Clerical abuse!

Started by D4S, May 20, 2009, 05:09:14 PM

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We all know this disgusting scandal is as a result of The Church and The State, but who do you hold mostly accountable, and should therefore pay out the most in compensation to victims?

The State
The Church
Split 50/50

The Iceman

It doesn't offend at all.  Everything I know about Jesus tells me He is still here, within the Church, that the Holy Spirit is still here alive and kicking and calling us all to change.
Jesus took up some rope and made a whip and over turned tables and cast people out of His Father's house who were ruining it.  That's what needs to happen. But it happens from within.  Jesus didn't stand outside the temple with a megaphone and protest that the church was bad and that everyone should leave......

I appreciate the respectful tone you have taken too btw - thanks
I will always keep myself mentally alert, physically strong and morally straight

T Fearon

Iceman I don't see how questioning the (as far as I am concerned) incomprehensible decision of parents allowing their young offspring to attend meetings with priests unaccompanied or without establishing the purpose of such meetings can be construed as vile abuse of parents.By any standards in any era,it is a dereliction of duty on a par with the mishandling of child abuse back in the day by Church authorities.

If those parents are alive today they must be surely suffering pangs of conscience.Also I don't accept that the Church even as far back as the 70s was this great big monster that commanded unswerving respect,awe and fear from everyone (and if it did it was those who accorded it such respect that are to blame).I grew up in the 70s and recall plenty of disputes between laity and clerics,not least at school were any soft priest among the teaching staff were quickly identified and pushed to the limit by students.

The Iceman

I would hazard a guess those same students pushed you to your limits Tony and I'm sorry if that was the case but it might explain a lot of your continual trolling on here.
You are not doing the Church any service and certainly not representative of the thinking of Catholics.
I'm ashamed of your comments and you should be too....
I will always keep myself mentally alert, physically strong and morally straight

muppet

Quote from: The Iceman on March 04, 2016, 08:45:35 PM
I would hazard a guess those same students pushed you to your limits Tony and I'm sorry if that was the case but it might explain a lot of your continual trolling on here.
You are not doing the Church any service and certainly not representative of the thinking of Catholics.
I'm ashamed of your comments and you should be too....

I was about to reply to him, but this is far more succinct than anything I could muster. Bravo Iceman.
MWWSI 2017

seafoid

Quote from: muppet on March 04, 2016, 06:59:45 PM
Quote from: The Iceman on March 04, 2016, 06:29:36 PM
Not sure how many of you have participated in child protection training - I think it's something everyone should do. Part of the training involves interviews with predators  -real stories, real examples, real profiles.  They are attracted to roles/jobs that put them close to their victims. They are often found in churches - priests, ministers, youth workers. Also in lots of other organisations that give them access - schools, care centers, scouting organisations - there is no coincidence here.

Sadly these predators have found their way in to these organisations, gained our trust and abused our children - all under our watch. Not just Catholic's watch, or Christian's watch but all of our watch.
The church failed us all in it's response. And continue to do so in man many locations and ways. 

It's no secret that many of you have other issues with the church, or axes to grind. As much as you go after Tony for his abhorrent and continuing abuse of the parents of these victims - there are just as many on here who use the victims to grind their own axes with the church.  I say this because your goal is to have Catholics leave the Church rather than stay and help fix it.  If your intentions were truly about the victims I don't think many of you would be so adamant about that or calling for parishioners to stand up in Mass and condemn everyone....

My goal is to protect children  - to ensure it doesnt happen again in my parish - to work with other people within the church to effect change - I can shout and sling mud all I want o the gaaboard or I can roll up my sleeves and do something about it

This is all correct. We have had a few high profile cases in Ireland involving children's swimming coaches.

Pedophiles finds ways of getting access to children, just as pedophile priests did.

But Iceman, after that you attack critics of the Church's response. This can appear as if you are defending the Church's response, which I don't think you are. If the swimming authorities carried on in the same fashion, moving known pedophiles around for decades and refusing to co-operate with the authorities, they would be savagely condemned, and rightly so. But claiming that those critics were trying to stop people swimming would be missing the point completely.

