The Cloyne Report & the Vatican.

I have been pondering the following. This CCSA seems to only occur in Anglo Saxon type cultures, USA, Canada, Australia, Ireland (UK?? not sure). Most catholics live in the Club Med, South America and the Philipines and the scandal does not seem to be prevalent in those parts. Also let me put in the mix that I spent 15 years schooling in a very catholic environment a long time ago and never once experienced or even heard rumours of CCSA.

So my theory is that the RC clerical culture has simply been unable to cope with the tide of modern Anglo Saxon licentiousness and pornography. Please, I am not exonerating the CC, simply observing that it appears to be the extreme cultural mix that has been explosive.

BTW, IMHO I do not at all expect priests to snitch to the Revenue, the Gardai or whoever, anything that is revealed to them in confession, and I am not sure it is right that the Minister of Justice who is a Jew should be demanding this.
 
The incidents in other countries are often linked to places where Irish priests went. This was the case in Newfoundland (Christian brother), the USA, Canada and Australia. I wish it was not so.
 
DrMoriarty said:
Disconcertingly, I find myself entirely in synch with Purple on this, and yet I suspect my arm would have to rot off my arm before I could place a 'X' next to the name of a Fianna Fáil candidate.

Where does that leave me?
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I'm not a Fianna Fail supporter or member and haven't voted for them since before Bertie took over so you may feel concerted again .
 
In case it comes across that i despise all papist priests...

I don't think that most or even many priests actually sexually molested children.
I believe my RC friends when they aver that they were never molested.
I'd probably guess that over 90% of priests have never physically abused anyone.

However, it's not the paedophiles per se that are the only problem. It's the Roman Catholic Church's disgraceful conspiracy to silence those who wish to speak out, and,worse, to protect that evil small percent of child molesters.

As for the interesting ethno-sociological theory that this may be an Anglo-Saxon phenomenon, may I mention the terrible scandal recently come to light in Belgium. Hundreds of children abused- maybe thousands. Again covered up by the RC church. And what about that nasty bishop in Munich ? I'll wager we'll soon learn about horrors in other RC countries -despite the attempts of the Church to cover them up.

I believe that wherever there are RC clergy there's sexual abuse - and the nasty conspiracy to hide that abuse.
(Except maybe South America or Africa where, I gather, priests have a somewhat more lax attitude to the celibacy rule and therefore choose the company of young -but adult- women rather than eight year old boys.)

Actually,as i write this, I reckon that ,really, i do despise Papist priests.

* "Church" meaning the hierachy of the organisation ,not the people who say they are R.catholics.
 

You can bet your bottom dollar that this already happening in the Philippines/Africa/South America. Primetime recently did a programme where they investigated priests in Africa and came up with the same type scandals. Colm O'Gorman did a documentary on the Catholic Church in South America/Mexico where again he found cover up after cover up.
The Belgium police raided the house of an arch bishop in Brussels (the Vatican complained) because of his connections to a pedophile ring.
Hardly all Anglo Saxon cultures?

There was no pornography in Ireland in the 30s/40s/50s in Ireland and abuse was widespread back then. Your point that "licentiousness and pornography" is the cause of the scandals today is akin to the present pope blaming secular society for the scandals in the church today.

The religion of the Minister for Justice should and does not have any bearing on the job that he has to do. He is a minister in this republic and his first duty is to the people in this republic (including children).

Never have I been more repulsed by a post on AAM before.
 
The Banker, I apologise for offending you. Let me make it clear that the revelations disgust me as much as anybody else, even the look of that Bishop Magee makes me want to wrench.

I was merely pondering that the CCSA thing seemed to me to be the result of a collision between the oppressive clerical celibate culture and the permissiveness of modern Anglo Saxon protestantism and of course the totally free mixing of the cultures through modern mass media. You and others argue that things were always this bad and are this bad in all other cultures where a catholic priest can be found. I am not so sure.

I think it is a cheap and religously offensive shot, to attack the seal of confession. It has no practical importance whatsoever. If there was any fear that this law could be enforced then would be confessors would simply go abroad to make their confessions. It is after all a universal church. I think it is at least debatable the appropriateness of a minister who professes the Jewish faith making such a point. Or is it not PC to refer to this aspect?
 
Clerical abuse scandals abound, and are far from the exclusive preserve of the RCC in Anglo-Saxon countries. Think of some of the issues that arose in Germany surrounding the current pope for example. What the official church has failed to do, has been to address this whilst placing the victims interests and not itself as foremost in it's mind.

