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

Sorry, fresh evidence was what another poster said - I still cannot find a reason why it took 20 years for the case to come to the Vatican and assumed there was some new evidence.

However: "Police did investigate the allegations at the time but did not press charges.

The papal spokesman said the Murphy case had only reached the Vatican in 1996 - two decades after the Milwaukee diocese first learned of the allegations and two years before the priest died.

The diocese was asked to take action by "restricting Father Murphy's public ministry and requiring that Father Murphy accept full responsibility for the gravity of his acts", he added.

A canonical trial authorised by Cardinal Ratzinger's deputy was halted after Fr Murphy wrote to the future pope asking that proceedings be stopped, despite objections from a second archbishop."

Then again, that's from the BBC so probably a biased and anti-Catholic source

dittany, I have found this definition of excommunication on wiki as to be honest I am no expert on it!:

"Excommunicated persons are barred from participating in the liturgy in a ministerial capacity (for instance, as a reader if a lay person, or as a deacon or priest if a clergyman) and from receiving the Eucharist or the other Sacraments, but are normally not barred from attending these (for instance, an excommunicated person may not receive Communion, but would not be barred from attending Mass). Certain other rights and privileges are revoked, such as holding ecclesiastical office.

Excommunication can be either ferendae sententiae (declared as the sentence of an ecclesiastical court) or, far more commonly, latae sententiae (automatic, incurred at the moment the offensive act takes place). The excommunicant is still considered Christian and a Catholic as the character imparted by baptism is indelible. Their communion with the Church, however, is considered gravely impaired.[1]

In the Catholic Church, formal excommunication is normally resolved by a statement of repentance, profession of the Creed (if the offense involved heresy), or a renewal of obedience (if that was a relevant part of the offending act) by the excommunicant; the declaration of the reconciliation itself, by a priest or bishop empowered to do this; and then the reception of the sacrament of Reconciliation. In many cases, this whole process takes place within the privacy of the confessional and during the same act of confession."

So it seems that excommunication is not casting someone out of the church as such... someone always has the chance to come back if they truly repent (which I think is in line with Christ's teaching). Only if a Priest was not truly sorry for what he had done would he remain excommunicated.

You might say that some priests are only sorry because they've been found out, and that is perhaps true, but it is not up to us to judge them - only God can do that.

The church believes (because Jesus told us) that there are no sins that God will not forgive if the sinner truly repents.

I have already judged my abusers. I just want to know when I will get justice.
Still, if my abusers repent, then that's OK, eh?

We'll all just go away, shall we?
I THINK NOT!!

I have some sympathy for defenders of the church. It is hard to reconcile people's experiences of catholicism 'on the ground' as it were with the dogmatic, autocratic hierarchy.

My time going to mass was a happy one, i felt a real sense of community, i liked having a dedicated time to be mindful of god and my relationship with the divine. my fellow churchgoers were kind and friendly.

however this scandal has really opened my eyes - i can't square my experience of catholicism with the catholic church any more. (does that make sense?) Despite my parish/church being so welcoming and great, the church as an institution has broken and ruined lives around the world.

if they give a damn they aren't showing it.

i have vague memories of being taught about 'sins that cry out to heaven for justice'. if the rape and abuse of children is not one of these, what is?

i will not be taking my children to mass or having them take any more of the sacraments - how can I offer my children up to an institution that would see any number of children broken so that it could remain whole?

i could give a stuff about papal letters to ireland, or how sorry anyone is.

deeds, not words.

i want to see them clean house.

Disagreeing with Catholic doctrine, orthodoxy and the behaviour of the church hierarchy is NOT Catholic-bashing.

I have not seen any Catholic bashing on this thread. I have seen plenty of challence, questioning and criticism of the Powers that Be - and so there should be, they ahve behaved appallingly. But no Catholic bashing.

@ Tinnitus, ("Ever thought that these recent event DO vindicate our opinions?" ['our'?]) The more you attempt to use this occasion to throw the kitchen sink at the Catholic Church, the more you insult its victims.

I recall a post from much earlier in the thread where someone (Dittany?) said she had attended school with children from the horrific Nazareth institution -- it was alleged that the teachers and many others knew that the children from the orphanage were being abused, kept out of school so that bruises and other injuries inflicted upon them could heal. It wasn't clear from the recollection posted if any of the teachers or the other adults who were allegedly aware of the horrors had complained to the police or even to the truant officers. I think it's pertinent to point out that the civil authorities in the Wisconsin case investigated the abuse in the school for the deaf children. Clearly, there were serious deficiencies on the part of whatever authorities conducted the proceedings. But at least somebody had called and made a complaint.

What I am suggesting here is that there was in the past a general tendency on the part of society as a whole to ignore (and therefore condone) what adults did to children, everything from assuming that spanking was a proper and good thing for parents to do, to gross abuse. This was the cultural context in which paedophiles and sadists operated in former times.

