Sean Brady Steps Down

[easytiger95]

« Reply #742 on: August 24, 2014, 11:53:08 AM »
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The children were wrong not to tell their parents, the parents were wrong to not bring their children up in an ethos of not sharing their concerns or peculiar experiences, the whole ethos of the catholic church in terms of dealing with child abuse was wrong.Sean Brady was a victim of circumstances which inevitably led him to make mistakes for whivh he has apologised.

My position remains unchanged,the victims of clerical child abuse were failed by a multitude including the church and their parents for the reasons I've already outlined on numerous occasions.Brady as a notary who reported accurately the allegations he heard to his superiors was but a small cog in that circle of abject failure

Cognitive dissonance, Fearon-style. C'mon Tony, there is a big difference between being failed by others or being wrong yourself. Which is it? How many archbishops can you get on the head of a pin?

[T Fearon]

It's simple.You cannot blame the children but you most certainly can blame the parents for failing to bring them up to tell them about all abnormal activity they were being subjected to.Surely too there must have been a palpable reaction in the children's behaviour, and the most astounding failure of all was parents driving young children to a meeting with clergy and failing to find out what the purpose was,consenting to being absent from the meeting and failing to find out afterwards what happened.Quite frankly this is incredible

[easytiger95]

It is very simple Tone.

You cannot blame the children

The children were wrong not to tell their parents

You're an absolute joker Tony. Well done for moderating your position on blaming children for their own abuse. There is hope for you yet. It only took a week of you besmirching their experience and trauma.

Now, let's move on to the parents -

but you most certainly can blame the parents for failing to bring them up to tell them about all abnormal activity they were being subjected to.

Now, anyone who isn't talking out of their fundament on this subject, knows that the abuser depends on making his behaviour seem normal - this is our secret/everyone does it/ it's not a sin. So now, you're not only blaming vulnerable children for not being able to cope with the manipulation of an abuser, but their parents for not hearing what the abuser makes it almost impossible for the victims to tell. And before you bang on about your own apocryphal brush with abuse, we are all taught in school at a very young age that there is always an exception that proves the rule.

C'mon, you were able to absolve victims of blame (very good of you, by the way). Let's try the parents now. 

[T Fearon]

No exoneration for the parents,their failure was catastrophic

[easytiger95]

Brilliant. It's great to see you can't resist shedding your pious attitudes.

So let's get this straight

You have sympathy and understanding for a man who, by his own admission, should have done more to stop child abuse (although I would say he facilitated knowingly a monster evade justice and destroy even more innocent lives, but let's not split hairs)

You have sympathy and understanding for the parents of a convicted child abuser

You have some kind of sympathy (well some kind of something other than condemnation) for the actual victims of abuse, finally, after a week spent blaming them for their own abuse.

Yet their parents, whose own lives no doubt have been wrecked by the actions of the above monster you say

No exoneration for the parents,their failure was catastrophic

despite reams of evidence in the other thread that they sought and received assurances that such things would never happen again. From the clergy they trusted. Which was their only mistake. Trusting the church their own parents had brought them up to respect and serve.

When is the Nobel Peace Prize announced again? I think we have a winner.

[easytiger95]

« Reply #1103 on: Today at 08:48:39 AM »
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Success in any argument or debate is when your opponents disappear having run out of points and abusive tirades, or of course if and when they succeed in changing your point of view to theirs.

Ah, the Hamlet moment.....

[LCohen]

The Church is a moral guide and the vast majority of clerics uphold and promote the moral code.Where the Church failed was not knowing what to do and followed the human instead of spiritual course of burying its head in the sand and hoping the problem would go away.Also I don't think back in the day there was an awareness of the extent of the problem and how could it be.

The church has acknowledged this failing and apologised

Maybe for you it is. It is trying to be one for a broader mass (every pun intened) of people then it has proven to be a very poor one. And not just on the child abuse question.

[T Fearon]

The Church has never wavered in its teachings or abandoned any to court popularity.

Easy Tiger the church gave assurances to parents that their children would suffer no further abuse.That seems to have been correct but the church and parents failed to see the bigger picture and guarantee the protection of other children,that was a massive fail on the part of the church and parents

[easytiger95]

That's another archbishop dancing on top of your pin Tony - well done. I think Muppet quoted Brendan Boland's book quite extensively and his parents were told that Smyth would not abuse anyone again as the situation was going to be dealt with.

Massive fail on the church's part - massive fail on your part. Not on the parent's part.

Yawn.

[imtommygunn]

No exoneration for the parents,their failure was catastrophic

That statement in itself is illustrative of the premise of your whole argument and how flawed it is. If the parents were culpable then so was brady. ( that is playing devils advocate making that comment btw). If one is guilty in your eyes then so is the other.

If not then the premise of your argument is based on double standards (That's the fundamental flaw - there's no point going into the rest of them!)  and shows how blinded you are on the subject.

[easytiger95]

With thanks to Muppet

Easy Tiger the church gave assurances to parents that their children would suffer no further abuse.That seems to have been correct but the church and parents failed to see the bigger picture and guarantee the protection of other children,that was a massive fail on the part of the church and parents

After the interview and signing of the oath, Brendan and the 3 priests (Sean Brady, a Msgr Francis Donnelly, who asked most of the questions and a Fr McShane - who Boland had wisely gone to in the first instance and who went straight to his parents, thus ending Boland's abuse) left the room and went out to where Boland's father was kept waiting. The man was a devout Catholic, but also a devoted father. He asked "Would Fr Smyth pose a threat to Brendan again?". From the book "...He was given assurances that this was not a possibility. Fr Smyth would be dealt with. He would not be a threat to children again...." Boland & his Dad were satisfied that the abuse was over for him and for the other children. (3 days later Smyth pulled up outside the shop where Boland had a part time job, opened the car window and pointed at the 14 year old - leaving him terrified and he was too afraid to tell anyone).

C'mon Tone, make a game of it (or is that what you have been doing all along, making a game of people's suffering?)

Yawn.

[LCohen]

The Church has never wavered in its teachings or abandoned any to court popularity.

Easy Tiger the church gave assurances to parents that their children would suffer no further abuse.That seems to have been correct but the church and parents failed to see the bigger picture and guarantee the protection of other children,that was a massive fail on the part of the church and parents

But that not the same as saying its a moral guide. If the church consistently sticks to the same immoral view then its not a good moral guide. If it sticks to view that does not reflect the mass publics morals then its not an effective guide of its own supposed morals.

I would consider myself an ethical person but take no guide from the church I was raised in & initially educated by. Nor do I take any guide from the historic texts that modern clergy selectively quote from. The fact that the quotations are selective and increasingly so points to church that has shifted to some degree to try to scramble some relevance or credibility. A feat in which it continues to fall short in

[T Fearon]

It seems to me that Brady and the parents "assumed" Smyth would be dealt with.Now I'm saying if a Brady is guilty (and the vast majority of people on this thread think he was ) then the parents were similarly guilty in not following up.So if Brady is culpable so are the parents, that's my argument

[Agent Orange]

It seems to me that Brady and the parents "assumed" Smyth would be dealt with.Now I'm saying if a Brady is guilty (and the vast majority of people on this thread think he was ) then the parents were similarly guilty in not following up.So if Brady is culpable so are the parents, that's my argument

Are you a parent yourself Tony?

[T Fearon]

The church's moral guide is scripturally based, no other moral guide can apply,otherwise you have simply a moral guide decided by each individual for him or herself based only on his or her preferences.This approach cannot produce a universally accepted moral guide.