Pope's letter on child sex abuse and cover up

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The current Pope, the Vatican authorities and the Irish bishops are merely continuing a centuries-long tradition of unrepentant duplicity, arrogance and power-mongering.
It is we, not they, who need to wake up and smell the coffee.

A good place to start is www.countmeout.ie.
 
RMCF - just my take on a very small part of this criminal activity. Again the sinister workings of secret bodies in wheels within wheels. Nudge nudge, wink wink between the lawmakers and their puppet masters Opus Dei and The Knights. This macabre clique with their narcissistic grandiosity continue to play havoc with democracy. Michael Woods signed off on an awful lot of money in ensuring that the guilty were given a slap on the wrist while the innocent taxpayer (and in some cases abused taxpayer) took the brunt of the hit. "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's", was ignored by this pompous know all. With (on and off) selective memory, he refused to allow CICA access to the files that enslaved and abused children in Reformatory Schools. These were big earners for the coffers in Rome. Sometime in the future (if not already) he may be entertaining three ghosts. The bottle of holy water by the bed may be a wise move according to his line of thinking.
Well said gearoid and DrMoriarty.
 
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Great post, Doc. My sentiments exactly!

I was raised a Catholic but, given all that's gone on, I will never again have anything to do with them (including not paying dues.... the real Ouch Factor) and couldn't care less if the Pope wrote a thousand letters or pastoral letters or encyclicals, etc.

And today's effort should certainly be filed in the Papal Bull section!!!!!!!
 
So what are people going to do?

As a former COI member (now agnostic) it has less to do with me than most, and I sometimes feel my opinions don't count on these matters. I had my original choice made for me and I've made my own choices since.

What is a valid mass protest that will make the church take notice and realise that this response is totally unacceptable?

With all due respect, and not that it isn't a good idea, I think that the countmeout website may not amount to much - who will care?
 
I think the only real way they'll feel it, Cav, is if people hit them where it hurts and stop paying dues etc.
 
What we really need is for the churches to be empty all over the country. Boycott them until full disclosure is made.

Problem is, it'll never happen. While we have a generation of people who can see the church doing no wrong (like those who had the stupidity to actually applaud Fr Brady last week) then we will never move on.

I think this whole sorry affair will really hurt the Church but it will take a while. The younger generation are very disillusioned and I can see a severe lack of interest in religion and attending Mass etc in the next 25/50yrs.
 
It now looks as if Ian Paisley was onto something afterall when he tagged Popes as Antichrists. This old fellow seems so cold, so rigid, so deluded. The act of submission in kissing the Pope's ring reinforces the Pope's dominance. Where in he New Testament did all this come from?
Jeremiah 49:16 "As for the terror of you, The arrogance of your heart has deceived you, O you who live in the clefts of the rock, Who occupy the height of the hill. Though you make your nest as high as an eagle's, I will bring you down from there," declares the LORD.
 
I was turned off the Catholic church after I visited Vatican City.
Walking around St Peter's, I decided that this was exactly the opposite of This post will be deleted if not edited immediately' teachings. I almost felt a sense of evil in that place.
 
The RC Church is a continuation of the Roman Empire and has more to do with Paul and Constantine than This post will be deleted if not edited immediately Christ.
 
My unborn child will not be baptisesd a RC, that's for sure.

someone mentioned stopping paying dues....what dues are paid?
 
Kine said:
My unborn child will not be baptisesd a RC, that's for sure.

someone mentioned stopping paying dues....what dues are paid?
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I'm someone.

In Cork we get envelopes at Christmas and Easter looking for "offerings." (Don't they in other counties?) People put money, usually quite a bit, into the envelope and it's collected by the local lay person who delivered it first day. In Co. Cork, they have "stations." A station is when mass is said in a house in a particular townland (twice a year in every townland) and every household makes a contribution to the priest. Station dues were to be what the priest survived on, along with payments for signing mass cards, saying masses for dead people, weddings, funerals, baptisms, etc. Sunday church collections were for parish funds.... upkeep of the church building, etc.

In times past, a priest would often read from the altar, the amount contributed by each household, at stations and for Christmas and Easter offerings. Back then, if that didn't guarantee generous contributions, nothing would!!!
 