The Church hierarchy brought this upon themselves, they continue to disappoint (most diplomatic word I could find considering the horrific crimes involved) in their response and until they practice what they preach and confess everything they know to the authorities, they simply have no credibility as far as I am concerned. The people involved in hiding this stuff have no business pretending to run a religion.
Agreed, the management of the response was abysmal. They betrayed their most loyal "customers". So many late middle aged catholics turned away in disgust. The media work was useless.
"f**k it, just score"- Donaghy   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxG2WwVRjU

Main Street

#2000
Quote from: The Iceman on March 04, 2016, 06:29:36 PM
Not sure how many of you have participated in child protection training - I think it's something everyone should do. Part of the training involves interviews with predators  -real stories, real examples, real profiles.  They are attracted to roles/jobs that put them close to their victims. They are often found in churches - priests, ministers, youth workers. Also in lots of other organisations that give them access - schools, care centers, scouting organisations - there is no coincidence here.

Sadly these predators have found their way in to these organisations, gained our trust and abused our children - all under our watch. Not just Catholic's watch, or Christian's watch but all of our watch.
The church failed us all in it's response. And continue to do so in man many locations and ways. 

It's no secret that many of you have other issues with the church, or axes to grind. As much as you go after Tony for his abhorrent and continuing abuse of the parents of these victims - there are just as many on here who use the victims to grind their own axes with the church.  I say this because your goal is to have Catholics leave the Church rather than stay and help fix it.  If your intentions were truly about the victims I don't think many of you would be so adamant about that or calling for parishioners to stand up in Mass and condemn everyone....

My goal is to protect children  - to ensure it doesnt happen again in my parish - to work with other people within the church to effect change - I can shout and sling mud all I want o the gaaboard or I can roll up my sleeves and do something about it
The issues with the church are with the persistent chronic denial of the crime of pedophile enabling ,which is also  as immoral as pedophilia itself. In recent discussions on this thread we have seen strong evidence of persecution of witnesses and  a whistleblower priest  in Florida  by the catholic church hierarchy going right up to the cardinal. Is that not worthy of discussion?
We have seen evidence of  the catholic church persistently  denying it was still enabling pedophile priests in St Paul and the courts had to enforce external  supervision on their activities for a period of 3 years , 3 years probation. The Catholic Church were judged in the highest court of the land to have lied through their teeth in Minneapolis.
This is the clerical abuse thread, a phenomenon  which has directly  devastated the lives of tens of thousands  and hundreds of thousands in the family circle. This is where we discuss those issues. Clerical abuse deserves a thread  of its own.
I am not part of an organisation where I would need to be trained to protect children from pedophiles. But I have had plenty of experience with pedophiles in the church and one in particular in the GAA world. Not that I was abused but those close to me.  And yes I am disgusted by pedophile enablers, they are the real cowards, the hypocrites and a moral rot in our society.
You sound a bit sanctimonious to me Iceman.

Do you have issues with a priest being comfortable with his homosexuality?

muppet

Quote from: seafoid on March 04, 2016, 09:53:36 PM
Quote from: muppet on March 04, 2016, 06:59:45 PM
Quote from: The Iceman on March 04, 2016, 06:29:36 PM
Not sure how many of you have participated in child protection training - I think it's something everyone should do. Part of the training involves interviews with predators  -real stories, real examples, real profiles.  They are attracted to roles/jobs that put them close to their victims. They are often found in churches - priests, ministers, youth workers. Also in lots of other organisations that give them access - schools, care centers, scouting organisations - there is no coincidence here.

Sadly these predators have found their way in to these organisations, gained our trust and abused our children - all under our watch. Not just Catholic's watch, or Christian's watch but all of our watch.
The church failed us all in it's response. And continue to do so in man many locations and ways. 

It's no secret that many of you have other issues with the church, or axes to grind. As much as you go after Tony for his abhorrent and continuing abuse of the parents of these victims - there are just as many on here who use the victims to grind their own axes with the church.  I say this because your goal is to have Catholics leave the Church rather than stay and help fix it.  If your intentions were truly about the victims I don't think many of you would be so adamant about that or calling for parishioners to stand up in Mass and condemn everyone....

My goal is to protect children  - to ensure it doesnt happen again in my parish - to work with other people within the church to effect change - I can shout and sling mud all I want o the gaaboard or I can roll up my sleeves and do something about it

This is all correct. We have had a few high profile cases in Ireland involving children's swimming coaches.

Pedophiles finds ways of getting access to children, just as pedophile priests did.

But Iceman, after that you attack critics of the Church's response. This can appear as if you are defending the Church's response, which I don't think you are. If the swimming authorities carried on in the same fashion, moving known pedophiles around for decades and refusing to co-operate with the authorities, they would be savagely condemned, and rightly so. But claiming that those critics were trying to stop people swimming would be missing the point completely.

