My understanding is that not reporting a rape of a child is not a crime any more, so what would you jail them for? It was removed from the statue books in the last few years. According to VOR on another thread, the misprision of felony was removed from the statute books in 1998 by Nora Owen.
Anyone know what would happen if an ordinary citizen or a person in charge (teacher/principal/priest) covered up the rape of a child. What offence if any would this be?
+1by facilitiating getting all of this out in the open, by not being obstructive and obtusive like his predecesors and being the first bishop in dublin in a century to both do the right thing and to seem genuinely remorseful for it. If his predecesors had acted like him, this could and would have been stopped decades ago.
By facilitiating getting all of this out in the open, by not being obstructive and obtusive like his predecesors and being the first bishop in Dublin in a century to both do the right thing and to seem genuinely remorseful for it.
The article is refreshing in it's originality. I imagine the next stage is a lovebombing of the Irish faithful by Rome. This, however, should be rebuffed. Again our politicians have been found wanting. Me Feiners one and all. Now that they've seen how the land lies a few are making noises. They have no cojones. At least the eunuchs of old performed a service.One of the most disturbing things about this whole thing for me is that I find myself agreeing with [broken link removed]!
But they DID allow these things to happen, and they covered it up. They perpetuated it. It makes them as evil as those that did it.
When you say 'they' you can only mean the ones who are actually guilty or are you saying that every priest is guilty by association, it's not clear from your post ( to me at least).
I think you should really think about what you are praising him for.
Personally I see nothing praiseworthy. Quite the opposite.
Why?
Having watched the media reports over the last two weeks since the release of the Murphy Report I have changed my position somewhat. I initially called for the Bishop of Limerick to resign and then for all the Bishops named in the Murphy Report to resign.
I have now come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter one iota if they resign or don’t resign. They will just be replaced by other people with like minded agendas who answer to Rome rather than the laws of Ireland.
These Bishops should now be put before the courts of Ireland and be held accountable for there crimes. Essentially by moving priests for one parish to another, thus enabling the criminals to find more victims, they are as guilty (to my mind) of not reporting crimes and causing the suffering and distress of new victims when it could have been avoided.
I watched the Six-One news last night and after a brief interview with Willie Walsh they showed a priest crying into the camera saying “he was a good man and we all love him”. To be honest it looked pathetic and was embarrassing to watch. But it showed me the mind set of the Catholic Church. If we love each other and put our faith in God then everything will be alright. That is not good enough for 21st Century Ireland.
To my mind, nothing short of criminal prosecutions for the enablers of child rape will suffice.
I couldn't give a toss about the nature of the organisation or bishops resigning etc. A foreign country has attempted to usurp the primacy of the law of the land in this country in an effort to frustrate the investigation of heinous criminal acts. That is an attack on the sovereignty of this republic by a foreign power if we don’t act then the Unionists in Northern Ireland will have been shown to be right; Dublin rule is Rome Rule.
Why is there any discussion about bishops resigning? Whether a bishop or bishops resign is irrelevant. Does anyone think that if a swimming instructor covered up the rape of a child we would accept his resignation as an appropriate redress? I want to see these men in prison, let them wear their black robes and silk hats in Mountjoy if they want, just leave them there ‘till they die.
Because you are praising him for doing something that he should be doing anyway.
I don't think anyone disagrees about what should be done to those you describe in your post, I just don't agree that the organisation as a whole is evil or that every priest would react in the same way.Those that raped and abused children are clearly guilty but so too are the very many who knew about it. Once a child raping priest was caught nothing was done to him. Those working with these rapists, the priest in charge of that priest or brother, the superior, the superiors bishop, the bishops staff, the file sent to the Papal Nuncio and the Pope all colluded in the cover up. Nothing was done to help the raped children, no regard was given to the pain and turmoil of these children and the lives ruined by the events that happened to them. If this is not a complete systematic evil than I don't know what is evil.
Remember that these men ran and run whole parts of Irish society. Not one of them seems to this day to have the moral courage to come out with the truth, to tell us they did wrong, that they perpetuated the evil that is child rape, that they moved the priests around knowing what they would do. That they treated the raped children abonomiable, that they didn't and don't care about children. They only care about the Church and the protection of that Church, that is more important than an innocent child. Surely that is more evil than anything any right thinking human could think of.
I'm praising him for doing something which no one else was prepared to do. .
No that is not correct, he was given this job to do, it's called damage limitation. He was very very carefully selected. He may not even know this himself.
There is nothing that the Church does that is not carefully planned. You are very naive if you think otherwise. They are a study in Machiavellian thinking.