you mean Assisi). So I like you already! I prayed to him during my trials in school more often than any other saint save, of course, our dear Blessed Mother.

Although my essay was merely prompted by the Irish school abuse report and is not specifically about it, if any would like to read the actual report, here is the link:

childabusecommission.com/rpt/

I had a lot of questions about V2 myself, esp as someone close to me was extremely Traditional. I read what others wrote about the council, maybe even some of your blistering remarks!, but then I read the documents themselves, and what I saw was that if one obeyed the Pope and read the documents in light of Tradition, then everything was all right. It was those who twisted the meanings to mean what they wanted them to mean who caused the problems.

The documents themselves seemed to be what you might call the flip side of the previous teachings, like, we are not supposed to force conversions got changed to people have the right not to be forced to convert. Etc. Once I saw that, then all I had left was to regret the excesses which some in the Church went to. I have heard terrible stories about the de-nuding of churches, and other things which occurred then. And so many in my family have left the Church because they ended up with the impression that it doesn’t really matter…

all that to say: I’m with ya on that topic!

There are four St Francis’s whom I like: St Francis of Assisi, St Francis de Sales, St Francis Xavier, and St Francis Solano.

Welcome to the board

 

[Don_Schneider]

Thank you again, Francis.

I became really disenchanted when it became obvious that the Church had no intention whatsoever in enforcing Church discipline and acting decisively in stemming the abuses of the “spirit of Vatican II” crowd. I don’t want to receive communion with “pro-choice” “Catholic” politicians. The Church’s refusal to live up to its rhetoric destroys faith. Either abortion is murder or it is not. If not, then why does the Church interfere in what is the private choice of a woman? If so, then why doesn’t the Church act like it?

I want it said that there is no such thing as a “pro-choice” Catholic, even if that means we are one half or one tenth our present size. If the Church would have acted when the rot was incipient, then there would be no need to fear such a mass exodus; and, in my opinion, far fewer babies would have been judicially murdered than there has been. Numbers do not establish truth. One man or woman with truth has God on his or her side. We will begin again and grow once more.

If anyone is interested in either of the subjects of school bullying or Tourette’s Syndrome, then I cordially invite you to read at my website. My views on TS are unorthodox, but I am firmly convinced of their validity despite the heat I have occasionally taken because of them. One of my articles on TS has been translated into Spanish and German.

Thanks again for the cordial welcome and discourse.

Don