... to Protest the Pope?

[stubbornhubby]

A friend of mine told me at the weekend that this will make me an extremist...anyway we had a long thread about this in July and a few people said they'd be keen, like me, to wave a banner as he parades around the country.

There's a big march in London on Sat 18th, Hyde park Corner @ 1.30pm
details here
www.protest-the-pope.org.uk/

Also, if you live in SW London, a Small demo in Strawberry Hill on Fri 17th @9am. (NB official visti website says you will not be able to see the pope arrriving/departing SMUC - I think he must be using helicopter. Or apparating )

xstitch, the road closures are partly because of protesters but also partly because of terrorist threat and also because of the huge numbers of Catholics who will be gathering to see him so please don't say that the protesters have caused roads to be closed - they would be closed anyway for a head of state visit.

like many others on this thread, I am not anti-Catholic but I am anti- this Pope. I too do not really mind what people believe in, but this Pope's teachings have put people at risk. Not just the paedophilia cover-ups which are on such a scale as to be completely institutional, but also the continued teaching that condoms do not prevent AIDS, that all contraception is bad, which is causing death and staggering poverty in developing countries. If he had any genuine Christian concern for human suffering, he would have addressed these things - the fact that he hasn't shows him to be callous and unfeeling towards exactly those people who revere him the most. It is abuse of power on a gross scale. It's a bloody outrage that he has come here and if I were able to be in London this weekend I'd be on the streets protesting.

I think that xstich believes that had there been no talk of protests, Ratinger would just have got a taxi to the park (if he could find one: this is the third world, after all) and there would have been no disruption at all. It's all the fault of those nasty protestors, and without those, you can organise a mass for -120000- -10000- -80000- 60000 people with no infrastructure, no road closures and no inconvenience.

In other news, Glastonbury festival just happens, they don't need to close any roads and the neighbours don't get affected.

static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/9/16/1284620364060/caution.jpg

We're constantly told that the Catholic Church doesn't approve of child abuse, and in some way tries to show this in its actions. Let's take a concrete example: Eric Taylor. He was jailed in April 1997 for the rape and abuse of boys as young as six, over the course of many years, while he worked at a Catholic orphanage. The nuns who knew, but beat children who complained, were not prosecuted: it is to be hoped that they cannot sleep, although I suspect that they simply don't care.

He was jailed for seven years.

Non-Catholics might think that being jailed for raping children was a bad thing, and that after being convicted there was no need to agonise too much as to if an imprisoned child rapist was a good role model to serve as a priest. But not for Catholics: it's all a lot more complicated than that, and it's important to understand that raping six year olds may in fact be something that is entirely compatible with being a priest. There's two sides to every story, as people have reminded us.

So, with the church springing into rapid action to show its abhorrence of child abuse, Taylor remained a priest for the following four years. He was finally removed as a priest in February 2001, shortly before he died in jail. It is to be hoped he died screaming. He had been the priest at a colleague of mine's church, who had reported Taylor's attitude towards children to the church in the 1990s; he was, of course, fobbed off. My colleague withdrew his children to protect them. Others didn't, and it is believed Taylor continued abusing children throughout his career.

I wonder what happened during that four years? Why isn't a conviction for brutal child abuse sufficient to at least see a priest suspended from his office? Or was it just that the church didn't like admitting that it had provided a life-time supply of victims to an abuser, and nuns, bishops and others had stood by while it happened, preferring to sacrifice children to the good name of the church?

Mario Conti, now a prominent member of the Catholic Church hierarchy, was a very new, young curate when he first came to Aberdeen while I was in Nazareth House many years ago.
At that time, also arrived young nun, Sister Alphonso.
A few years ago, Sister Alphonso was brought t trial in Aberden Sheriff Court and was found guilty of 'cruel and unnatural treatment of the children in her care.'
What happened? Did she get a sentence? Not a bit of it. She was allowed to go free because suddenly, she had a heart problem and had 'suffered enough' in the words of Bishop Mario Conti, whose take on the whole scenario was that he supported her and that children were always administered physical punishment in that era.

Being force fed food which was already days old and then being made to eat the vomit when it couldn't be kept down.
Being put in a bath of freezing cold water containing Jeyes Fluid because someone had wet the bed.
Having to stand outside a nun's room with urine soaked sheets over a child's head for hours and hours with the cracks in the floorboards marking their little knees until they bled.
Knicker inspection. Standing in a line while one of the nuns inspected your knickers to see if they had any marks - if so, a beating with a wooden coat hanger or the back of a wooden hairbrush was the order of the day, and having to wear the knickers on your head for the rest of the day.

