Irish Catholic abuse-

[tiredemma]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8060442.stm

Im surprised it hasnt been mentioned on here.

Very sad- Disgraceful

kitten really why are you trying to make this about poor old you and all the people being horrid to you?

This is about the abuse over decades of thousands of children carried out by priests and nuns. It is about the fact that the top brass in the catholic church, in rome and in ireland, colluded to cover up the abuse, and rather than removing the abusers simply moved them to other places with lots of lovely access to new children for them to abuse.

The church, top down, condoned and oversaw the abuse. they did not try to stop it. they denied it until the evidence became too great, they only apologised when that was the only course of action.

No-one is saying that the bog-standard members of catholic congregation are guilty of these crimes. The people who are guilty of these crimes are in teh establishment. The same establishment that is still blocking any attempts to prosecute these terrible crimes.

i just can't understand your attitude.

It sounds to me like you want everyone to shut up and say "oh whoops they made a bit of a mistake, still forgive and forget eh, let's have no more spoken about it".

Don't refer to me any more as I'm going, hounded off by hate sprouting posters.
Please examine your hearts how you refer to other feeling ,emotions full human being.

Yes, now it became all 'about me', though WAS NOT my intention before the attacks.

I'm not going to read any more posts so save your time, forget it.

YOU ARE NOT nice people ( the attackers), contrary to what you may believe.

Well just in case you do kitten, has it occured to you that many of the people fervently disagreeing with you may well be practicing catholics.

Talk to the people at your church and see if they share your views.

You have really upset and pissed me off with that remark kitten.

So I am not a nice person. Because I think that what happened in the church was disgusting.

I have never beaten, raped or tortured anyone.

And yet I am horrible and the people in the institution that carried out these actions are good?

Fuck off. Oh you have. Good good.

Oh FGS hounded off.

No one is hounding you, we are disagreeing with you and you have no arguments to support your strange position. Because you still haven't told us what you think the church ought to do about the abusers it is still protecting.

I feel I should be upset and offended or something but actually just find it quite funny that someone thinks I would be scarey to meet in real life.
I mean I know I am a bit of a shocker first thing in the morning but...

Chocolate - you are being silly and hysterical. You were a a bit of an arse in the way that you refered to my mum. She is allowed to loath the sight of nuns after her experiences and does not need sanctemonious lecturing about it. People who have traumatic experiences frequently harbour such feelings.

You are tryingto deflect the wrongdoing of the Church but criticising anyone who expresses negative opinions. Which is silly. And you are now tryting to portray yourself as a victim - deflecting attaention from the real wrongs here and highly passive aggresive

chocolatekitten, I know you won't be back, but I'm baffled that you can't see this isn't people being angry with individual Catholics, it's justified anger at a corrupt organization which happens to be called the 'church'.

It's anger God shares, imvho.

Dittany - the reason they got away with it is becasue the rank and file do not question.
Chocolate personifies that.
They do not/dare not question what the institution they belong to does.
My Mum had a party last night and everyone there was catholic. She says no-one mentioned it. Can you believe that?
Imagine a group of social woekrs after Baby P, or a grup of Muslims after 9/11. Can you reallu imagine they wouldn't bring it up?
But no, they will not break ranks.
It is like stalinist Russia - everyone knows what's happening but dare not or will not speak out.

The Catholic church should allow married priests.

Hounded off my fucking arse. No-one has attacked Catholics. The radio stations here in Ireland have been full of practising Catholics howling with rage about this all day, many of them reconsidering their membership of an organisation that is even now refusing to step up to the plate about this.That, to me is a healthy reaction, not all this bollocks about 'My aunty is a nun and she's lovely.'The Bishop of Cloyne here had to resign a month or so ago because he was caught covering up for paedophile priests, apparantly when he did Midnight Mass last Xmas the cathedral was empty. If I was Catholic, I'd be disgusted at the suggestion I was condoning this stuff, but I'm not surprised at all even Ratzinger is culpable. My son goes to a Catholic school ( there is'nt any alternative) and while I know the people there are good people, I'm bloody glad I didn't bow to social pressure and let him do First Communion. As much as I can, I want no part in what I think is a rotten institution, regardless of the fact that there are many nice people within it.

litchick I can well believe it.

There are many aspects of the teachings of the catholic church which everyday practicing catholics find indefensible and/or impossible to adhere to.

