I am shocked, shocked, that there is child-rape going on in this establishment
So the pope is doing the ostentatious hand-washing thing – though of course it would be impolite to murmur anything about Pontius Pilate.
Pope Benedict XVI will today complete his interrogation of Ireland’s 24 bishops before pontificating on one of the most shocking clerical scandals of recent times: the extensive sexual abuse of children by Irish priests and the pervasive campaign to conceal it…The Pope has said he is “disturbed and distressed” by the abuse in Ireland and shares the “outrage, betrayal and shame” felt by the Irish people…Observers note that widespread abuse of children by priests is not unique to Ireland.
To put it mildly. But what fewer observers seem to be noting is the absurdity of the pope’s display of shock-horror now. As I have mentioned before, the pope’s pretense of outrage now sits uneasily with that order he issued in 2001 when he was still just Joe Ratzinger.
…an order ensuring the church’s investigations into child sex abuse claims be carried out in secret. The order was made in a confidential letter, obtained by The Observer, which was sent to every Catholic bishop in May 2001. It asserted the church’s right to hold its inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood. The letter was signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
That order. One wonders if any of the Irish bishops are shouting about that letter while the pope shouts at them for obeying it, or are they just sitting quietly while he goes through the motions because all of them know perfectly well it’s a charade, not to say a pageant, and that they just have to read their lines and be done with it.
Yet these are the people who claim the right to tell everyone how to be good. These thugs who fiddle with children and then protect each other as long as they can get away with it, and by way of rest and relaxation tell the people of Africa not to use condoms. With friends like thse who needs the Mafia?!
The catholic patriarchs all decked out in their silks, satins and lace brings to mind images of warthogs in party dresses and lipstick on pigs . . .
They certainly have that effect on me!
:- )
There is a difference between keeping an investigation internal so as to minimise harm to the institution, and allowing it to be a coverup and whitewash so that the guilty are enabled and the innocent punished further.
The crimes here though, have been enabled by secrecy and repeated many times.
The world Church and State we know and love is collapsing about our ears. Neither politician nor priest should ever admit to lying, and certainly not to having intercourse with children.
Pope Ratzinger is right to try to rescue the situation, but I fear it may be too late. What is to become of us?
What an insult.
The Mafia have a code of honour that is light years ahead of the Vatican.
ChrisPer – institutions aren’t allowed to keep investigation of crimes ‘internal’ – not even to minimize harm to the institution, in fact especially not to do that, since to do that would just protect and perpetuate the crime itself, which of course is exactly what happened. So, in short, what’s your point? That it was perfectly legitimate for Ratzinger to tell all the bishops that the church had jurisdiction over the crime of sexual abuse of children? Or what?
Just imagine how good the church would have looked if they _had_ gone public with it all from the beginning. Surely what they have done is itself criminal in some jurisdictions (though I seem to remember somebody posted here to say that this is not the case in Ireland).
There is something we can all do though. We can pray for the Pope’s soul. The harder you try, the more likely it is to work. Most impressive would be a synchronized world-wide pray-in. (There may be a new Olympic event in this.)
Jerry Ryan, presenter of RTE 2 radio said on his popular show this morning that the sight he saw last night on telly of Irish bishops kissing the ring of the pontiff just made him want to absolutely vomit.
A listener rang in to say that she was brought up in an orphanage (sic) and that she witnessed her sister being forced to eat her own vomit by staff. The mere mention of the word VOMIT caused her to ring Jerry’s show to tell listeners, that, how after a lifetime, she was still terribly traumatised about what happened to her now deceased sister.. Kathleen, as she called herself, had apparently witnessed the sordid behaviour.
Children being force-fed in Goldenbridge — was also not an unusual phenomenon.
John Cooney, (Irish journalist, who bravely took Christian Brothers to task at commission to inquire into child abuse; and who has written extensively about institutional child abuse; and also a book about Archbishop Mc Quaid) reckoned that the bishops in a recent photo shoot in the paper pertaining to the summoning of bishops to the Vatican, looked like a bunch of schoolboys lined up outside the masters door.
The latter, too, like Emily, made comments in his Irish Indo article about the fancy ridiculous frocks they were attired.
I could not help but notice that the bishops looked on in awe as they stood there diligently waiting in the long winding ostentatious corridor, to kiss the sacred pontifical ring.
The Irish holy men were called to a Summit in Rome about institutional child abuse that occurred in Goldenbridge, Artane, Daingean, Letterfrack, etc, and clerical sexual abuse — and what we now see — is this manipulative cunning unsacred facade being fed to the public, by those who were in authority — messages of hope, holiness, redemption, and how wonderful thou art kind of food.
How come the pope is the only on the receiving end of all these kisses and hugs?
The very same church who mostly never gave chidren in their care a single hug or a kiss in their whole childhoods can shower this affection in one go on this one powerful Vatican person. it has got its agape priorities arseways.
The Vatican has got the whole public relations thing down to a fine art and it will have most of its world-wide flock on bended knees before one can say ‘Ryan/Murphy Report’
The church uses liturgical times of year — where scandals are concerned — to its own advantage. Note how the bishops were called to Rome during the onset of lent. The idea being that people will be ready by Easter to forgive. Easter/Christmas are also times of plentiful giving in the church, not lent, and the Vatican would not want to be depleted of monies in the church plates and envelopes at the most crucial times of the church year. Lent is a time of silent coin dropping in the plates and no envelopes – if so, very few.