Laws requiring notifying the police or social services of suspected child abuse (by certain workers, especially those involved in education, childcare, healthcare, maybe some other areas of work) are a very recent development. (Sadly, as far as I can tell from threads on MN anyhow, the protocols that are in place for many schools require suspicions of abuse to go through a designated school officer, who then makes the call to the relevant authorities, as he or she sees fit. So, not by any means a perfect solution. There is, imo, no need for gatekeepers of this sort. Again, this is what I gather from MN, so correct me if I've got it wrong.) The general public is not covered by such laws -- it's not a crime to not report a suspected crime. It's a moral responsibility though, and to me it seems clearcut that children should be protected, and anyone responsible for harming them should be subjected to the rigours of the law. But back in the day, there was no general consensus, in societies around the globe, that the abuse of children required or deserved any sort of notice.

Marjoriew, justice needs to be done, and seen to be done.

No Tinnitus. No teacher or police officer made complaints.
I spoke to both retired teachers and police officers who told myself and other inmates of Nazareth House that they knew what was going on and that they didn't report it because who would have believed them and some said it was because their jobs were on the line.
After one nun was charged with cruel and unnatural treatment, many professionals said that they knew what went on.
Furthermore, we didn't get 'spanked'.

I have been lifted up by my ears until I lost consciousness - not once but many times as a child at 5 years old.
I have eaten my own vomit after refusing to eat the food given to us.
I have been so hungry I have eaten the grass in the play yard.
I was sexually assaulted when I absconced from the home and returned by the police. As a punishment I was locked in the crypt where the dead nuns were kept. I was so traumatized I didn't speak for nearly 12 months.
The other children were ordered not to speak to me and I was ordered never to speak of it. I was just 10 years old.
I have been dragged out of my bed by the hair of my head because on inspection, I did not have my hands crossed above my chest when the nun pulled back the bedclothes.
On discovering us children who wet the bed, we were dragged into a bath filled with freezing cold water filled with Jeyes Fluid. At six years old we were made to kneel outside the nun's cell with the wet sheets over our heads.
I had my hand deliberaty shut in the hinge of a door because I played a wrong note on the violin.
I could go on but I won't. I'm sure you get drift. I bear the physical, emotional and psychological scars courtesy of the Poor Sisters of Nazareth and so do thousands like me.
This is not reasonable chastisement. It is abject cruelty dished out to children who had no one to speak up for them. We watched the priests from across the presbytery across the road eat the food which was meant to be for us.
I spent my young life up until age 15 in Nazareth House and saw a welfare officer [social worker] twice in all that time.
There was no such thing as child protection.

@ Methanxitey

Nope. sorry, I can't answer that because I see no merit in it as an objective viewpoint.

These crimes were perpetrated by catholic priest, and covered up by a collusion of the catholic churches hierarchy. so when WE say the catholic church should be held accountable it in no way insults the victims.

Threatening to excommunicate them, paying them off and forming a wall of silence so that future abuse may occur, insults the victims.

Insisting that we mustn't talk about it in case it isn't what some myopic god botherer want's to hear, is insulting them

Saying that the church is above the law, or that it is just one of those things that used to happen, like slavery or imperialism, and so we should just let it go, insults the victims.

And no, you are wrong. failing to report a crime IS an offence both legally and, of course morally.

On the up side, I think you got most of your spelling right.

dittany - there are paedophile priests who have admitted their crimes and gone to prison, there was one from my own previous parish actually so I am pretty sure about it!

With regards to judging I do not believe in judging people but I do believe in judging actions. ie. I feel confident in saying that child abuse is most definitely an evil act, but I do not feel I can say that someone who abuses children is an evil person. Perhaps abuse is all they have ever known themselves and it's all they know how to do.. I truly believe that only God has that right to judge people. 'Hate the sin, love the sinner'. This is not moral relativism but christianity! And I do believe that the law needs to punish wrongdoing, preferably by rehabilitation and certainly not by condeming them to death.

I found the following information on Joanna Bogle's (a catholic journalist) blog which I think goes someway to explaining the secrecy thing:

"...some useful material on Crimen sollicitationis, the Church document which deals with the evil of sexual solicitation in the confessional. Did you know that this document actually obliges a person to tell about any such solicitation? And that the promise of secrecy is given for just this purpose?

Look: it's like this. If I go to confession and confess adultery, and the priest is evil and makes a disgusting suggestion along the lines of "Well, if you've done that..how about you and me..?" it is my absolute duty to report this to some one in authority in the Church, and ensure that action is taken. But I might have an obvious reason for not doing this - because it might be that in explaining what happened, I have to explain that it began with my own confession of adultery. In order to protect my privacy, and to encourage me to come forward with the information about the priest, the Church insists that I am given a promise of secrecy. This does not extend to everything that subsequently occurs as the whole thing goes on, but it does remain absolute with regard to my part in the proceedings.

