Irish Prime Minister's Blistering Criticism of the Vatican

[gb2000ie]

We've all heard of the horrifying failure of the Catholic Church to protect children, but Ireland seems to be very much at the forefront of this whole saga. Last week a new report was released that showed the Vatican actively encouraging Bishops to ignore the Irish church's guidelines on child protection to help protect the mother church. These events did not happen decades ago, but in 2008. That's how much the Vatican still doesn't get how wrong they have been on this.

Anyhow - the Irish Prim Minister (known as the toiseach) gave a blistering speech in the Irish Parlaiment (known as the Dáil) last week. I found it on youtube. It starts good, and keeps up. I've waited sooooooooo long to hear my government speak like this:



B.

 

[zortek]

very heartening to hear, if only a few more leaders would speak so directly to the problem

thanks for posting

 

[Behrluvr]

That chamber appears nearly empty (at least from this camera angle). Don't legislators fill the chamber when the Prime Minister speaks?

 

[hawtsean]

Anyhow - the Irish Prim Minister (known as the toiseach) gave a blistering speech in the Irish Parlaiment (known as the Dáil) last week. I found it on youtube. It starts good, and keeps up. I've waited sooooooooo long to hear my government speak like this:

Good on your PM for having the guts to take on the Vatican and call them out. The entire child abuse debacle within the RC Church has touched Ireland in an undesirable manner, in some folks eyes. In the Province of Newfoundland Canada, a horrible tale of sexual and physical abuse was perpetrated against innocent young boys at the Mt. Cashel orphanage. A movie was even made of this. The sad thing was that the so-called religious order that perpetrated this crime was known as the Irish Christian Brothers. How Irish they really were is unknown, but the name alone brought shame to many in Canada who hailed from Eire.

 

[Tjerk12]

I thought that the Catholic Church was against Homo sex. Obviously that rule was only for outside the walls of the church. In The Netherlands we had the same problems. The church therefore has lost a lot of credibility.

 

[gb2000ie]

That chamber appears nearly empty (at least from this camera angle). Don't legislators fill the chamber when the Prime Minister speaks?

ROFL - no - the legislators watch on TV like the rest of us.

TBH, I think it's pretty sad that most speaches are delivered to a near empty chamber. The only time you really see it full is when there are debates on, because those are not scripted.

B.

 

[gb2000ie]

Good on your PM for having the guts to take on the Vatican and call them out. The entire child abuse debacle within the RC Church has touched Ireland in an undesirable manner, in some folks eyes. In the Province of Newfoundland Canada, a horrible tale of sexual and physical abuse was perpetrated against innocent young boys at the Mt. Cashel orphanage. A movie was even made of this. The sad thing was that the so-called religious order that perpetrated this crime was known as the Irish Christian Brothers. How Irish they really were is unknown, but the name alone brought shame to many in Canada who hailed from Eire.

I was just about to say that "Cashel" is an Irish place name, then I got to it being Irish Christian Borthers - not sure how many generations ago they were really Irish, but I'm sure their origins are on this island

B.

 

[gb2000ie]

I thought that the Catholic Church was against Homo sex. Obviously that rule was only for outside the walls of the church. In The Netherlands we had the same problems. The church therefore has lost a lot of credibility.

Oh - they ARE against it, even when priests do it, but they're against bad publicity MORE - which is sickening really.

B.

 

[Bender001]

We had (have) the same problems here in Belgium, it's sickening

 

[777]

In here the RC chuch head (bishop?) just said "It's all those homosexuals corrupting the church and this does not concern regular people" or something else of the effect. I got so furious I was ready to pop a vein. RC church is small in Finland and basically in lieu of the RC scandal in there has been scandals inside the Lutheran Church, concerning Laestadians (conservative Lutheran revival movement) because they have been keeping child abuse cases in secret. They have a belief in forgiving if you just confess to anyone, and it has lead to situations where father who molested his daughters confessed his sins to them and they have been expected to forgive and forget, never to talk about it again and other pretty sickening things. The whole RC child abuse scandal caused talk about child abuse and brought forth victims who have been silent until now, having believed their church elders.

 

[gb2000ie]

In here the RC chuch head (bishop?) just said "It's all those homosexuals corrupting the church and this does not concern regular people" or something else of the effect. I got so furious I was ready to pop a vein. RC church is small in Finland and basically in lieu of the RC scandal in there has been scandals inside the Lutheran Church, concerning Laestadians (conservative Lutheran revival movement) because they have been keeping child abuse cases in secret. They have a belief in forgiving if you just confess to anyone, and it has lead to situations where father who molested his daughters confessed his sins to them and they have been expected to forgive and forget, never to talk about it again and other pretty sickening things. The whole RC child abuse scandal caused talk about child abuse and brought forth victims who have been silent until now, having believed their church elders.

That sounds horrible!