The Church hierarchy brought this upon themselves, they continue to disappoint (most diplomatic word I could find considering the horrific crimes involved) in their response and until they practice what they preach and confess everything they know to the authorities, they simply have no credibility as far as I am concerned. The people involved in hiding this stuff have no business pretending to run a religion.
Agreed, the management of the response was abysmal. They betrayed their most loyal "customers". So many late middle aged catholics turned away in disgust. The media work was useless.

In my extended family and the estate where I grew up the numbers that have walked away would be shocking.

A retired family member of mine sings at mass almost every Sunday, but she said to me that she wanted to stand outside protesting at the treatment of the Florida priest. I talked her out of it as unfortunately protestors are seen simply as cranks, thanks to the behaviour of other protestors on other issues. But for her 25 years ago the notion of protesting against the Church would have seemed insane.
MWWSI 2017

T Fearon

Muppet I doubt any member of your family would have to go as far as protesting outside a Church to be considered a crank!😂😂

The Iceman

Quote from: Main Street on March 04, 2016, 10:00:25 PM
Quote from: The Iceman on March 04, 2016, 06:29:36 PM
Not sure how many of you have participated in child protection training - I think it's something everyone should do. Part of the training involves interviews with predators  -real stories, real examples, real profiles.  They are attracted to roles/jobs that put them close to their victims. They are often found in churches - priests, ministers, youth workers. Also in lots of other organisations that give them access - schools, care centers, scouting organisations - there is no coincidence here.

Sadly these predators have found their way in to these organisations, gained our trust and abused our children - all under our watch. Not just Catholic's watch, or Christian's watch but all of our watch.
The church failed us all in it's response. And continue to do so in man many locations and ways. 

It's no secret that many of you have other issues with the church, or axes to grind. As much as you go after Tony for his abhorrent and continuing abuse of the parents of these victims - there are just as many on here who use the victims to grind their own axes with the church.  I say this because your goal is to have Catholics leave the Church rather than stay and help fix it.  If your intentions were truly about the victims I don't think many of you would be so adamant about that or calling for parishioners to stand up in Mass and condemn everyone....

My goal is to protect children  - to ensure it doesnt happen again in my parish - to work with other people within the church to effect change - I can shout and sling mud all I want o the gaaboard or I can roll up my sleeves and do something about it
The issues with the church are with the persistent chronic denial of the crime of pedophile enabling ,which is also  as immoral as pedophilia itself. In recent discussions on this thread we have seen strong evidence of persecution of witnesses and  a whistleblower priest  in Florida  by the catholic church hierarchy going right up to the cardinal. Is that not worthy of discussion?
We have seen evidence of  the catholic church persistently  denying it was still enabling pedophile priests in St Paul and the courts had to enforce external  supervision on their activities for a period of 3 years , 3 years probation. The Catholic Church were judged in the highest court of the land to have lied through their teeth in Minneapolis.
This is the clerical abuse thread, a phenomenon  which has directly  devastated the lives of tens of thousands  and hundreds of thousands in the family circle. This is where we discuss those issues. Clerical abuse deserves a thread  of its own.
I am not part of an organisation where I would need to be trained to protect children from pedophiles. But I have had plenty of experience with pedophiles in the church and one in particular in the GAA world. Not that I was abused but those close to me.  And yes I am disgusted by pedophile enablers, they are the real cowards, the hypocrites and a moral rot in our society.
You sound a bit sanctimonious to me Iceman.

Do you have issues with a priest being comfortable with his homosexuality?
what would lead you to believe that?

I'm not trying to be sanctimonious at all and you're free to discuss whatever you want. I was just trying to break the circle or the back and forth.  We can talk all day but what are you doing?
Protecting children from pedophiles is always someone else's job? I think it's on all of us. I take responsibility that it happened and I didn't know or didn't see it or read the signs or that we trusted someone so much just because they were a priest... I suspect it happened more and led to the untimely death of another close friend from alcoholism.  That's the thing about being part of the Church, the body of Christ. It's on all of us.
I will always keep myself mentally alert, physically strong and morally straight

johnneycool

Quote from: The Iceman on March 04, 2016, 04:00:52 PM
Quote from: johnneycool on March 04, 2016, 09:25:42 AM
Quote from: Main Street on March 04, 2016, 12:49:47 AM
Though this is  not at all to imply a connection between gay clergy  and the catholic church pedophilia plague and their enablers.
I just find this type of research immensly amusing.