As somebody said to me only today — the church is very powerful — that is why it has lasted thousands of years. Woe betide anybody who tries to come in its way.
The church will see the child abuse debacle as a temporary shake-up of its foundations. It will send in its trained men to examine the structural damage caused and have it repaired in time for Easter; when – at this time -the risen lord will take precedence over everything.
The bishops are in all probability gorging pancakes with the pope whilst they conjure up what to say in the forthcoming promised pastoral letter to the Irish people, as I write this comment.
A Donal Murray act will most likely be tried on the Irish nation by the Vatican in the guise of the impending pastoral letter. Remember when the aforementioned bishop looked to his flock for assurance in the wake of the Murphy Report — instead of to the victims of for forgiveness of the heinous crimes that were committed on young children by these ungodly cllerical perpetrators.
I believe there are some lines late in King Lear that apply nicely to what Marie-Therese said. I will find them so that I can paste them in…
KING LEAR
What, art mad? A man may see how this world goes
with no eyes. Look with thine ears: see how yond
justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in
thine ear: change places; and, handy-dandy, which
is the justice, which is the thief? Thou hast seen
a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar?
GLOUCESTER
Ay, sir.
KING LEAR
And the creature run from the cur? There thou
mightst behold the great image of authority: a
dog’s obeyed in office.
Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand!
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back;
Thou hotly lust’st to use her in that kind
For which thou whipp’st her. The usurer hangs the cozener.
Through tatter’d clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furr’d gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks:
Arm it in rags, a pigmy’s straw does pierce it.
It fits that photo nicely, with the men in their dainty frocks and pretty pink caps sitting around the table in the gorgeous well-lit enormous room. No single mothers or miserable children allowed in that room. Robes and furr’d gowns hide all. Yes they damn well do.
OB:”ChrisPer – institutions aren’t allowed to keep investigation of crimes ‘internal’ – not even to minimize harm to the institution, in fact especially not to do that, since to do that would just protect and perpetuate the crime itself, which of course is exactly what happened. So, in short, what’s your point? That it was perfectly legitimate for Ratzinger to tell all the bishops that the church had jurisdiction over the crime of sexual abuse of children? Or what?
| OB | 2010-02-16 – 11:31:41 |”
A great pity you can’t see my teenage ‘roll-eyes’ smiley here OB. It may have escaped your notice, but I have spent months abstaining from comments critical of you and the run of people here. In this instance if you detect touch of impatience to match your own, please forgive me.
First, my punchline was “The crimes here though, have been enabled by secrecy and repeated many times.”
I am puzzled as to why that is ambiguous to you, but I intended saying that there ARE really bad crimes, that the secrecy of the Church enabled them, and that they went on being committed for a long time because of the institution’s enablement. Are we disagreeing on that?
My initial statement is not that “
There is a difference between” two views of the institution’s actions. One was “keeping an investigation internal so as to minimise harm to the institution”, which is done every day by any institution which has internal discipline, and does not presuppose we are talking only of crimes. As an example of this I call to mind an Australian Governeor-General, hounded from office by a fake scandal because with twenty years hindsight the self-righteous haters felt he had mis-handled a purported sex abuse instance he had to investigate and discipline. Lynch mobs are a feature of Australian intellectual life – the pressure for confomity is very high.
Of course, I was distinguishing this from the institutional investigation “allowing it to be a coverup and whitewash so that the guilty are enabled and the innocent punished further.”
In Ireland, it appears not just the Church but the Police and Government were complicit in protecting the crimes of the religious. The Catholic Church has for almost two thousand years kept its investigation and discipline of its people in-house – you have surely heard of the neck verse (for others, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_of_clergy). So
“institutions aren’t allowed to keep investigation of crimes ‘internal'”
is perhaps true in certain jurisdictions, but was not true of the Church for millennia and in Ireland until just a few months ago. Other institutions also routinely seem to cover up crimes with internal investigations – the US political system comes to mind.
aspologies for inadequate editing before hitting Submit.
aspologies again.
ChrisPer
I hadn’t actively noticed that you’ve ‘spent months abstaining from comments critical of [me] and the run of people here,’ probably because you’ve never posted all that often, but I think I was vaguely aware that you hadn’t been around much. Anyway obviously there’s nothing wrong with making comments critical of me and ‘the run of people here’ (whatever that means) – but that probably goes better when the comments are at least clear; yours tend to be cryptic as well as bristly, which is a combination that probably strikes sparks. You also often challenge things that no one said, and that too probably strikes sparks. Sorry. But do you seriously expect anything else? You usually sound scornful; do you seriously expect not to get reactions?
Anyway. Again, I think your irritation is a little unearned, because what you said just wasn’t clear. I didn’t know what you meant. You say ‘of course’ but it wasn’t of course. You were cryptic – and I already knew that you often find my harshness toward Xianity irritating, so I thought this might be some of that, but I wasn’t sure.
You are right of course, I often don’t write clearly where my thought is coming from, or respond to my own assumptions more than your actual words. I will try to do better!
Sadly Gerry Ryan (R.I.P.) suddenly passed away, since making comment number eight. ‘We know not the hour nor the day.’ He was always so jolly and very empathetic towards victims/survivors of institutional abuse.