to wonder how one could still be a member of the Catholic Church

[winkywinkola]

or any church that has a history of such utter cruelty?

I'm just listening to Radio 4's programme on the mass graves found in Ireland.

I read today that the Pope made some unofficial mention of 2% of priests being paedophiles. So what?

Is there any other institution that constantly ducks and dives to avoid responsibility for the sheer brutality of its actions?

I am aghast.

My sil is ardently Catholic. She and her dd go to church 4 times at the weekend. I've never discussed this with her but I am keen to know how modern Catholics - or those of other religions - reconcile their religion with such seemingly cruel institution.

Provocative? Perhaps.

The collective responsibility for those babies that died in Galway is massive. There is plenty of blame and shame to go around, for that particular mix of social conservatism and material deprivation.

Yes, Squoosh as you already know, it's more liberal and progressive in the Republic now than in the North...

ApocalypseThen There might well have been death certificates but how do we know that the true reasons for death were on them? There was no famine at the time. What documentary are you talking about?

Seemingly the facts under discussion were culled from a BBC documentary.

I know there was no famine at the time, but the time period under discussion started less than 60 years after the end of a famine which caused massive social upheaval. I think it's not widely acknowledged, but it was on the scale of the Ethiopian famine in the 1980s. These events aren't just over when they're over.

As to how we know whether the death certs are accurate, on what do you base your doubt?

These events aren't just over when they're over.
Yes, and the conditions were created not just by the Catholic Church, but by the government of the time and of the years before. I think we have to keep in mind, too, things like the "soupers" - Protestant 'relief agencies' that made the rejection of one's faith a condition of material help - of food - to babies and children.

Censure of unmarried mothers and maltreatmeny of their children was not was not only prevalent in the catholic religion and its institutions, nor did it only occur in Ireland.

ApocalypseThen I haven't expressed doubt as such but with all the withholding of this or that information being swept under the carpet, couldn't the information (death certificates) out there for the public to see be false? If there are death certificates, there must be birth certificates. Where are they?

The programme the OP was talking about was a half hour on Radio 4 last night at 9.00pm called (I think) Face the Facts.

I don't think it's accurate to say the information was withheld.

I suppose I used tautology. Isn't 'withholding information' the same as 'being swept under the carpet'?

I suppose what you're trying to say was that there was a coordinated and planned effort to prevent people from knowing, or to obscure the facts. I don't think this is true.

Quick answer to the question: how could one still be Catholic?

If you are Catholic you believe that your soul, your communion with God and your eternal reward are dependent on sacraments, which are dispensed by priests and bishops who have received the power to perform these on an apostolic line directly from Jesus and his original apostles. If you cut this link by leaving the church and no longer receiving communion, etc, there is no substitute. You basically have to put up with what you insist on seeing as "a few bad apples" (rather than a systemic, intrinsic problem) because it's like being medically dependent on a prescription that only certain people have the power to dispense.

I just wanted to point that out because many other kinds of Christian, in churches which do not emphasise sacraments in this way, don't realise that for Catholics, you can't pick and choose stylistically, you can't just decide to go to a nicer church with better singing. Only the Catholics deliver the real deal of the eucharist. So you aren't displaying any endorsement by going to Mass, you're just stuck with it.

It would be unusual if this hadn't happened surely, in fact it is the default to covering up abuse, crime or fault that has damned the church institutions so thoroughly. This has happened from the Vatican down and from the parish priest up, move the offender, burn the records, deny or avoid as long as possible.

I understand why people would stay within the church to change it from the inside. I understand why they can't leave their faith.

I don't for a second understand why some Catholics seek mitigating factors that normalise the institutionalised abuses carried out in the name of the church. That other institutions have problems too, that paedophiles have exploited lots of jobs with contact with children all this may be true but it doesn't make the Catholic Church any better. The institution has covered and caused abuse, it has protected paedophiles.

I don't get why they can't see the institution still scorns women and their vulnerable babies and that until they support contraception within the 3rd world they carry responsibility for awful suffering.

I am another very lapsed Catholic for the same reasons as many other PP's have cited.

This article makes it clear that local peoplein Tuam knew about these deaths for a long time - since the 1970s when the grave was discovered. It is only know hitting the news because of the tenacity of a local campaigner. The Catholic Church has behaved appallingly. I have also seen the film Philomena - Catholic those nuns may have been, but I don't think they had a shred of Christian (in the wider sense of the word) blood in their veins.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/04/children-galway-mass-graves-ireland-catholic-church

Sorry about typos!