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/07/29/catholic-priests-its-empirical-fact-that-many-clergy-are-gay

Some Catholic clergy say most priests are gay
According to Father James Bretzke, a professor of moral theology at Boston College,.
"It's an empirical fact that lots of men are gay who are priests. And they are very good priests," he says. "I would also observe that the numbers of gay men and women in the church ministry is probably larger than the general population, precisely because they are not seeking marriage."

The notion that many Catholic priests are quietly gay is not new. In the 2000 book "The Changing Face of the Priesthood," Rev. Donald B. Cozzens suggested that the priesthood was increasingly becoming a gay profession. Cozzens estimated that as much as 58 percent of priests were gay, and that percentages were even higher for younger priests. His numbers matched previous estimates by sociologists who put the numbers of gay priests between 10 and 60 percent.

Father Gary Meier, a gay, St. Louis-based Catholic clergymen, says there's a wide range of statistics out there on gay priests, but jokes that in his experience, "30 percent are gay, 30 percent are straight, and 30 percent are in denial."


IMO 'vocations' to the clergy would always have had a high closet gay percentage, I don't find this surprising at all.

Young lad, growing up in rural Ireland, possibly of farming stock, a wee bit effeminate, he'd have been earmarked for the priesthood by his mother early days and dispatched to a seminary as soon as possible.

Its a big thing having a priest in the family in Ireland, well it was in our not too distant past.

And I'm not making a connection between homosexuality and pedophilia, they're two very different things.


then why point it out?
It's funny the PC brigade on here would shoot down anyone else on any other topic for even highlighting someone was gay.... what difference does it make? Can gay men not be called to the Priesthood? Do Gay men not have vocations? Are they different because they are gay?

I have 2 friends currently in seminary - I can tell you they are not gay - one of them was engaged before he "got the call" and the pair of them have had their fair share of girls. Today it is harder than ever to even get in to seminary.  There is a full psych evaluation and many are turned away because the Church is finally taking the time to ensure the calling is real. 

You can't bring homosexuality in to a conversation about clerical abuse (pedophilia) and then say you're not making a connection.....

Like Mainstreet I knew this was the wrong thread for this particular topic which in my mind highlights the hypocrisy of the church on homosexuality when quite a few within it have homosexual tendencies.
As for the vow of celibacy it's a nonsense whether homosexual or heterosexual.

give her dixie

The whole Catholic Church is rotten at the top, at the middle and at the bottom. They have continually failed victims, and still do.

Until everyone connected with cover ups and abuse is sacked then there is no hope.

I only go to church on the rare occasion, for a funeral or an anniversary.

A couple of weeks ago I was at an anniversary mass and I left whenever people started the
"through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault" response.
What are people at fault for? And when did this come into the mass?

The people at fault are the bloody church and the perverted bastards that they allowed to rape and rape
at will wherever they went, and with complete protection from the top.

The new Pope has been full of plenty of talk, but very little action.

There is no hope for the Catholic church as long as they stay in denial about the abuse they carried out on children
all over the world, and the fact that they covered it up and continue to do so.

And anyone who makes excuses for them or blames the children or parents is as guilty as the rapists.

I have a personal experience as a young teenager of an adult taking advantage of me and grooming me.
I had no idea until many years later how wrong it was as back then we never knew the seriousness of sexual abuse
of young boys by adults. I never got to challenge him as he died not long after that.

The only satisfaction or closure I get is that he died a painful death, and every so often I go to his grave and piss on it.
next stop, September 10, for number 4......

T Fearon

Is Margaret Byrne,CEO of Sunderland FC and Armagh native,a paedophile enabler?

imtommygunn

Is that is a like for like comparison  ???

Are waiting for the law to convict and not even telling the law the same thing? Not quite...

T Fearon

She failed to disclose what she knew and allowed a now convicted paedophile to continue his career and earn hundreds of thousands of pounds.

easytiger95

Quote from: T Fearon on March 05, 2016, 02:29:48 PM
She failed to disclose what she knew and allowed a now convicted paedophile to continue his career and earn hundreds of thousands of pounds.

If she is, she is far, far more likely to resign as CEO of a shareholder run company, than a bishop, archbishop or cardinal, as messers Brady and Pell show.