Current cleric report spiked?

[Bronte]

Brady won't resign and he shouldn't. He acted fully within canon law

So to take this further, and I'm not at all sure he acted within canon law, if he acted within canon law and did nothing wrong and this was to happen today to one of our children and Brady does nothing but hold a meeting with our 14 year old child, without our presence, and ask our child the most obscene questions I've heard of being asked an innocent 14 year old (I cannot read the all of the report as the questions alone make me sick - but I will get around to it) and then does nothing that's all right then, because that is actually what you are saying. And if you're saying that, well then all members of the organisation are negligent and culpable in the cover up by being part of it and it is a totally immoral and corrupt organisation. We are talking about he rape of many many innocent children, a most heinous crime if ever there was one. The defense of cannon law you see as a correct defense to allowing a paedophile carry on. What kind of Church is that.

I'm not religious but one think for sure, This post will be deleted if not edited immediately Christ didn't think like that.

 

[Bronte]

Can any poster just make statements like this without being checked?

Well now we have report after report of Roman catholic priests and what they did and plenty of convictions, off the top of my head I don't recall one, not one Protestant clergyman. In addition the Roman catholic that bastion of care and concern for children are actually in charge of most schools in the country.

 

[Sunny]

Well now we have report after report of Roman catholic priests and what they did and plenty of convictions, off the top of my head I don't recall one, not one Protestant clergyman. In addition the Roman catholic that bastion of care and concern for children are actually in charge of most schools in the country.

Search other Countries.

 

[truthseeker]

Well now we have report after report of Roman catholic priests and what they did and plenty of convictions, off the top of my head I don't recall one, not one Protestant clergyman. In addition the Roman catholic that bastion of care and concern for children are actually in charge of most schools in the country.

Bronte - you have missed my last post:
According to studies, child abuse is more common among Protestant ministers:
http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showpost.php?p=1261970&postcount=120

 

[Complainer]

Re boards of management, in the case of the niece above and the awful experience, parent was a member of the parents association (or whatever it's called).

Just to clarify - the Board of Management and the Parents Association are very different things. The Board of Management are the Board of the school - they are the legal Board of the school, and are responsible for setting school policies etc. The Parents Association usually help out with fundraising and other events. A good Parents Association can also act as a channel of communications to the school (principal or Board of Management or both), but has no real power itself.

 

[Purple]

Just to clarify - the Board of Management and the Parents Association are very different things. The Board of Management are the Board of the school - they are the legal Board of the school, and are responsible for setting school policies etc. The Parents Association usually help out with fundraising and other events. A good Parents Association can also act as a channel of communications to the school (principal or Board of Management or both), but has no real power itself.

Yea, but in many schools the principle and the parish priest run the show.

 

[oldnick]

Truthseeker -what an inappropriate name you have !

As an atheist I have no compunction about decrying clergy of any religion.
And it's not because I'm a Protestant atheist that I doubt the veracity of your statement that Protestant ministers abused children more than RC priests.

As you surely must know, the recent debate on RC clerical child abuse is not the abuse per se but how that it has been hidden/covered up by the RC church. We are hearing daily how the power, the hold of the RC church over most of its flock was such that even when a case of abuse was reported to authorities, press and even parents it was hushed up.

It may well be the case - as your quoted source states - that up to 1.7% of RC priests were found guilty of child abuse cf to 10 % of Protestant clergy. To me, (and yes I'm prejudiced against RC clergy), that suggests that for every Catholic priest actually found guilty there were many more who committed abuse . And,above all, many more senior clerics who covered it up.

Protestant churches, of which there are many different sects, had far less control or sway over their members in the same period the study was made 1970-1997. So, if the local, usually married, vicar buggered a choirboy I suspect -with no proof on my part - that he would be far less likely to get away with it than Father O'Reilly.

I repeat that these are my prejudiced feelings - and perhaps I'm wrong. So, perhaps I should be the "truthseeker" and learn a bit more.