Being placed in the crypt or having to sit in the church all night when one of the elderly nuns died and kiss their face.
Psychological abuse would consist of being told 'You are here because your mother is a whore' - 5 years old and no idea what the word 'whore' meant.
There is no point in telling because you won't be believed.
Long absences from school were not questioned. We stayed home until the bruises healed.
Being lifted up literally by the ears until you lost consciousness.
While in Nazareth House Kilmarnock for a short period of time, the third finger of my left hand was deliberately shut in the hinge of a door - it nearly took my finger off. No medical treatment, even though Kilmarnock Infirmary was nearby and we also had our own infirmary in the home.
In 15 years in care, I saw a social worker [then Children's Officers] once.
A web of secrecy which engulfed teachers, police officers, doctors, but at the heart of it, the Catholic Churc, rotten to the core and not much different now.
But, hey, according to Mr. Conti, everyone did it - it was normal practise in the family.

Does anyone remember Sinead O'Connor tearing up a picture of the pope in the 1990s, over child abuse. She was one of the first to make a public stand.

She was widely ridiculed and shunned, and booed at her concerts.

we have come a long way since then.

To all you speaking out against child abuse try posting a topic about this and see how far you get
Peadophile gangs in the North are a big problem
These men groom young girls from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds. A case in the local paper last years mentioned how they threatened to burn the childs house down if she told anybody
They also bribe the children with drugs and alcohol

jesus marjorie. I am so, so sorry for all you went through . I was hit regulalry by nuns at my school, if 5 year olds 'misbehaved' or wet their pants, the nuns made the girls dress like boys and the boys dress like girls and be paraded around the school to be laughed at for the day, when I asked too many questions, one nun would pick me up by the ears and shake me until my head rattled. I got off very, very easily I think. I knew boys who were sexually assaulted at both the schools I went to. Didn't know at the time but it's all come out since and neither rapist was defrocked. It beggars belief.

Marjoriew, I'm so sorry for what you and your friends went through - it's vile, just unbearable.

I've got to work today, so can't afford to get caught up in this, but FFS XSTITCH ET AL arguing the 'protests put people at risk' line. Lucky for us that Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Sylvia Pankhurst and Gandi didn't think that way, eh?

Bloody stupid argument.

xstitch - Maybe you should let the Pope know about your objections to the disruption his visit is causing?

marjoriew your experiences are so shocking, it is unbearable as Rosebud says. I am so and that anyone could knowingly make little children suffer in so much and in such a systematic way. The cover-up is the absolute icing on the cake though, for a religion that is meant to protect and cherish the vulnerable and weak to do the exact opposite, it is pure evil IMO.

All the arguments on here about 'oh well abuse happens in schools and in other countries as well you know' - everyone knows that abuse is not limited to the Catholic church, but even the church itself estimates that up to 5% of its clergy have been involved at some time - other estimates put it as high as 9%. And the extent of the abuse, though horrific, in a way is a red herring. The real issue is the way in which the church and Ratzinger in particular have been covering their arses and hiding the evidence for decades - it's absolutely breathtaking and IMO amounts to a serious criminal offence for which he should be tried in a court of law. Disgraceful. And I know that many Catholics agree with me.

ISN'T I'm slightly shocked by the fact you seem to need my to personally say 'sorry' for what happened to Majoriew as if I am somehow responsible for something which happened over 30 years before I was even born in a place I have never been to

Do I also say sorry to the little boy next door my sister kicked when she was 3 and I was 5? No. There is a difference between sympathy, which I have for anyone who was abused, and an apology for something I have personally done.

You seem to want to force me to somehow ackwoledge my guilt as if all Catholics are somehow jointly responsible for the actions of a few which took place a generation before they were actually born.

What happened to marjorie is appalling and i'm sure that the scars will stay with her for the rest of her life. I know if it was me it would.
However, it think that many posters on here, and in fact people in general who are anti catholic in particular, want all catholics to carry a collective guilt because of admitedly
vile abuses of power that took place in the church. It's a bit like asking british citezens to renounce their citzenship because of the abuses that were inflicted on countries which were invaded, and 'raped' during colonisation.
I've noticed on here,and in the media in general there is a nasty undercurrent of anti-cathoticism dressed up as pluralist liveralism.
I think it's hideous that the real pure horror or what people undoubedly suffered at the hands of the church is being hijacked by those who have an agenda.