I have deliberately chosen adultery because it is one of the less disgusting sins which might be involved in this sort of matter.

The document is not, as it happens, very relevant to many of the issues being raised in the current storm. That of course it why opponents of the Church and her disciplines want to fudge things by pretending that it is, and simply randomly talking about "secrecy" and "Vatican documents" and "issued by Cardinal Ratzinger" and so on. "

I see this as meaning any Catholic victim of abuse is obliged to report such abuse and will be guaranteed protection and anonimity by the vatican.

@ Tinnitus, do you still think that 'joke' in your link was funny, or a reasonable thing to post? Your posts on this thread have diminished the agony of children because you have lumped child rape in with a bunch of silly cliches, spouted by a deeply silly man. The world has somehow muddled through, despite the alleged takeover of a major church by Satan, but the scars of the child victims will remain.

(Although goodness knows what sort of paradise the world might have become if the Catholic Church had been strangled in its infancy. Trying hard to think of some place where banning churches and religion resulted in the creation of a workers' paradise or whatever...)

'@ Methanxitey' -- thanks for your compliment on my spelling. Coming from you, I will discount it.
That's M A T H A N X I E T Y.

I stand over my assertion that it's not a crime for the general public to not report a suspected crime. And also my assertion that we all have a moral responsibility to do so.

Marjoriew what happened to you is truly horrific and of course you deserve justice. I do not know your whole story and what has happened since that terrible time but I sincerely hope that the people responsible have been forced to face up to their wrongdoings.

Methanxiety was a play on words, if you don't get it, there's no point explaining.

The perverse logic of your argument leaves me agog. how on earth can I counter such drivel. you're just not up to the level of this debate.

Onagar

"FreddoBaggyMac, let's get this out in the open. Do you think it is ever okay for someone to be aware of child abuse and NOT call the police immediately. Not later after prayer or consultations with like minded friends, but right away like reporting an accident or a fire."

The obvious answer is no.

However, what if a child was terrified of reporting the abuse because they knew the police would get involved? If this was the case does not the guarantee of secrecy and anonimity make it more likely that abuse will be reported? Is that not what the Pope is trying to do?

Personally I believe he is more likely to want to protect victims than paedophiles.

Marjoriew I have been reading and lurking on this thread and your post has me crying. Nothing to the tears that you and your fellow children shed.

I truly hope that the absolute bastards who did this to you are prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Christian charity FFS it's just sickening. Your post has really brought it all home.

I have many RC friends and generally keep quiet about all of this because I know it will cause a massive ruck. But having read that i just know I have to ask them about it, how they reconcile it.

I am so so sorry.

No-one can deny that what happened to Marjoriew is horrific and that the people involved need to atone for their wrongdoing.

That does not make the whole catholic church evil though. I firmly believe that the church is trying to bring things like this into the open and ensure nothing of the kind can ever happen again.

I firmy beieve the church is involved in a desperate damage limitation exercise, having covered up for and colluded with child abusers for decades, and that top down many of them genuinely don't give a monkeys about these children. They are just an irritation that the top people wish would just go away.

If they cared at all they would have done something in the first place. This was going on up until recent years. We are not talking about something that happened in the 1800s this is recent history and the whole thing sickens me. The hierarchy knew, they weren't fussed.

On that note I'm off, I have discussed this on another thread, I just felt I had to respond to marjoriew's post.

Methanxiety may have been an attempt at a play on words (that went right over my head) but 'M E T H A N X I T E Y' ? -- sorry, maybe I'm too fick for your cleverness.

FWIW, if you wanted to draw attention to a serious article (by a serious atheist writer) about the Catholic Church's handling of the abuse, you would have probably linked to an article in Slate by Christopher Hitchens, which is linked to in the YouTube page you posted. However, I actually doubt if you are familiar with serious writers on the subject of religion. I think your intellectual diet consists of easily-digested tripe. Christopher Hitchens here -- sorry, it's from Wikipedia but no doubt you will be well-able to sniff out better-informed opinions on him for yourself.

And since you mentioned the KKK earlier in an attempt at analogy, I would like to remind (?) you of the KKK's longstanding antipathy towards the Catholic Church, Catholicism, and Catholics in general.

@ FBM

"Personally I believe he is more likely to want to protect victims than pedophiles."

Check this out

and this

and then this.

and don't forget this.

oo this is getting all nasty . I'm off now as this has turned into one of those mumsnet cycles of negativity which will never be resolved and is detrimental to one's emotional wellbeing. Once again, I agree to disagree!

FYI Tinnitus. The figure on the ground represents the Catholic Church.

Tinnitus they are all BBC links. The BBC are completely anti-catholic and I do not have to read them to know the general gist of what they say. Like I said before, I prefer to look at the facts rather then the stories made up by journalists. Now i'm really going!