Apologies if this is found to be offensive, but I saw this today and thought it fitted.

A monastery is destroyed by an earthquake and 20 Christian Brothers ascend at once to the Pearly Gates. At the gates, St Peter says, "Who amongst you fiddled with children when he was alive?" Nineteen Brothers put their hands up. "Right," says St Peter, "You lot get yourselves down to Purgatory - and take that deaf git with you."
 
We need to look with open eyes at this church and the evil that has been perpetrated in its name.

But don't kid yourselves. The priests and their superiors are not the only ones to blame. We need to look at ourselves too. Many, many lay people knew about the abuses happening all over the world and did nothing. Every time I hear another story about an innocent child being abused I feel sickened and murderous but we need to examine our own consciences too, sad to say.
 
Vanilla said:
Many, many lay people knew about the abuses happening all over the world and did nothing.
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where was the apology of the cover up! where was the apology for the treatment of victims after the abuse.

This is the bottom line in all this. The actions of the church gave protection to abusers and the opportunity for abusers to abuse again and again and those actions attracted more abusers to the church. This is what the heiracry is guilty of and this is what the heiracry need to be indicated for!
 
I haven't read the letter, is it fantastic? I guess the Pope has ordered that all the files on Irish Church abuse will be sent to the Irish authorities along with the orders from Rome to the Irish Bishops on how to cover up, sorry handle abusive priests and brothers? He's also I guess 'laetising' abusing priest and bishops as a first step in the openness, transparency and honestly in the letter, but maybe paedophilia is not a cannon law crime so he might's need to do that.

Is paedophilia a canon law crime. I'm sure under God's law and state law it is but what about canon law?

Did he clarify in the letter if the Church hierarchy answers to the laws of the state or the laws of the Church, I wasn't too sure after hearing Dooley on the Pat Kenny show last Monday but I got the impression that state law was definitely in second place, would that be treason I wonder, must have got that wrong, but the Pope has surely cleared it up in his letter.

I guess the letter told the hierarchy to stop paying for the best lawyers to defend child abuse cases in court, canon law courts and at in camera meetings. They were winning most of those cases because the Church had such deep pockets (thanks to the Irish citizens etc for contributing to this by the way) and the abuse victims with very little money (those not in psychiatric care or in denial, or in pain or plain dead from suicide) who have the courage and strength to fights the heinous crimes done to them. Maybe the Pope has ordered that the Church pay for these people's medical care and legal fees? But maybe they don't have enough money for that, it takes a lot of money to keep a Bishop in a high standard of living in his palace.

Will the papal nuncio be apologising to the Murphy report (and ultimately to the Irish people) for non responding to requests for information?

I guess some of you can confirm that everything is now cleared up and we can go forward in openness, honesty and transparency?
 
Bronte said:
Is paedophilia a canon law crime. I'm sure under God's law and state law it is but what about canon law?
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I saw a clip on the TV of Marie Collins of One in Four reacting to the letter and she said that even if canon law had been enforced it wouldn't have made any difference.

I haven't read the letter either but if he is blaming the secularisation of society, that is particularly outrageous. That is shifting the blame from the church onto society and therefore onto the victims and their families. It is this sort of things that makes me wonder about how the Church really does view 'the flock' and how that view would become twisted into a justication of abuse.

I've heard Marie Collins talk on the radio before about how she thinks this is just the tip of the iceberg. That combination of power and repressed sexuality does not only apply to paedophiles - she thinks that lots of sexual relationships, either consensual or unconsensual must be going on between priests and also with nuns. Sounds crazy but I believe it, it's easier to believe than the child abuse.

Until the vatican addresses these issues as a problem within the church I won't believe anything has changed.
 
So many people complain about the church and moan here. But have you informed the church? Like a few others on this site I have defected from the church using the services of Countmeout.ie.

The Church came back to me asking for a clarification - Even though I had already mentioned my reasons in my original letter. But I decided to re-state my position (and am including an extract of my letter below.

Dont just complain to us - complain to them!


And their reply:

Thanks for your e-mail and the clarification and clear explanation of your position. I will follow on your request as you have indicated and be in touch in writing in due course.
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