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AIBU?

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Original poster

stopping my kids going to a Catholic Church

576 replies

jennyslinger · 17/03/2010 22:57

I know religion is contentious so I'd like to say up front that I am a confirmed atheist and my DH is a confirmed catholic. This is not about the rights or wrongs of believing in god.

DH wants DS and DD (when she's 4yo) to go to our local Cathocis church to attend sunday school and get involved with other church activities.

I have read so much over the last few years about the child abuse cover-up in the Catholic Church. For this reason I have told DH and his family that the kids will not be going.

DH says I am fussing over nothing.

I asked DH he knew a nursery had covered up child abuse would he be happy with the kids going. He says this is not the same.

Am I being unreasonable?

OP posts:
giveitago · 18/03/2010 18:42

Oh just reading a bit where the OP is worried about abuse.

Well if you don't want your kids baptised in the catholic faith then fine - if it a question of abuse I'd say yeah - well - it can happen anywhere.

I'd never worry about my ds in a catholic setting as I'd be there the entire time.

BitOfFun · 18/03/2010 18:43

Lenin- would that be in your role as the biggest...?

seeker · 18/03/2010 18:44

LeninGrad - STOP! I should have left the thread as soon as I saw her name but I couldn't help myself. Save yourself - run, run like the wind before it's too late!

giveitago · 18/03/2010 18:59

Jenny - read a bit more - you're not a fan of catholics 0 then fine - just block your kids from any parental introduction and then kids can make up their own minds.

I'm not keen either but not for abuse etc as it can happen anywhere and anytime. I'm not keen as I'm a spiritual person and not for dogma and the fact that the catholic side of the family have done zero and the church hasbn't been welcoming. That's it really.

tapeworm · 18/03/2010 19:27

"So there are no rules then? And its ok just to believe what you will?"

There is the Catechism of the Catholic Church which is a summary of the official teaching but when push comes to shove if you don't believe a particular teaching then you don't believe it. You can?t be made to believe it. Apart from the fundamental believe as summarised in the creed (if you didn't believe in the creed then it would be unlikely that you would want to be a practicing Catholic) then there is a large scope for interpretation and individual conscience. The sticking points for most people are the 'moral murder' type questions regarding assisted suicide and abortion rather than if its ok to eat a biscuit before communion or should you be wearing a hat. It may seem bonkers to you but I'm on the inside looking out and it would seem far more bonkers to blindly follow the CCC without any thought of my own.

The church does change (very slowly, I admit) so by definition it can't be right all the time. Priest used to marry but now they don't, but Deacons can. Women used to play a larger role which shrunk to almost nothing. Lay people were excluded from the mass in the past. We weren't allowed to eat meat on Fridays but now we can.

As regards your living in sin, it was totally normal for Catholic couples to not get married in church until a few hundred years ago. Church weddings became the norm during the rise of Protestantism. I realise you are being flippant but I absolutely agree that you should not get married if you don't want to and you (not your MIL) believe that sex outside marriage is ok. I don?t believe that sex outside marriage is right so I got married. That doesn?t mean that I am right and you are wrong or vice versa but we are both acting according to our own beliefs and I think that being true to your beliefs is important, more important than doing what you are told without giving it any thought.

Being a Catholic is about believing in God. When you tell people you are a Catholic they never want to talk to you about Augustine of Hippo or Thomas Aquinas or Cardinal Newman, or even the doctrine of the Trinity, transubstantiation or your views on the virgin birth or Henry the 8th. You are treated as if you are a drone living in a sex obsessed repressed dictatorship and asked how you can believe (insert sex related question here) and when you answer you are told that that?s not what you believe, you believe this (insert ?Pope forbids Catholics? DM style headline here).

tapeworm · 18/03/2010 19:29

didn't realise that was so long and ranty.

The living in sin I was refering to glastocats (rhetorical) question.

TheHeathenOfSuburbia · 18/03/2010 19:33

actually, tapeworm, i wouldn't mind hearing your views on transubstantiation, that's always been a bit of an 'er...what?' issue for me

giveitago · 18/03/2010 19:47

" but in Catholicism is is the matrilineal side that takes responsibility for the children's religious upbringing"

Lovely if it were true!

Is this actually a fact - if so I'm vindicated. I won;t bother trying to encourage ds in a religion I don't sign up and which, up to now, has rejected us.'

Is this really a part of catholicsm?

PrammyMammy · 18/03/2010 19:53

ffs

cruelladepoppins · 18/03/2010 20:08

OP - YABU. Sadly there has been abuse in the catholic church - as there has in schools, scouts, sports clubs, families etc. I was brought up a catholic and went to church, used to help out at events, never had a moment's bother ...

... unlike at the bloody local museum where I was stalked aged 10 by the attendant. It has never entered my head not to allow my children to go to museums - I think what's important is to make sure conditions exist for child protection and that your children know to talk to you about anything that's making them feel uncomfortable.

Buddleja · 18/03/2010 20:15

cruelladepoppins how many 2 year olds were stripped nakeded held upside down and flogged by two people for wetting the bed by the scouts or sports clubs?

MillyR · 18/03/2010 20:17

This is an awful thread. I really think it is a British thing, from our long history of hatred of and violence towards Catholics. The OP is presumably a fantasist, but the way other people have jumped on this issue is appalling.

MillyR · 18/03/2010 20:20

Buddleja, you might want to read 'Fifty years in the system' by Jimmy Laing. It shows want went on in secular state institutions in the UK. You won't find it too different from the Irish Catholic children's homes abuse accounts.

glastocat · 18/03/2010 20:31

MillyR, it isn't just a British thing. I am Irish. And while there has been abuse in secular institutions in the UK, it really wasn't on the scale that it was in the Catholic institutions here.