Vacillating, no one on this thread (I am prepared to be corrected on tis if I have missed or forgotten a post) has said anything in defense of the Church's actions or inactions.
The question that we have been exploring is how (some) Catholics choose to maintain their faith in the light of those undisputed facts.
I offer no "mitigating factors" (I don't think pointing out that would-be abusers are inclined to seek positions where they can abuse offers any absolution of the Church as the employer) for the wrongdoing of the institution which claims to represent me. I think however that it is important to contextualize people's response.

I have seen the film Maurice, but I don't wonder how people manage to remain Protestant.

It would be unusual if this hadn't happened surely, in fact it is the default to covering up abuse, crime or fault that has damned the church institutions so thoroughly. This has happened from the Vatican down and from the parish priest up, move the offender, burn the records, deny or avoid as long as possible.

I think that possibly people are working from a different mindset. To the best of my knowledge, that children died in places such as these wouldn't have been a secret to cover up - just as everyone knew that people died in workhouses, everyone knew that children died in these homes. And at rates that weren't always vastly disproportionate to the general population, where malnutrition, overcrowding, poor sanitation and inadequate healthcare were facts of life.

I'm quite surprised that anyone who paused for a moment would think this is something where there'd be a Vatican-level coverup.

To the best of my knowledge, that children died in places such as these wouldn't have been a secret to cover up - just as everyone knew that people died in workhouses, everyone knew that children died in these homes.

Yes. Everyone in Ireland has known for years that this happened. This is the latest (and a large scale variation) in a long history of such revelations. That doesn't mean these are to be minimised - quite the opposite - but as squoosh said earlier, these are issues which the Irish Catholic laity have been engaged with for a long time.

This is more of a surprise to those outside of Ireland than those within, and there is definitely an understandable but knee-jerk revulsion to the story. There is also a tendency to conflate related but different incidents, as can be seen on this thread.

As Squoosh said, it was a societal problem. The families of those pregnant girls totally rejected them as did relatives and friends, and it was left to religious institutions to take them in. Yes, many of those working in those institutions behaved abhorrently but so did many of those who left their pregnant daughters/sisters/nieces/neighbours etc with nowhere else to go; and the society which had some inklings of how those places were being run and turned a blind eye.

Brdgrl my post wasn't a pa engagement with catholic posters on this thread. I haven't said anyone here is minimising catholic abuses. I said I don't understand how Catholics can do this though I do understand how Catholics cannot leave their faith and can want change from within.

Apocalypse I didn't say that the most recent deaths were part of a Vatican cover up but rather that the impulse to cover abuse up has been systematised through all levels of the church from priest to Vatican. It is no surprise that people suspect cover ups and there will often be elements of cover ups as has been shown in handing of adoption, paedophile priests, mother and baby homes...

I do think seeing the abuses as historic and due to social and cultural conditions minimises church responsibility for creating those conditions. I do judge a modern multimillion/billion pound institution ( the Vatican)for not dealing with historic and contemporary abuses in a more rigorous manner. I am sure many Catholics do too.

The Irish posters on this thread are being incredibly patient in response to some very rude comments such as, 'I'm glad I don't live over there.'

I've driven through Galway many times and there are visible reminders of death in the more remote parts - abandoned crofts and famine roads. It's clear to see how a mass grave could be assumed to be a famine grave when first discovered.

"The BBC does not lecture people on their morality and behaviour"

Unless you are a benefit claimant that is.

Didn't Angus Deayton get the sack from Have I Got News For You after a newspaper expose.!!!!

I was brought up catholic like I said upthread. And believe me the way girls and women were/are treated in Italian families were just as bad. So some of us outside Ireland understand what was going on. Or are shocked but not surprised.

I haven't RTFT as I have no wish to be depressed but there are few things to be considered here ( hopefully by an independent enquiry)

what was the death rate in the homes? How did it differ from the general population? How did it differ from other mother & baby homes (workhouses)?

How were the homes funded? Did they recieve any money from the state? How was medical care provided & funded?

What would have become of the mothers and babies had they not been taken in by the homes?

How were burials funded? How was burial ground acquired / provided? Was there state assistance for burial?
Was it a case of pay for decent burials or pay for food for children still alive.

All of these issues need addressed and then we can judge the catholic church on how they performed but the fact that Enda Kenny made a statement in the parliment announcing an enquiry and blaming the catholic church at the same time does not give much hope for an independent enquiry. He has already decided who is at fault.

In my case i believe broadly in the teachings and individual priests/parishes but not in the church as a whole, my brother is training to be a priest and threads like this make me really sad, especially as there is no excuse for things that have happened.