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

Marjorie, I'm so sorry that you have been among the tens of thousands of victims of these horrible crimes.

Am appalled, but sadly not surprised, that there are still people defending the Pope and the other culprits - because people who collude in abuse, who protect abusers and who obstruct the law are guilty morally and legally.

I know my dear late Grandmother, a pillar of the church, would have been horrified and sickened by all this. I'm glad she's not alive to see it. And I do feel for all the other decent ordinary Catholics who had no idea at all and who have been betrayed by their leaders.

Marjoriew - I am so very, very sorry. I hope for you and all the other victims, the Church makes strenuous efforts to ensure justice is served. The subject is purely academic to me - I cannot imagine how painful it must be to you, particularly when you know 'good' Catholics are still supporting the Church in perpetrating the web of deceit that allowed the abuse to continue in so many dioceses for so very long.

Oh, and let's not forget silencing the victims too. Not surprising, really, though, from an organisation that threatened women with excommunication for having abortions but happily allowed murderers to remain among the faithful during The Troubles.

"throughout this thread" that is another over exageration you are very economical with the truth a little like the current pontiff. What you did not like was the fact a couple of people came on and supported my arguments over yours, a playground mentality if ever I saw one. Why don't you generalise a little less, then I am sure. we might get on better.

We were kept away from school - sometimes weeks at a time for the bruises to heal. The teachers knew. The police knew. The people who lived around the homes knew. The properties around the home were owned by the Church. The people who lived in the properties were employed by the Church as lay people in the homes.
The teachers at school knew. They never asked where we were when we were absent. No one ever did. The police knew.
No one cared. We were the children no one wanted. The high walls were there not only to keep us in but to keep prying eyes out.
No one can give us our childhoods back. No apology will ever be enough. No money will ever be enough.
And those who excuse what the nuns and priests did to us should hang their heads in shame.
I don't know how they sleep at night.

Marjorie, that should be shocking, but very sadly it isn't. And you are right, people knew. I don't know where you were, but certainly in Ireland, for instance, everyone knew those homes were 'bad' places where 'bad' things happened to children.

Having been brought up a strict Catholic myself , I saw it for what it was when I was pretty young, when our priest told me that women could not, and I quote, 'lead in the church or in the world'. It seemed to me even as a child that this was a rubbish instituion because it did not fundamentally believe in equality. As I've got older, this has simply become clearer and clearer and I can't for the life of me see why intelligent people voluntarily belong to this institution. This latest scandal is disgusing beyond words. We all know that the the vast majority of priests don't abuse children, but that's not the point. Anyone with half a brain knows that there are 'bad people everywhere'. The cover up at the highest level is what is more shocking and absolutly unforgiveable. This is not a coverup in some small parish: this is the church acting illegally and immorally at the HIGHEST LEVEL. This is like the PM being involved in this sort of cover up and us saying, 'oh well, there are plenty of good MPs and he did what he thought he was best'. No, not good enough.

But, apart from all this, there are plenty of other reasons for people with a real sense of justice and equality to walk away: contraception, divorce, telling women they are second class, condemnation of homosexuality etc... Do I need to go on? All you need to do is to look into how this church tells Catholics in Africa that they should not use contraception. My god, this is a continent ravaged by AIDS.

Please stop and think what moral and decent people would say about any organisation that preached these kinds of ideas. If it wasn't a church, we would be marching outside its gates in protest.

And before you make the usual argument, I would and do condemn any other organisation that held such views, religious or not. That's the point: why should different moral rules and standards apply to the RC church?

A sly dig or too may have appeared last night NOT "throughout this thread", I suggested you were possibly a man trying a kind of reverse posting style because I was gobsmacked at your sheer vitriol earlier. I don't know where the Witch Burning came from but I feel that is where we fell out, and badly. Its too bad as I and some of the other posters thought your arguments on the subject flawed. I have been constant in my criticism of the Church but I have made clear why I shall always remain a Catholic, your question was answered and scroll back because I do not feel I have to go over it again, it is pretty clear. You come across as a hugely knowledgable person and far more eloquent than I, but then you ruin your arguments by the generalising and false accusations accusing me of being a woman hater hurts. How else to you expect me to react. It was unfounded unjust and plain untrue. For my part I apologise for the nasty barbs in my later postings. I apologise about the childish penis insults and just want to move on really, as I am sure we willl meet in loads of other posts again.

Oh and Dittany you had the post about the KKK pulled it was highly offensive if not verging on racism. If you don't want to forgive me fine, I can move on but any sane person can see where the nastiness started if they can be bothered to read the entire thread. I think I was pretty respectful to you and your views until later on and Iam sorry about those they were uncalled for!

I withdraw it at once Dittany. You are not a man hater.

dittany, I was in Nazareth House Kilmarnock and Nazareth House Aberdeen. From 1948 until 1963.

I feel vitiriolic toward the Papacy too so lets just pool our vitriol and lob a big chunk into the Vatican City,

In Claremont Street - just off Union Grove, dittany. What a small world we live in.
So nice to 'meet' you.
I went to St. Mary's School in Summer Street, and St. Peter's School in Nelson Street.

If I can tear myself away from my family, dittany.
7 kids and 13 grandchildren - one of whom I have custody of since he was 2. Nearly 11 now and I also home educate him.
But just thinking about tea in St. Peter's Square would be just lovely.
I live in Bucks now - have done since 1975.

Marjorie, I forgot to say how very sorry I am for what you went through. I had no more than the usual corporal punishment from the nuns who taught me and that was bad enough, but my god, what you went through . And there are people out there who defend this institution! By any standards, its history is ignoble to put it mildly. It was hard for me to leave the church: it was part of my life and most of the people around me seemed happy enough to go to mass, be married in the church, have their children baptized and so on while actually living their lives according to their own morals insofar as they used contraception (how many huge families do you see in RC churches these days?), thinking homosexuality was ok, having sex before marriage and even being divorced in some cases. This seems to me the weakest position of all, to go along with the institution, to give it implicit support by subscribing to its main sacrements at least, when in fact living a life that is divorced from Catholic teaching. When my best friend had her daughter baptized I asked her if she hoped that her daughter would one day give her loyalty to an institution which would tell her that she was inelligable to take on the highest postions. She said, 'don't be ridiculous'. She didn't think through the implications of her tacit support for the church and that's the kind of support that keeps the institution going.

When I ask my RC friends who are not anti-women, anti-gay, opposed to contraception etc.. what exactly does keep them in the church, they can't tell me much beyond 'there are lots of good people in the church'. Not good enough because I'm afraid that so much of what it stands for is simply wrong. I think most religions are flawed because they are anti-women and undemocratic, but I don't think they are 'all as bad as each other'. Some are worse than others.

'Abride "I have supported my diocese in carrying through measures that will prevent the abuse and cover-up ever happening again. And this has included financial support(which I can ill afford) for training lay people and clergy in child protection."

Can I ask if you are all contributing to the compensation payments and prevention measures? How do you feel about that?'

Certainly not paying for compensation! Why the hell should I? I was a child when the abuse occurred (or what we know of it to date) and I am appalled and disgusted by it, and by the cover up. In fact I couldn't possibly tell you how fucking angry I am. All the other Catholics I know feel the same.

As far as I know no congregations in our diocese have been asked to pay for victim compensation. I think there'd be a revolt if we were.