StrictlyTory/curryfreak - Asking individual Catholics to take responsibility for actions they were not complicit in is clearly absurd.

Criticising the institution is not. Criticising senior members of the hierarchy who were complicit in covering up abuses is not. Cricitcising it for promoting policies that cause harm is not. Criticising Catholics for continuing to support the institution despite these things is not.

The current government is not the one that was responsible for colonisation.

The current Catholic administration does still include those complicit in covering up /mishandling the sex abuse scandal, and continues to promote policies that cause harm.

I don't think that anybody wants all Catholics to carry a collective guilt. Nobody has said that, in fact it's the first time I've seen it suggested. I want all Catholics to face up to this, to stop making excuses for what has happened and to stop focusing on aspects of the debate which are merely there to deflect attention from the really shocking things that have gone on. It is merely avoidance and by default colusion of the highest order. A good example was the response of the Archbishop this morning on the Today programme when asked did he understand why British people were so concerned about recent revelations and did he understand why people wanted to protest? His answer: the church has been on a ?painful? learning curve and procedures now in place were as strict as they could be in terms of the protection of children within Catholic institutions. Where does one begin? Who needs a ?learning curve? to teach them how to cooperate with the law, to turn child rapists over the police, and to stop moving paedophiles to new parishes so that they can reoffend? There may have been an argument for this in the 19th or even the early 20th century when these issues were barely publicly discussed. But who on earth needed time or a ?learning curve?, over the last 30 or 40 years to work this out? There is no need for most people for a ?learning curve?. It?s just wrong to protect these people, to pay hush money to victims, to fail to defrock them etc... And really, should we now congratulate you for having the strict procedures in place? That?s both normal and too little too late. It does not and cannot make up for the terrible wrongs that have been perpetrated at an institutional level. But of corse, making these points is a nice way of not dealing with the central issues.

And reading Marjorie?s experiences should remind us that the level of non-sexual abuse that went on has hardly been touched upon. That is a whole other shocking chapter which is unfolding. It?s also worth remembering that many of the paedophile priests who were moved away from where they abused in the first world were sent to Africa and Latin America. God only knows what went on/is going on there.

"I don't think that anybody wants all Catholics to carry a collective guilt."

Well, no one other than the Catholic Church, of course...

not to be frivolous but it seems there is some kind of Catholic guilt complex going on here with StrictlyTory and curryfreak who are feeling (I think wrongly) persecuted for the wrongs their church has done.

I do not blame 'Catholics' for what has gone on within the church at all - in fact I think that devout Catholics are the people most in need of our sympathy and support - after all it is their leader who has presided over the cover-up, therefore they are of course much more betrayed than than everyone else, and I think the realities of the abuse and cover-up must be even more shocking to someone who loves and believes in the church. That doesn't mean I can't hate and despise the current administration and the way the church is managed.

www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/sep/15/pope-visit

"Benedict told correspondents on board the plane that paedophilia was an "illness" whose sufferers had lost their free will."

but not surprised

'Jenny, you want us all to 'face up'do you ?

You've just proved my point. I bet you wouldn't speak about muslims or jews in that vein.

Also,the catholic church is the only organisation that has ever perpetrated abuse right?
Quite selective arent we?

I am not advocating persecutring catholics.
I am not advocating hunting down and puniching the pope.

the point is the Pope is her in london at our expense parading up and down the streets of London expecting to be cheered.

In the circs, I am advocating booing.

that's all.

curryfreak - You say you 'bet' that Jenny wouldn't criticise others and then say she is selective.

I think you have to show she is being selective - just 'betting' on it isn't really enough.

Curryfreak's argument seems to be that Catholics are no better than anyone else when it comes to child abuse, and we should complain about other groups as well. I thought the idea of religion was that it had a moral component, and that people of faith believe that their religion makes them better people. But if that's wrong, and they're just as bad as the rest of us, could they please stop lecturing us about morality? You can't have it both ways.

Novicemama - your quote here:
"I do not blame 'Catholics' for what has gone on within the church at all - in fact I think that devout Catholics are the people most in need of our sympathy and support - after all it is their leader who has presided over the cover-up, therefore they are of course much more betrayed than than everyone else"

Surely you don't mean this, do you?

The people who have been most betrayed, the people most in need of sympathy and support are the child victims involved .

Curry I can't speak for Jenny, but if there is a similar systemic child abuse scandal going on in the Muslim world, or the Jewish community, or anywhere else, then absolutely YES I think they should face up to it, as a whole community, and take the necessary steps to deal with it.

I would have thought that was a no-brainer tbh.