So IME they simply don't think about them. At all. And just get on with the parts that they agree with, while turning a blind eye to the rest. It really is the strangest thing.

I'm Catholic. I was brought up as a Catholic and will always think of myself as one. But I worship in an Anglican church right now. The rank and file do question. Or at least some do.

My mum was one of those children. As was four of her sisters and her brother.
They were told they were going christmas shopping. They went in front of a judge and he sent them all to a convent. My mum was 5. She remembers it vividly.

My mum remembers every single one of the nuns and the father. The nun who used to give out the most vicious beatings still sends my mum religious papers. My aunts still have contact with the nuns as they are still in Eire.
The thing I have struggled with for most of my life, is why they still maintain contact.
I am disgusted by the Catholic church. I am disgusted by the Irish government. I am disgusted by the Irish judiciary.

Have any of you heard of the Redress Board? Look it up and you can really see what a shower of shite the whole situation is.

Chocolatekitten. I am sorry you feel personnally offended by this thread. However it is because of people like you back in Eire that my family was ripped apart. Thrown on the streets at 15, raped by a farmer who they were supposed to be working for, starved, ritually abused, made to feel ashamed about who they were.
My mum has never once kissed me, never once told me she loved me. I am one of 6.
This abuse has destroyed families for generations.

They should all be ashamed to their very core.
They are feecking bitches. Every last one of them.

I'm really heartened to hear that, FallenMadonna.
Since I have a perhaps naive faith in peoople I trust that eventually the worm will turn. The ranks will refuse to sit in silence - and the church will have their Labour Party conference moment when Niel Kinock sent the hard line packing.

Sorry make me .

My family have been trying to get information about where they were sent etc. The Catholic church has destroyed lots of its records. My mum has a piece of info that has been sent from two diff places. Funnily enough the one from the church has been altered. At least 20 years after my mum left the convent

Cover up? What do you think???

It is true though that the general ( mainly Catholic) population had a fair idea what was going on in the launderies and children's homes and turned a blind eye. This country was ruled by the Church root and branch until fairly recently. Many people have told me that their parents would threaten them with the nuns, or the home if they misbehaved, so everyone had a fair idea that all was not as it should be. It was impossible to question too deeply though, unless you were prepared for total social ostracism. Not surprising really so many people took the boat to England/America/anywhere. People here are very angry, but there is a lot of guilt as well, and many of the older generation are staying very quiet. I said to my husband tonight, once his mother's generation die, it'll be very interesting to see how many people bother with the church except for high days and holidays. Which is a good thing, in my opinion. Maybe then people here will be able to send their children to a secular school if they wish.

Glasto - here in the uk things were covered up too. My Mum remebers one of our parish priests leaving 'under a cloud'. No-one batted an eyelid and he was transferred to Australia. Unsuprisingly he left his parish there 'under a cloud.'
I can almost understand the church covering it up - they don't want to lose their power and money which comes from having the literal moral high ground. But what of the parents of the children involved? Did they not say anything?

Litchick from what I have read many of the parents tried everything to get their children out of those institutions, but it was impossible. The state and church were hand in hand using excuses like illegitimacy and poverty (and there was a hell of a lot of that around) to take children from their families. In the days of zero contraception it didn't take much to end up losing your children to one of these places, and there was sweet FA you could do about it. Remember, not attending Mass was not an option in those days for the vast majority. if you have ever seen Angela's Ashes, just think, that was only set 40 or 50 years ago, not in Victorian times. I'm ( Northern) Irish born and bread, and its only after living in the South for five years that I'm starting to understand just how endemic this nightmare is.

Bred, not bread FFS!

You've got to love that reasoning of the supporters of the Catholic Church, haven't you?

Along the lines of "Don't knock Bill, he's a lovely guy. Helps his neighbours with the shopping. Does a bit of work down the community college. Pops round to see his mum all the time. So he kills a couple of people from time to time, hey, but don't let that prejudice your impression of him. We all have our faults, right?"

What a load of rubbish this thread is.

Ignorance combined with poor journalism, low IQs and chinese whispers.

Far more frightening than the (drum roll) CATHOLIC CHURCH.

Did you all start a hate doctors thread after Harold Shipman was convicted?
No?
But.... these 'doctors'.... all that power..