The maxim that the Church thinks in centuries is telling. Scandals come and go, governments likewise, the Church remains (and can remain, constant and unchanging) with it's unique truth. This typical kind of thinking divorces the ruling elite from the realities of abuse, and it's priorities are focused not on it but rather on keeping itself in business. The meaningless groveling platitudes simply mask this deeper purpose, and a deeper mindset. God will punish the wrongdoer and reward the abused in the hereafter, so what's the big problem?

This type of thinking is central to it's attitude, but also central is the deep fear of human sexuality and a view of human sinfulness rooted in unbridled and thus terrifying "passion". Why is this so? Likely it is an issue of control. Sex seems to represent a loss of control; if people aren't controlled by a fear-based theology(damnation) in their sexual lives what other things might they question and challenge? So, sex is the dark horse threatening the entire edifice. And thus sexuality is warped out of all recognition, and even talking about it is taboo. It should really suprise no-one that all the men who enforce this rule are themselves warped by this guilt-ridden, shame-laden l theology, and in that atmosphere the spectre of child abuse can easily arise.

As for non-RCC religions, I don't think many of them can overly pat themselves on the back. Some pretty strange attitudes to sexuality are often part of their theology. Perhaps the difference is partly one of scale.The RCC is vast in comparison to many of them.
 
Not being a Catholic, thank God, I'm not sure what this confession thing is.....

Ignorantly, I had thought the purpose of the confession was to ackowledge sins, repent of them, ask forgiveness -and be willing to do penance and make amends for those sins.
So, how does exposing a sinner's confession detract from any of that ?
If a sinner is making a true confession which involves doing penance and making amends then that sinner should expect - look forward to - being reported and duly punished.

But if a paedophile priest thinks that by popping into a box and telling another priest how he rapes kids and really expect not to be properly punished then he's not really make a true confession , is he ? Thus the so-called seal of confession does not apply.

Or have I got that wrong? Perhaps a good Catholic could enlighten me....

p.s. I'm so glad there's a Jew in the cabinet -along with a few agnostics and atheists.
The Jew in question,incidentally, is not just a brilliant lawyer but one that has specialised in dealing with delicate matters surrounding families and children.
No better man.
 
oldnick the last time I went to confession I think it was to confess that I took a penny from the mantlepiece, so I am not an expert However, as would be expected of your namesake you do ask a very pertinent question. As far as I recall, the object was not about receiving punishment but, you are right, it was about making amends. So the priest who is actually hearing the confession should recommend what making amends would constitute. It does not necessarily mean giving yourself up and receiving your just secular punishment, though it could do.

I still think it was brazen for a person professing a different religion to stray into very sensitive areas of another religion. As I said before nothing any minister or law could say about the seal of confession would have any practical impact, it is a cheap point scoring shot.
 

The MOJ's religion is totally irrelevant to this discussion. He acts on behalf of the cabinet & gov't, and us, the people of this state. Whether the breaking of the seal of confession has any practical impact, it has huge legal and moral import. We, the state do not absolve anyone from the law of the land. We do not kow tow to a foreign power, religious or otherwise, who have intervened in our internal politics and acted contrary to the common good and the expressed will of the citizens of this state. The Nuncio should be told to leave after we receive the predictable meaningless tosh by way of an "answer" from the Vatican.


You should be more concerned with the interference of a hostile foreign & monarchical power than the irrelevant jewishness of Mr Shatter. He is eminently qualified for his job.
 

+1
 
Look, confessor priests have long been technically guilty of obstruction of justice. Classic examples are the IRA, the Mafia and America's prohibition era gangsters, all three groups "practising" catholics. To raise this old chestnut in the current context is highly provocative to the vast majority in this Republic who profess themselves to be catholics. It was grossly offensive for the MoJ to involve himself with another religion's taboos. He should stick to the secular job.

BTW I hope that as a representative of our government he will tone down his infamous support of Zionist oppression in the Holy Land.
 
Purple said:
What's that meant to mean? Ireland is probably the most anti-Israeli country in Europe!
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Yes, that is the view of the Irish people, which I do not myself agree with, but I expect our MoJ to take heed of the majority view.

I sense some double standards in this whole discussion. CCSA is Vile & Heinous. All agreed, except maybe Benny and his Nuncio. However, I am not sure the people of Gazza would agree that what is being meted out to them with the warm approval of our MoJ is less V&H.

I repeat that invoking the tired old debate about the seal of confession versus the obligation to protect society is opportunistic and deeply offensive to the catholic faithful majority of this country at a time when they are suffering so badly from the CCSA revelations themselves.
 

So, you can speak for the majority? How do you know that catholics could be presumed to support the seal of confession over and above the land of the land?

