The Cloyne Report & the Vatican.

Firefly said:
Hi Mpsox,

Let me ask you this...What did the "good" priests do when relevations of abuse came out?
Did they form a group and march to Rome?
Did they "go on strike" with placards outside their parish priests houses?
Did they apologise from the pulpit?
Did they arrange councilling / offer their help in any way?

The truth is that most did nothing. That's why I'm so angry.
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In some cases they reported it to the authorties ( and in some of those cases got no support) as outlined in the various reports

yes they did apologise and actually, yes, in many cases they did arrange councilling. The problem many priests had was lack of support from on high, bad leadership was the root cause of many of the issues.

You're right to be angry, I'm angry too over what happened and how it was handled.
 
Mpsox said:
I Why should other priest resign in disgust?, after all, if your boss turned out to be a paedophile would you quit?
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I wouldn't. However, if lots of other managers and co-workers were and they were moved from branch to branch to conceal this and allow it to foster then I would.

Mpsox said:
Walking away from something is the cowards way out, it allows those who lead to think they've won. It is far better to try and change things from the inside and that is happening. It won't happen overnight, nothing does, it doesn't mean to say that some (like O'Callaghan in Cloyne) will oppose it, they will, but it doesn't mean to say things can't change.
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It's not happening nearly fast enough nor transparent enough for the public to have faith in the church.
 
Mpsox said:
Interesting how you thought I was a woman, why did you think that? (I'm not by the way)

I do have my own organised place of worship and social activites, it's called the Catholic church and is owned by the members, not by Rome, not by the diocese or by anyone else.

Why should other priest resign in disgust?, after all, if your boss turned out to be a paedophile would you quit?

Walking away from something is the cowards way out, it allows those who lead to think they've won. It is far better to try and change things from the inside and that is happening. It won't happen overnight, nothing does, it doesn't mean to say that some (like O'Callaghan in Cloyne) will oppose it, they will, but it doesn't mean to say things can't change.

I'm learning to swim at the minute, wonder if I should be doing that given the amount of abuse that was done by a small group of swimming instructors?

My smallie started school this week, wonder if I should let her go given that the local child abuser in my village when i was growing up was the lay married headmaster?
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Maybe you should tell Rome that.
What you say may be correct in theory. It certainly isnt in practice.
 
Firefly said:
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It's not happening nearly fast enough nor transparent enough for the public to have faith in the church.
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In fairness, I think a lot has happened, at least at local level, the child protection guidelines for example and each parish having a team of lay people who oversee them. A lot of that is transparrent (or at least where I live) because it's spelt out very clearly to anyone who goes to chirch. For example, we were all given copies of those guidelines and they are issued any time they change.

To me, the bigger issue is change further up the line, in particuler in Rome, Magee is an example of that, dropped into Cloyne without ever having really worked on the ground or in a parish and in effect, being a bit instituionalised.

I think you will see more of this sort of thing happening as well over the coming years
[broken link removed]
 
Mpsox said:
Walking away from something is the cowards way out, it allows those who lead to think they've won. It is far better to try and change things from the inside and that is happening.
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Wake up. Thats the excuse Sean Brady came out with instead of resigning. He was content to learn all about Brendan's Smyth's reign of terror and subsequently imposed an oath of secrecy on the abused children 35 years ago. Smyth went on to ruin many other lives. Brady became a cardinal and somehow still is. He didn't walk away but in those 35 years what did this vile man do to stop the abuse? Cowards indeed! His reason for not resigning in 2010 was that he was merely taking notes, the work-to-rule excuse and that he would make real reform from within, he's very quiet since.

Dispicable man.
Dispicable organisation.
 
T McGibney said:
I think you're still missing the point. Much of the institutional abuse that was committed by Catholic Church personnel was actively facilitated and covered up by the State. Ditto the parallel obscenities of the Magdalen Laundries, the Cavan Orphanage Fire amongst others. The State acknowledged this by agreeing to foot the bill for a substantial portion of the Redress Fund.
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I have always felt that the State did a bad deal in terms of the Redress Fund. I think most people would put the majority of the blame on the religious orders running the institutions and committing the abuse. The State were certainly negligent in protecting the children but the religious orders held all the power in those places and those times.

Not sure who exactly made the deal but if we were renegotiating today, it would be a different story.
 
In a sense the Cloyne report and others are merely the deathknells of a dying Church. People don't expect the Church to change, or it to have a significant role in their lives Many have moved on and left it behind. What will replace it? That's an interesting question, but I have no doubt that something will. Spirituality or meaning have deep significance for most, if not all people. So we're not going to turn atheists anytime soon I think. But Ireland is definitely in the post-catholic phase.
 
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