Pope meets Irish bishops on child abuse scandal

  • Thread starter Thread starter HickmanJosh
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
H

HickmanJosh

Guest
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8515595.stm

BBC religious affairs correspondent Christopher Landau says bishops from a particular country normally visit the Vatican around once every five years.

But the Pope has summoned Ireland’s bishops for a special two-day meeting, specifically to address the issue that has severely undermined Catholicism’s standing there, our correspondent says.
 
I thought the Irish scandal was handled a couple of years ago when the government whipped out the wallet and paid off the victims. This seems like same song, second verse! Everybody has known about the Irish abuses for a long, long, time.
 
OriginalJS said:
I thought the Irish scandal was handled a couple of years ago when the government whipped out the wallet and paid off the victims. This seems like same song, second verse! Everybody has known about the Irish abuses for a long, long, time.
Click to expand...
Where have you been the last four months? Try to keep up 😛
 
*Just curious…how are these allegations being investigated? Are these are like class action suits, or is each individual allegation of abuse, thoroughly investigated? How do they assess such damages, if say the priest(s) who are accused, are deceased? I don’t mean to take the thread off topic, I am just curious. *
 
OriginalJS said:
I thought the Irish scandal was handled a couple of years ago when the government whipped out the wallet and paid off the victims. This seems like same song, second verse! Everybody has known about the Irish abuses for a long, long, time.
Click to expand...
Good Lord, it got much much worse of late. I’ve read the most recent reports and to be honest, I can completely understand how so many people have turned away from the church here. To top a list of horrific crimes was a priest raping twin sisters with a crucifix. Some of these abuses were recent too. It’s absolutely appalling.

Feel free to read it yourself: inis.gov.ie/en/JELR/Pages/PB09000504

The report was released on a Friday, I’d say little more than two thirds the number of people who normally attend mass were there that Sunday. With the exception of Christmas, I haven’t noticed it picking up either. Granted the media are making a circus out of it and the government are welcoming the distraction from the state of our economy, but still - unless they can come up with something brilliant during this visit, I strongly fear for the Irish church.
 
I am sickened by this and really feel let down by my Church. This obsession with being an institution above everyone else is terrible. I so much want to believe what the Church claims to be, but am having doubts. Is there any such thing as the Holy Spirit working in the Church?
 
whatevergirl said:
*Just curious…how are these allegations being investigated? Are these are like class action suits, or is each individual allegation of abuse, thoroughly investigated? How do they assess such damages, if say the priest(s) who are accused, are deceased? I don’t mean to take the thread off topic, I am just curious. *
Click to expand...
We don’t have class action here and tbh I’m not sure how the civil claims are being handled. There was a sort of class action-esque procedure for people who’d been abused in government institutions (which more often than not were run by the church as our public education system still is) but I believe the individual cases against priests are being prosecuted criminally wherever possible and then the civil cases, if the individual chooses to pursue that route, are being done on an individual basis. My understanding is that the bishops are asking the Vatican for an estimated one billion euro which is what they believe will be required to satisfy current and future litigation. Society here is not nearly as litigious as in the US, so punitive damages would not be nearly as substantial, they usually range around 1-200 thousand euro, so the sheer amount being asked for is a testament to the widespread epidemic and culture of abuse that was -in some cases up until very recently - in place.
 
rep140 said:
I am sickened by this and really feel let down by my Church. This obsession with being an institution above everyone else is terrible. I so much want to believe what the Church claims to be, but am having doubts. Is there any such thing as the Holy Spirit working in the Church?
Click to expand...
Yeah, I totally get that. I think what one has to keep in mind is that these men are/were just that, men. Sure, the pedophiles I have my doubts about, the term monster comes to mind, but the men who systematically hid these monsters and moved them around, they made mistakes as any human would. Does that excuse it? No, absolutely not. However their mistakes were their own, not Christ’s. They will answer to him as well as to society and in some cases the courts. The dogma and message has not changed. I refuse to let human mistake shake my faith in Christ himself, although it certainly does raise questions about church structure and procedure. The sheer amount of people who were abused or affected by the abuse is staggering and one can hardly blame someone directly affected for losing trust and faith in the institution. One feels for them that the same people who they see as being responsible for said crimes are still running the education department. :confused:

It’s a horrible situation and one that I doubt the Irish church will ever recover from. Whatever you do though, don’t let human infallibility shake your faith in the divine.
 
The Guardian:
After two days of discussions in the Vatican, during which each of the 24 Irish bishops was called in separately and given seven minutes to explain his conduct, an official statement was issued.

