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Well The catholic church here in Ireland is in a BAD state at the
moment. Its riddled with scandals with a massive amount of child abuse
allegations and court cases comming to light at the moment....at long
last they are getting to court whereas before the suspicion was that
many of these cases were covered up......
The whole financial institution that IS the catholic church is also
under examination. We had an archbishop of Dublin on tape saying that
no money was given out to aid priests who were been investigated for
child abuse..then he was found out to have given 27,000 quid to help
a priest pay off a kid to shut up ("compensation" it was called). It
is sad to see how the catholic boys tried to explain that one....ie it
was a "loan"
Commiskey is in the USA..seemingly under treatment for alcohol abuse..
This after a story that he was so wasted when he got off a plane
in Thailand that the cops had to lock him up until he could identify
himself...(whether this is true or not is under dispute)..however he
was a frequent visitor to the best hotels in that area...
...If its wasn't so serious...especially around the child abuse cases..
it would be laughable. What a life!...tours to Thailand...and when
you just can't take any more booze..just sign into a clinic in USA for
a rest..and just get the ordinary folk to pay for it each week at mass...
There are alot of "theories" on why all this is hitting the surface
at the moment. No doubt it will be interesting to see how all this
affects the DIVORCE referendum we have in the next few weeks. For
those of you who don't know..Divorce is Banned..illegal..in this
country due to the interference in state law by the catholic church.
rgs,
Mick
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It looks like the Catholic Church here are finally getting theirs after
years of calling the shots on sexuality, education, social policy etc.
The irony is that they are hoist very much on their own petard, i.e.
sex and sexual behaviour. For far too long the Church here made people
feel guilty about the sexual side of their natures and heaven knows how
many young and not so young people have suffered because of this.
We have been cursed with bishops who were really politicians in cassocks
but did not have the courage of real politicians to stand for election
preferring instead to fawn and simper their way up the ladder of the
hierarchy. In this rarefied environment they were spared the pressures
of rearing children, keeping jobs and homes together and generally
getting by while enjoying the material benefits due to high achievers
in any profession.
The seeds of the Reformation were sown in the swamp that was the
medieval church. It must be a profound disappointment to Catholics that
at the end of the second millenium so little appears to have changed. I
genuinely don't believe that many Irish people want a truly secular
society because that brings its own problems of moral decay and
uncertainties but what is absolutely clear is that for the boys in the
red hats the game is up. They have fooled a lot of the people a lot of
the time but from now on they will only be fooling themselves.
In my own experience the lay Church in Ireland today has a huge number
of people who are only attending to please their parents or to give
their kids some grounding in a set of values which despite the crimes
of the the clergy remains a fairly sound basis for civilised living.
What will happen when the next generation starts to raise their
families is anyone's guess but it looks highly likely that a SERIOUS
drift away from things religious is on the cards.
If the Church is serious about stopping this then it may have to check
out the man who cleared the traders from the temple, forgave
adulterers, blessed the poor, despised the Pharisees and strongly
recommended rendering to Caesar what was Caesar's and to God what was
God's.
Anyway that's my two pennies worth on the hottest topic nationally this
year.
Paul
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| The Irish Catholic Hierarchy have just announced that from now on they
will report any one of their number who is suspected of "serious" child
abuse. By serious they seem to mean that the reported circumstances
could have happened and not the actual that the type of abuse mentioned
was judged to be serious as opposed, one presumes, to trivial.
This is a very positive development. They have also apologised for
their past mishandling of cases and regret deeply all distress caused.
Paul
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