 

[Purple]

Yes, it's about the cover up.
Let's not get into a debate about which type of Christianity is worst/best; to me it's all just mumbo-jumbo, let's just say that Catholics do control better and Protestants win the prize both both the most bigoted and the least bigoted (Free presbitarian & COI). Yes, it's a mixed bag.

 

[oldnick]

Purple. You are being absolutely sensible. I'm being emotional. So forgive me continuing my rant...

Mr Phillip Jenkins, author of the report which purports to claim that 10% of Protestant clergy were guilty of child abuse , is quoted on many sites as stating " i have no idea where this figure of ten percent comes from..... I would very much doubt that the figure is a fraction of one percent"

I seems that someone once claimed this unbelievable figure was in the report and it has been often repeated -as it has been on AAM by Sunny and then Truthseeker.

Yes, Purple you're right. All priests espouse mumbo-jumbo, but I believe that the most evil of the lot in this country are the Roman Catholic ones. And yet they have so much power here right down to controlling our childrens education.

I usually combat my dislike of them with attempts at humour in my posts. Not tonight.

 

[Latrade]

So to take this further, and I'm not at all sure he acted within canon law, if he acted within canon law and did nothing wrong and this was to happen today to one of our children and Brady does nothing but hold a meeting with our 14 year old child, without our presence, and ask our child the most obscene questions I've heard of being asked an innocent 14 year old (I cannot read the all of the report as the questions alone make me sick - but I will get around to it) and then does nothing that's all right then, because that is actually what you are saying. And if you're saying that, well then all members of the organisation are negligent and culpable in the cover up by being part of it and it is a totally immoral and corrupt organisation. We are talking about he rape of many many innocent children, a most heinous crime if ever there was one. The defense of cannon law you see as a correct defense to allowing a paedophile carry on. What kind of Church is that.

I'm not religious but one think for sure, This post will be deleted if not edited immediately Christ didn't think like that.

And the bolded text is exactly my point. If you signed up or were inculcated or chose to believe in the Catholic version of Christianity then you signed up for canon law and you have to understand that Brady has done nothing wrong. Simply because the Pope says so. I don't for one second say I support that or agree with it, just that if you are a Catholic, you have agreed the Church and the Pope are essentially above the state law and operating under a different authority.

If, as a Catholic, that makes you angry or upset (don't get me wrong I am sickened with anger), then you have to understand that this wrong (the treatment and handling of the abuse, not the abuse itself) is at the core of the faith and stems from a series of individuals who directly interpret God's word.

It is then simple; if you disagree with that and other interpretations of God's will, then Catholicism isn't the faith for you. Christianity may be in general, but the Catholic version possibly not. Calls for modernisation and liberalisation of the RC Church are misguided, there can be no such thing as a moderate church (and that goes for all the Abrahamic faiths), the bible as a whole doesn't have that flexibility. So you're either in with all the nasty, hateful stuff alongside the nicer stuff and talking donkeys or you're not.

As an apathetic atheist, I'd disagree with Oldnick, I don't think any one faith is more or less evil than another. I don't think one group of humans with a centralised source of authority and lack of accountability is more or less evil than any other. They've all done their good and they've all done their bad.

As to the abuse figures in the report, I call bull on it simply because there's no indication where they came from and because no other study seems to refer or use them.

 

[Sunny]

Mr Phillip Jenkins, author of the report which purports to claim that 10% of Protestant clergy were guilty of child abuse , is quoted on many sites as stating " i have no idea where this figure of ten percent comes from..... I would very much doubt that the figure is a fraction of one percent"

I seems that someone once claimed this unbelievable figure was in the report and it has been often repeated -as it has been on AAM by Sunny and then Truthseeker.

Where did I repeat the figure? It is probably as ridiculous as your claim that the average Roman Catholic Priest is a child rapist. I simply said that while Ireland may not have had the same levels of child abuse stories amoung Protestant clergy, the same cannot be said in other Countries are have the Protestant Religion as their main religion. By the way, I have no time for religion full stop. I just don't believe in tarring every priest with the same brush just because of the actions of a few and because of the actions of their superiors and organisation. It's like saying every Islamic Preacher is a terrorist or supports terrorism.