“The Holy Father observed that the sexual abuse of children and young people is not only a heinous crime, but also a grave sin which offends God and wounds the dignity of the human person created in his image,” it said. “While realising that the painful situation will not be resolved quickly [the pope] challenged the bishops to address the problems of the past with determination and resolve and to face the crisis with honesty and courage.”
Click to expand...
guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/16/pope-benedict-irish-catholic-abuse
The Guardian:
Today’s Vatican statement acknowledged the church’s failure to act effectively and admitted there had been a breakdown in trust in the church’s leadership in Ireland. “There is no doubt that errors of judgement and omissions stand at the heart of the crisis,” it said.
Click to expand...
 
The situation is probably not too bad. Unlike other countries Ireland has not undergone the Satanic heresy of secularisation and thus despite their understandable anger the Irish people are still mostly Catholic. A Papal visit would fire them up and reduce the memory of these unfortunate events. After all 1 million Irish attended JPII’s open air mass there.
 
KC91 said:
The situation is probably not too bad. Unlike other countries Ireland has not undergone the Satanic heresy of secularisation and thus despite their understandable anger the Irish people are still mostly Catholic. A Papal visit would fire them up and reduce the memory of these unfortunate events. After all 1 million Irish attended JPII’s open air mass there.
Click to expand...
That was in 1979, over 30 years ago! 😃 I should know, I was conceived that night, or so my parents who were there, like to tell me!

Ireland is highly liberalised these days. Gay marriage is the hot topic right now. I just moved back in 2005 from 18 years in the US and I can tell you that it’s a lot more liberal than America. Sure, abortion is still illegal, but I doubt that will last much longer. We have one of the youngest populations in the world, most of whom would identify with the secularists. The older generation is still for the most part Catholic and the whole abuse scandal has swayed a lot of the middle aged and cafeteria Catholics. I don’t think people understand the scope of this and how many people were affected, it’s HUGE and I really fear how and if the church will recover.

Whats also interesting is that people don’t get married until their mid thirties here these days which makes the IVF industry HUGE and growing. It’s hard to sum up everything that’s wrong with things here. I’m 30, happily married for 8 years with kids and people think we’re crazy. Going to mass is a strange thing too. Most of the congregation is well over 60 and the service itself is so dry. There’s no sense of community like there is in the US. Prayers are rushed through. Mass averages 30 minutes, people don’t even take their coats off. It’s so sad. Now in retrospect I think some parishes in the US overdo it, with the introducing yourself and having new people stand up and what not, but maybe that’s just the Irish in me feeling beyond uncomfortable in situations like that. I just wish there was a happy medium.

I think if the church is to get over this, they need to make people feel like they’re part of something and get young people excited about the Faith, because right now, you’re on your own. 😦
 
Definition of ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ can be subjective in different countries as there are different contexes in which they are used.

Just because it happened 31 years ago doesn’t mean it won’t happen again if B16 decides to make a visit. Mass attendance rates are like 50% which is much higher than in most parts of Europe.
 
Where on earth are you getting your data?

irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1102/1224257901174.html

Some of that data is skewed because of funerals. Doesn’t matter if you’re a Satanist, in Ireland you never miss a funeral, it’s a social and cultural event. So most people will have been at mass at some point during any given year.

With all due respect, as stated by the previous poster, you’re really off base here, big time.
 
Well maybe the younger generations are lost, but the country is still culturally Catholic and it is possible for a Reconquista coming from that. Of course, high mass attendance, etc may be superficial, but superficial power for the Church is better than no power.
 
So if B16 visited Ireland say in the near future the welcome will be quite frosty then?
 
KC91 said:
So if B16 visited Ireland say in the near future the welcome will be quite frosty then?
Click to expand...
I would agree with jharek to an extent. I do however believe there would be some public protests. Irish peope are quite apathetic these days so I wouldn’t expect there’d be physical violence but I would definitely expect some organised protests. Just watching the pomp and circumstance when the bishops visited him instilled so much rage that I had to turn the radio off the next morning. People were very upset.
 
Of course not, to a normal practicing Catholic. But to someone who’s been systematically abused and then had it covered up by those very people, you have to understand why they might be a bit put off by it. As I said I was frustrated by the reactions I heard on talk radio the next morning. The others I think are feeding on the negative media coverage. The Catholic church seems to be a scapegoat for everything these days.

For an example, Sinead O’Connor was at it again this month, saying Jesus would burn down the Vatican if he came back today and this got tons of media attention and discussion. If we replace the Vatican with Mecca, you can bet it wouldn’t have made the last page. :confused:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top