The Roman Catholic Church

[Orfuln]

Following the death of Sinead O'Connor.

Obviously the acts and crimes of this church are vast and can't be contained to one place. But in honour of a great woman, if you find it in yourself, give your testimony here.

Mine : my father was institutionalised, brutalised and brainwashed in childhood by the Catholic organisation who schooled him following the death of his father. He was an unhappy and violent man who didn't understand family relationships and consequently my own childhood was blighted with violence and misery. I did however learn my catechism very well. I now absolutely reject it.

I find it interesting that you have to ask which ones in particular.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but the Catholic Church played a VERY large role in the attempted genocide of Indigenous people in Canada.

I’m still waiting for someone to be arrested, but much in the same way that I buy lottery tickets. Nice to dream about, unlikely to ever happen.

And they were pretty helpful to Nazi Germany in the 1940s, Franco in the 1950s and many more.
While I know some individual nuns and priests bravely helped fight fascism the Catholic Church as an institution was complicit

Plenty of Catholic priests will give you absolution if you use contraception, it was happening in the 70s let alone now. As a young Catholic woman it wasn't hard to find a priest who was sympathetic.

That isn't exclusive to Christians is it. There are venomous vicious people in all religions and can you believe it even amongst people with no faith.

Hitler, Stalin, PolPot aren't exactly an advert for the kindness of atheists are they.

The common fault seems to be being human rather than any religion.

I don't understand how any woman would feel the need to tell a celibate MAN about this. In fact I think it is creepy. I can imagine the thrill some of those men in dresses in the confession box get when being told of various sins of the flesh.

True enough, but it's nasty when 'christians' do the opposite of what they're taught. There's so much hatred towards non christians, it"s not bloody christian!

Well we don't know what is going on in their minds but we know what's going on in yours.

You can turn to many men for advice a priest/a doctor/a counsellor or many others.

I wouldn't go into a dark box with an anonymous man on the other side of a shutter to get advice though. So why do other women feel it's ok to tell these anonymous men about their sex lives and whatnot?

Creepy as F.

You're seeking absolution, not looking for advice, if you're going to confession. If you're not an adherent of the religion in question, there's no reason why you would find it in any way comprehensible, just I personally don't get why some Muslim women wear hijabs, or why a Buddhist I met recently was leaving a place she'd loved and lived for many years because she had become 'too attached' to it, and it was impeding her spiritual progress. But I'm not required to 'feel it's OK', as I'm neither a Muslim nor a Buddhist. Nor, these days, a Catholic, but I grew up in a very devout environment.

My post was in response to a pp who suggested that I can get "advice" from men in other categories, counsellor, doctor and so on. My reply was to point out the difference between meeting an advisor face to face, and going to a hidden away anonymous man in a confession box. That's all.

I was born a Catholic but have no time for organised religion now. I will admit to saying things like Oh my God, Oh Jesus, and I do ask St. Anthony to help me find things! It is what I was brought up to do in my formative years when I could not openly rebel. Those were the days, happily no longer the case.

I think when discussing RCC now it's important to debate as it is today, not historically. Go back far enough and every religion and empire could be dismissed as evil / violent etc. From an Irish perspective I can see why RCC ruled politics at the time of independence, because however harsh it was it was a hell of a lot better than the colonial British rule. For the most part you just had to live by the rules, the church didn't turn people out of their homes or quietly watch 1 million people die of starvation while exporting all the food for profit. I don't want to be political here, I'm just saying we need to keep our judgment to recent times or else we would all be filled with hate for each other (and I wouldn't be having an interesting debate with you good people!).

That said, the abuse scandal IS recent past and from what @ChubbyMorticia says the Canadian indigenous scandals are too. These crimes and wrongs need to be fully acknowledged and apologised for and every effort made to bring justice against the perpetrators. I cannot understand why this isn't happening and why they don't reform re marriage and homosexuality. They have reformed in practice (maybe not in principle) on other issues like contraception and welcoming other religions so why not reform officially. Someone like me and my family (and many friends) would happily continue with the church if they could just make this step it's so frustrating and makes me lose more respect with every passing year.

I am atheist and not a fan of religions in general but I blame the governments that handed over control of orphanages to the church because it was the cheap option. And it was cheap because the children were barely fed and often provided free labour. In countries like Canada and Australia taking children from indigenous communities was government policy, governments that were voted in by people. Human life is cheap in poor countries and society in general didn't give a shit what happened to those kids, or the fallen women who produced them.

Yes @Deadringer - this is what I don’t understand.

Sometimes, I think religion to the secular world means that we don’t have to be given the same resources as everyone else. We are supposed to just get on with it under the myth that we are wealthy because the Church is but within that system, the money flows to the same people who dominate.

Why can't it be the fault of the government who made the policy and send the children there and the churches who ran the school where so many children died and they attempted to eradicate their culture and language. Hence why the Catholic Church apologised. Eventually.

Are you trying to justify what happened in these schools due to lack of money?

I absolutely do blame the church, and the wicked people they employed who abused vulnerable children, and the fact that they covered it all up, but I also blame the various governments, and the people in society who were very happy for 'fallen' women to be hidden away, and for little children to be mistreated, and not give them a second thought. Ordinary people did that, not all of them religious or even catholics, they gave up their daughters often because they couldn't stand the embarrassment. Yes the church was very powerful, but it was ordinary people who gave them that power in the first place.

@killthekoroks

Are you trying to justify what happened in these schools due to lack of money

the fact that you jumped to that ridiculous conclusion says a lot about you.

Yes the church was very powerful, but it was ordinary people who gave them that power in the first place.

Because they were told they would be going to to hell otherwise.

my paternal grandmother who had to put her two out of wedlock children up for adoption and died not knowing what happened to them. all because of the church.

Mumsnet, could you pm me to tell me why my reply was deleted please?

Women who had illegitimate children could keep their children if they had support. Many had families who would not support them and if the state didn't support them they didn't have many choices. I'm not sure why that is the fault of the church.

Very true and the proof is that not all illegitimate children were put in home or adopted. Generally they avoided that because their families did not turn their backs on them.

Shame on the parents who cast aside their own child and their grandchild.