And thanks to tapeworm again for her posts, while I disagree strongly with you, it is fascinating to get someone to explain the Catholic side of things. I am always asking friend and family about doctrine, but most seem to know very little about it.

Buddleja · 18/03/2010 20:33

I don't think I would want to Milly - I'm sure it's just as distressing

Though I don't think just because it's not exclusive to the Catholic Church that it makes it OK that it happened in the Catholic church and that the current head of the Church was involved in the cover up.

I don't want to be part of a religion that has actively (and still is) justifying the cover up of this level of abuse

I have a friend who is a very devout Catholic and she gains a lot from it, I'm not too sure what she thinks about the abuse cover up.

My DH went to mass yesterday and I asked him if he was going to donate any money, I asked him not too, it's one thing to attend mass and celebrate your religion (which in my opinion DH isn't and is just going because 'he has too' but that's a whole different thread.

I have strong reservations about my DCs making their Communion when the time comes. Unless there has been a serious recognition of their sins, full repentance shown the Church when that time comes.

For the record there are other religions that I wouldn't like my children to be involved in either.

glastocat · 18/03/2010 20:34

Amd I am married, but I married in a registry office, so according to my MIL, I'm not married at all. Fouteen years of wedded bliss doesn't count apparently.

seeker · 18/03/2010 20:39

MillyR - the OP is talking balderdash. Obviously. But I think people are seeing anti Catholic sentimenst where none exist. Speaking out about the cover up int eh Church is nto being anti Catholic - it is being anti paedophile.

But it is bizarre that Catholics close ranks even over an issue like this. It makes me very uneasy how few prominent Catholics have publically spoken out about the appalling cover-up and those that do tend to use the "It was a long time ago and lessons have been learned" line.

Only yesterday Monsenior What's his name was saying that he had no duty to report a paedophile priest to the police and it should be handled internally.

BattyKoda · 18/03/2010 20:41

cruelladepoppins - the difference is, people in a high and well respected position in this 'organisation' were not only aware of the abuse, they chose to cover it up and allow them to continue abusing. That is the difference, and it's not just a one of thing. This has been reported numerous times, what about those that have not been discovered? Those that have abused, have been relocated and are likley to be still abusing?!

OrmRenewed · 18/03/2010 20:41

Agree with seeker, the Catholic estabishment doesn't do itself any favours.

Oblomov · 18/03/2010 20:47

OP is offensive. It was her refernces that upset us all. unfounded. bigoted. PFB. she hasn't even addressed the fact that her children aren't left alone with the priest. EVER.She has no respect for the catholic church. And she is a hypocrite by agreeing to baptism in the first place.
Don't waste your time everyone.

EggyAllenPoe · 18/03/2010 20:53

OP - you are an atheist - why do you object on the grounds of potential (though v. unlikely) abuse, when you could just object to your kids being taught a load of crap that isn't true?

i believe in letting my kids make up their own minds about god and stuff, (though they will be asked to justify their beliefs, hoho) and i don't think sending hem to sunday school would fit that brief.

i also think DP should try drugs and bi-sexuality. Possibly both at the same time. (mourns for now distant misspent youth)

TheHeathenOfSuburbia · 18/03/2010 21:00

"She has no respect for the catholic church"

Well, call me a trendy 21st century iconoclast, but any person or institution looking for my respect has to earn it.

Covering up child abuse: unlikely to earn my respect.
Continually complaining about anti-discrimination laws: unlikely to earn my respect.
Banning women from any position of power: unlikely to earn my respect.

As people are getting all angry about 'Catholic-bashing', please note the above list is not exhaustive, and will apply to any religion/company/voluntary organisation.

seeker · 18/03/2010 21:39

It is very easy to get on one's high horse and accuse people of Catholic bashing and assuming that all catholics are paedophiles based on one bonkers post that practically everyone has agreed is bonkers.

It is less easy to look at the behaviour of the Church hierarchy in this matter and acknowledge that the organization you love and respect has behaved unforgivably.

I would have more respect for the Church if it admitted its faults. It is a clear case of "grave matter, full knowledge, full consent" and as such should be properly repented and atoned for.

serinBrightside · 18/03/2010 21:42

Got bored after page 5 so have not read whole thread but LOL at the term "I'm a confirmed atheist"

abride · 18/03/2010 21:50

'cruelladepoppins how many 2 year olds were stripped nakeded held upside down and flogged by two people for wetting the bed by the scouts or sports clubs?'

OK, I wasn't going to talk about this here but since you brought it up...

My two cousins in Australia were raped by another family member. One is now a vegetable, owing to the drug addiction he developed as a result of the trauma. The cousin (by marriage I am keen to point out: he isn't a blood relative) was sent to prison for things so awful I'm not going to write them here. Frankly they are unbelievable and involved acts of great cruelty. The resulting fallout in the family was horrific and had unforeseen and sad consequences for a lot innocent people in the family. As a result I cannot speak to some erstwhile close family even though I had nothing at all to do with what happened. The trauma made my mother very distressed and ill. I was extremely worried about her.

This abuser man was in fact the local scout master.

I sent my son to scouts (different troup, obviouslY) and my daughter to Brownies. Because you know what? I don't believe you can tar all members of the same group with the same brush. There were a tiny number of English priests who did awful things. There were a tiny number of scoutmaster who did dreadful things. Most of them are now in prison or have been.

So why don't all of you who keep on and on about Catholics and how they do all the abusing and covering up just stop displaying your prejudice and utter ignorance of what goes on in other institutions. You are naive if you think professions such as teaching/children's home operators/scouts etc didn't have these scandals and 'cover them up' too.