The MoJ is an elected minister of this state, he is stating the patently obvious, as has the taoiseach and the rest of the gov't. The law of the land precedes all other laws, canonical or otherwise. No person, citizen or otherwise, can presume to claim a higher authority or the ramblings of a foreign prince and disobey the laws of this state. This fact is not like the child protection policies that some cardinal labelled a "discussion document"which could tacitly be ignored and provided a fig-leaf excuse for the recalcitrant clerics like Magee and his Vicar-General.

The MoJ religion is an irrelevance and I simply don't know why you keep raising it. He is not interfering in "another's religion or their taboo's", he and the Irish gov't sets the laws governing Ireland, regardless of what religion anyone is. He is the Irish minister setting out Irish law, not a Jewish religious representative.

When we threw off British rule in 1916, we kicked out one foreign monarchy, but that was only a job half done. We now need to kick out the other one, Rome.
 
horusd the "seal of confession" is a religous thing. No minister should be publicly interfering in religous beliefs but it is especially offensive when the minister does not even profess that religion.

SoC does not protect anybody from the secular law. A person making a confession is making a voluntary act in the context of his religous beliefs. If he thought for one moment that this equated to confessing to the gardai he would not do so and would satisfy his religous requirements in another jurisdiction.

Of course, if the confessor priest is aware of the illegal behaviour being confessed from another source then no way does the SoC absolve him from reporting the perp.

I guess you think your repeated references to foreign princes is clever, sorry but I find them puerile.
 
I suspect that precisely because he is jewish Shatter may guard his words more carefully than, say,a good Catholic like Flanagan.

I also wonder if the Irish had rejected Rome long ago they wouldn't have kicked out the monarchy.

As someone who abhors strong religious or nationalistic sentiment from any religion or country I have waited most of my life to be able to openly criticize the RC church in this country. I did not out of fear of offending my good decent RC friends and fellow-citizens.

Nowadays I find them to be more anti-church than I am !
Listening to one's RC friends or reading the newspapers reminds me of the woman who realises that the man she always loved is a bullying swine - something her friends knew but said nothing.
 
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horusd the "seal of confession" is a religous thing. No minister should be publicly interfering in religous beliefs but it is especially offensive when the minister does not even profess that religion.

He isn't interfering in any religious thing. He is stating that the priest (not the penitant) is subject to a legal duty to disclose child abuse, should it arise, in order to protect the vulnerable, and this is his duty which cannot be set aside. Cardinal Brady, you will recall, swore two children to secrecy about abuse in a former role. Secrecy is a friend to the abuser. Priests are citizens like any other, they cannot be treated differently from a counsellor or the like.

SoC does not protect anybody from the secular law. A person making a confession is making a voluntary act in the context of his religous beliefs. If he thought for one moment that this equated to confessing to the gardai he would not do so and would satisfy his religous requirements in another jurisdiction.

The likliehood of this scenario arising is minute. Nonetheless, if it did it would of course protect the abuser, silence = collusion in the crime, and the confessor priest would be complicit and should be held accountable. He stands no different before the law than an Austrian Pastaferian, and nor should he.

Of course, if the confessor priest is aware of the illegal behaviour being confessed from another source then no way does the SoC absolve him from reporting the culprit.

I guess you think your repeated references to foreign princes is clever, sorry but I find them puerile.

The established judicial commissions of this state have received no response at all or been informed that the Nuncio and the Vatican will not help. Indeed, the Vatican has proactively undermined the laws of this land,and their own guidelines and thus helped abuse to continue.

Now I don't want to split hairs on what are foreign princes, but unelected representatives of a man and a foreign state who has all the trappings of very worldly princely wealth, privilege and power, seem to me to fit the catagory nicely.


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The evil is that next to being a religion they also have their own state which brings them into belief they can hide behind their own rules, this is clear when the Vatican believes the Irish government failed to respect and protect Vatican sovereignty during the investigations.

So what we need to do is kick the papal nuncio out of Ireland, close our embassy in the Vatican (saves money) and terminate our agreements to recognise the Vatican as a state. A state that harbour criminals and conceals horrific crimes against human beings should not be a state that is recognised by civilised countries.

Than we give the priest a choice, either you stay and like any other citizen (or resident) you agree to the laws of the land and that laws supersede any made up laws by your church or you can leave the country. A believe system’s rules cannot supersede or dictate the law of a democratic country.

If anybody still is not co-operating with the law than let’s throw them into jail, I’m sure some nice prison fellows in Mount Joy will be all too happy to show a cardinal how rape is done, isn’t that one of their made up rules “an eye for an eye”?

If you ask me, anybody who sexually abuses a child does not deserve prison, they deserve to be hung on the next tree, but our law does not allow that (unfortunately) so jail it has to be.

How long are we going to recognise a state that systematic engages in cover ups of rape and abuse under the cloak of being a religion and following their own laws in the believe they supersede the law of the land.
 
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