Kevin Reynolds shows the dangers of presuming the worst of everyone because of the actions of a few.

 

[Latrade]

I just don't believe in tarring every priest with the same brush just because of the actions of a few and because of the actions of their superiors and organisation. It's like saying every Islamic Preacher is a terrorist or supports terrorism.

Kevin Reynolds shows the dangers of presuming the worst of everyone because of the actions of a few.

It's fair to tar a priest, rabbi or whoever when they don't act to stop or uncover the acts when they have knowledge or when their faith is used to justify it.

What we also learned from Kevin Reynolds is that if you're wrongly accused by RTE of certain acts you will be compensated €200K+. If you're an actual victim of abuse and lifelong suffering, you will be compensated €65K and have had the vast majority of your life as a pariah and being called a liar.

I know from previous discussion you aren't defending a Church or even supporting RC over any other faith, the only thing I disagree on is that there just aren't enough from the Church speaking out against how it has been handled. They either agree with the handling, don't care enough to speak out or put their positions and careers ahead of their moral voice.

 

[Purple]

I have always found it ironic that a Church that extols the virtue of martyrs, people who died because they were not willing to sacrifice their principles, is so willing to sacrifice so many innocent lives in order to protect its institutions. I’m not talking about fanciful stories of Daniel in the lion’s den, I’m talking about men like Maximilian Colby. His faith and example are in complete contrast to the current Pope (the man who was in charge of the cover-up internationally before he became Pope) and most of the current hierarchy of the RC Church.
Maybe dying for your faith is more important than “doing onto others as you would wish to be done onto you” or “loving your neighbour as yourself”. I forget who said those words but he mustn’t have been that important as Christianity has ignored him for most of the last two thousand years.

 

[oldnick]

Sunny -a thousand pardons for missquoting you.
I was referring to Truthseekers reference to post 120 which first contained the comments about Protestant minsiters.Your comments were in there but made no such reference. Very sorry. The calumny was entirely from one person.

I generally agree with your comments that one shouldn't tar everyone with the same brush, though I'm having difficulty with RC priests. It's not so much that RC priests are all child abusers -of course they're not and I've never said it.
It's the RC Church's cover-up and virtual protection of the child-abusers that sickens me.
And as long as the "good" RC priests to carry on in that Church as if nothing has happened then whatver good deeds they may perform they will be tarred with the same brush.

 

[Liamos]

Why is it that most of the people on here are atheists who couldn't care less about the Church and religion, but just can't stop talking about it?

 

[Purple]

Why is it that most of the people on here are atheists who couldn't care less about the Church and religion, but just can't stop talking about it?

Because they are an influential international organisation that instructed Irish citizens to give pre-eminence to the laws of a foreign state over the laws of this country in an effort to cover-up the rape of children and in doing so facilitated the rapists ad abusers in continuing their actions for decades more.
I have a great deal of time for most of the priests I know; they are torn apart by the conflicting forces of what’s right and what their Church tells them to do. I consider the Vatican as a hostile state and would very much welcome it if we, Ireland, broke off diplomatic relations with them until such time as the Pope was extradited to Ireland to face criminal charges (with his minions) for perverting the course of justice.

 

[Latrade]

Why is it that most of the people on here are atheists who couldn't care less about the Church and religion, but just can't stop talking about it?

Pretty much what Purple says. Give me a State where a religion doesn't have such influence directly and indirectly and we'll stop going on about it. Whether it's the "ethics" committee of a hospital, education, or even the level of influence that has to have gone into politicians and gardai to cover up child abuse, it's one set of beliefs having an undue influence and harm on my life and my family's.

If Church policy didn't affect me or those who didn't want to be influenced by it, then I'd happily not talk about it.

The more important question is in light of all the revelations about Church conduct, why don't more religious people talk about it, or is silent acceptance endemic in the faithful masses as well as the clergy?