Catholic church - time to call it a day?

[Chil1234]

I truly hope that the latest scandals and accusations have hit the catholic church hard or preferably killed it stone dead. If it were isolated incidents or if the problems had been handled considerately, it might be put down to the vagiaries of life or the human condition. If other religious organisations had the same breadth of complaints one might make a faith connection. But it isn't the case.

The catholic church's position of absolute authority, of 'doing God's work', and expecting unthinking obedience, has resulted in apalling corruption and terrible abuse..... from the Magdalen Laundries, the Holly Mount Orphanage, the organisations that shipped children off to terrible conditions in Australia to the cover-ups surrounding abusive priests today. People in my own family have been direct victims of 'pastoral care', having their lives ruined when they most needed help. It's not enough to say that the church does a lot of good work or that there are good people in the organisation... that does not compensate for the instutionalised megalomania and abuse of privilege.

When the Pope visits I, for one, will not be there to greet him. Shame on the lot of them

Ummmm did you not see his MASSIVE apology to the whole of Ireland last week?!

dittany, an amazing and informative post as ever.

Addressing the victims and their families directly in an eight-page pastoral letter, he said: "You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry.

"I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured. Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity violated."

He was highly critical of the way that the Irish Church had handled the cases of abuse and announced that some dioceses will be investigated by the Vatican under an Apostolic Visitation.

PS the Pope is Joseph not Thomas Ratzinger

Did he talk about his own inaction and actions?

Strictly, can you see the damage this man is doing and has done to your church? Did you read Dittany's post?

Criticizing the church in Ireland after telling them to keep quiet in the first place in a fantastic act of betrayal. add that to the list, thank you for hi lighting it striclyKatty

I'm off, SK I feel like you've singled yourself out as the defender of the indefensible and I retire from htis debate. Your delusion makes me feel like I'm picking on you.

dittany, yes, that's why i raised the situation in Canada (the orphanage in newfoundland)

They paid the victims off??

My God

In his apology to the victims of sexual abuse in Ireland, he did not:

• apologise for the cover up
• call for the resignation of any Bishops
• make any commitment that future cases of sexual abuse would be dealt with properly ie by the POLICE, not internal Church systems.

I also don't want to feel like I am bullying you SK but it is the refusal of the faithful to deal with this which has led to the systemic abuse of thousands of childen in tens of countries.

My posts make damn clear I have no truck with the Papacy. The only Catholic I see defending him here is someone who converted and I am sorry but the most zealous irritating Catholics I have met in the UK are the converts , I therefore take her views with a pinch of salt. I will return to the Mass when there is total reform from the Papaacy downward. But I am STILL a Catholic and for that I will not apologise, I know PosyParker has signed off this thread but I don't really think Women at the top would have been much better, there were plenty of Nuns carrying out a different type of abuse both physical and emotional. Women have the same capacity for evil as men.

Bernadette I converted aged 7, not 45, I'd hardly say I was a 'zealous convert' I actually find that quite hurtful.

When I decided to go to Catholic church I would walk there myself on a sunday and hour each way. So maybe I'm not willing to give up on a church I've invested a lot in. My son is a Catholic and for his sake I'm hoping the church can change for the better so he can have a better church than we have had in the past.

"still offering blind obedience and faith ..." That sounds like very old protestant hat to me.

I'm interested to see another appearance of the celibacy = paedophilia idea.

Selbysea, I think your observations about Irish cover-up /clannish culture and the Irish Church and school environments are spot on. Schools in particular encourage a suck-up culture and attitude, towards teachers, principals, authority in general. I'm not sure if the Catholic Church 'groomed' Irish society or if political and social conditions forced Catholics into an 'us against them' type of mode that made everything 'we' did fine as long as a line was held against 'them'. When a society or a large part thereof is turned into a fortress of any kind it's hard to question leaders and institutions that seem to offer hope or protection. There are people who think the Christian Brothers were and remain a marvellous group of men because they offered education to Irish boys during the Penal times (18th C and up to 1829), and you can't tell them otherwise, even though those times are long gone. I have an ancestor (not a direct ancestor, am descended from one of his siblings), a priest, who was hanged, drawn and quartered (snap, BadBadKitten) -- his head was publicly displayed for many years as a warning to other uppity Catholics; memories of that kind of persecution tend to band people together, for better or for worse.

But having said that, I'd still prefer to be a practicing Catholic in the US, where despite many, many horrible crimes by priests, and cover-ups by bishops (including the latest revelations about the rape of deaf boys by Fr. Murphy) the atmosphere and attitude and culture of Catholicism is very different, at least in the area I'm familiar with. It's a tremendous shame that the habits of mind that accompanied the struggles of former times weren't ditched, and a tremendous shame that personal integrity seems to count for so little in Ireland. Tribalism does no-one any good in the long run.

SK ok sorry that was harsh I apologise, I did not really know you were so young when you converted so fair point! Ihave had to endure some pretty heavy preaching from a couple of adult converts but they may be more pious than you or I whilst at Mass but by God they are nasty in real life,they are the most exquisite example of a hypocrite.

My version of Catholocism is probably the ancient version where blind faith and obedience were not the norm and healthy debate and criticism were encouraged. The hard line and intolerant stance only came in when the Papacy fell into disrepute and corruption and was forced to defend itself.

I had my 62nd birthday this week. I was raised from birth until I was aged 15 in 93.
I still have nightmares about my experiences with the priests and nuns in whose care we were placed.

It never goes away - not ever.
The latest scandal will be brushed under the carpet, as it always has been.

The Puritans of the Massachusetts colony did their fair share of 'witch' burning, ditto the protestants of northern Europe -- I don't think anyone has apologised for that particular long outbreak of violent misogyny. 'Witch' burning was and is an equal-opportunity anti-women campaign.

Dittany, witches were burned by Protestants too not exclusively by Catholics.Salem Witch trials? Nope... not a single Catholic to be seen, SO BALANCE OUT YOUR ARGUMENT ON THAT ISSUE. And yes it was shocking and abhorrent as was the whole Inquisition but there was a time when long long before in the early Middle Ages when there was a semblance of harmony and tolerance. Humanism and enlightenment were encouraged as were married priests and that is the "Golden Age" to which I refer!

@Dittany I am not trying to detract from that, but you need to balance your argument, all faiths have done bad, bad, things and you are entitled to blame the Catholic Church for committing more than its share of atrocities but you seem hell bent in your belief it has always been bad to the core and will always remain so. There are some clergy Mother Teresa being one of them who have individually done great deeds in the world and many have strived with more hindrance than help from Rome. Catholics have been on the receiving end of a heck of a lot of truly awful bigotry in Northern Ireland in the 50's and 60's in a time when no "fiddy" or Catholic was allowed to work in the Ship Building works of Harland and Wolf there was genuine apartheid and bigotry and I would never want to see that again as aprice to pray for the evil committed by many who took Holy Orders and those who covered for them.

Oh and Dittany many women burned horribly as Witches were denounced by other women. The Village gossip had a heck of a lot of power in those days, I think having the Church around either Protestant or Catholic to punish these poor women (who were probably just not conforming to someone elses ideal. or norm) was a useful expedient I should imagine their "faith" played very little part. A group of powerful, popular, malicious gossiping women is just as scary as a male teenage gang. Just look at Mnet