The Irish Bishops have never been explicit about blaming gays for the child abuse, perhaps because so many girls were abused too, but they have done things that more than hint that that's what they really think. A few years ago in one of their many utterly insufficient non-responses they announced "better vetting of candidates for the priesthood", as part of that, they banned gays applying to be priests. Sure, they didn't directly come out and say "gays are the problem", but they may as well have - I too was FURIOUS!

The idea of keeping things within the church is certainly not at all unique to Lutherans. In Ireland the Catholic Bishops felt that Canon Law (church law) was supreme over civil law, so they could just deal with stuff in - house. This was not helped by the Vatican writing letters (as recently as 2008) telling the Bishops not to be too quick to report stuff to the civil authorities.

What's a really big deal here now is that the government are moving towards mandatory reporting laws, and for the first time ever the state will NOT be respecting the seal of the confessional, and priests will be criminally liable if someone confesses to abusing kids to them, and they do not report it. This is making the church very very angry, but they are not getting much support, the people are REALLY angry at the church, even the religious people, so they just won't stand for any more crap from them.

It's terrible that so many kids had to suffer to break the Catholic Church's strangle-hold over Irish society, but it can only be a good thing that their bigoted influence over everything in this country is now a page in the history books!

B.

 

[hawtsean]

I was just about to say that "Cashel" is an Irish place name, then I got to it being Irish Christian Borthers - not sure how many generations ago they were really Irish, but I'm sure their origins are on this island

B.

Not a surprise. Newfoundland is the eastern-most part of Canada, a small island in the Atlantic, and the closest part of Canada to Europe. I'd bet that many Irishmen, among other nationalities, made the dangerous trek across the ocean to find a new land with new opportunities. The particular speech dialect and some of the culture in Newfoundland are definitely from Eire.

 

[SimplyJakeAndAlex]

Not a surprise. Newfoundland is the eastern-most part of Canada, a small island in the Atlantic, and the closest part of Canada to Europe. I'd bet that many Irishmen, among other nationalities, made the dangerous trek across the ocean to find a new land with new opportunities. The particular speech dialect and some of the culture in Newfoundland are definitely from Eire.

True enough and they also have a beautiful village called "Dildo"




:rofl::rofl::rofl:

 

[777]

That sounds horrible!

The Irish Bishops have never been explicit about blaming gays for the child abuse, perhaps because so many girls were abused too, but they have done things that more than hint that that's what they really think. A few years ago in one of their many utterly insufficient non-responses they announced "better vetting of candidates for the priesthood", as part of that, they banned gays applying to be priests. Sure, they didn't directly come out and say "gays are the problem", but they may as well have - I too was FURIOUS!

The idea of keeping things within the church is certainly not at all unique to Lutherans. In Ireland the Catholic Bishops felt that Canon Law (church law) was supreme over civil law, so they could just deal with stuff in - house. This was not helped by the Vatican writing letters (as recently as 2008) telling the Bishops not to be too quick to report stuff to the civil authorities.

What's a really big deal here now is that the government are moving towards mandatory reporting laws, and for the first time ever the state will NOT be respecting the seal of the confessional, and priests will be criminally liable if someone confesses to abusing kids to them, and they do not report it. This is making the church very very angry, but they are not getting much support, the people are REALLY angry at the church, even the religious people, so they just won't stand for any more crap from them.

It's terrible that so many kids had to suffer to break the Catholic Church's strangle-hold over Irish society, but it can only be a good thing that their bigoted influence over everything in this country is now a page in the history books!

B.

It's pretty obvious that that's the at least unofficial message the RC church is sending everywhere. Many people here (still) believe that gay men are all paedophiles and it doesn't matter how statistics show that a typical paedophile is a married middle aged man who has kids, and that in fact children with gay parents are far less likely to be molested. It really doesn't matter what anyone says, it's so conveniently supports all other prejudices people have so they don't want to hear the truth.

The "funny" thing about the Laestadian child abuse scandal is that it's exclusively father/grandfather/church elder - girl children. No chance explaining that with anything else but the truth. They are still reluctant to change anything, but more and more people are demanding it, especially the same thing about confessions as in Ireland, but other things too. It's the beginning of the end when the regular people aren't listened to at all... so hopefully the same thing will happen here as in Ireland. Especially in the north Laestadian influence has been very strong over everything and everyone.

 

[hawtsean]

True enough and they also have a beautiful village called "Dildo"

Yep, and another quaint town called "Come By Chance".

 

[Jawja]

The RC Church is a criminal enterprise.

 

[gb2000ie]

The RC Church is a criminal enterprise.

I'm not fan of the RC, but even I'm not prepared to make a sweeping generalisation like that. They are a flawed organisation with a deeply flawed management, but they are not a criminal enterprise, their aim is not to do harm, it's to do good, they're just failing spectacularly!

Definitely a case for Hanlon's Razor - "never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence"!

B.