to wonder how Catholics can reconcile their faith with the Vatican's reaction to Ireland's abuse scandal?

[ChristinedePizan]

Recalling their envoy to Ireland can only be seen as an a tacit acceptance of paedophilia surely? Rape and torture of children is okay obviously as long as its carried out by men of the cloth

Christine Don't be so melodramatic. Of course you can leave. You stop practising and decide you don't believe anymore. Done.

Izzy you say in your post that you believe any Catholic who hasn't protested against child abuse to be wrong, and supporting continuing abuse. That's obvious to most, I think. But that's not actually what you said in the original post:

Anyone who believes that an allegedly celibate geriatric ex-Nazi dressed in a frock is God's Vicar on Earth will have no problem whatsoever aligning themselves with the Vatican and will continue to turn a blind eye to all of the ills that Roman Catholicism has caused, and persists in causing, to the world

Which states that anybody who believes in the sanctity of the Pope (i.e. all Catholics) to be supporting child abuse.

This is an extremely ignorant and ridiculously offensive statement. And it is wrong.

But you can't formally renounce your faith. The Church has taken steps to prevent people doing this when they were able to in the past. I'm not being melodramatic at all.

From the website sunnydelight linked to: If you were baptised as a Catholic you are still counted among the congregation of the church, regardless of what beliefs you currently hold. Some may argue that simply being a "lapsed" Catholic (i.e. not going to mass, not praying etc.) is enough of a step. There are others that feel this does not go far enough for them, it does not provide the emotional satisfaction they require.

And you don't think people should have the right to do that?

If you don't do the minimum requirements as a Catholic (e.g. going to Confession once a year, attending Easter mass), you become a de facto apostate, and no longer a member of the Catholic church. This can be reversed by attending confession if so desired.

You can renounce Catholicism any way you like. Have a party, go to town. It's up to you.

I wonder how many of you 'good' Catholics would word your address to Mr Ratzinger if ever coming face to face with him regarding his role in suppressing the activities of his clergy?

As regards leaving the Church, in my day, if you didn't fulfil your Easter Duties, ie. go to Mass etc, you were excommunicated/out on your ear.
I remember after the birth of my 7th child the local parish priest turned up by my bed at the hospital after my husband told him I was going to be sterilized and the priest told me I would be excommunicated as it was against the Church's teachings. I told him to piss off and I considered thereafter that I was well and truly excommunicated.

What home were you adopted from Sunnydelight? I am a similar age to you and was adopted from Castlepollard. I too rejected Catholicism many, many years ago, but I have a lot of bitterness about the way in which so many mothers and children like us were stigmatised by Irish society. I can't accept the "nobody knew" defence at all. People did know. They just accepted it was OK because the church told them it was.

Catholic church = utter criminals. I had an Uncle who grew up in Artane, and for those of you who have heard of that place, I need say no more. They told my gran my uncle was dead when he was 11 as it stopped her going to visit him and thus made their lives easier.

The irish governments response to dealing with people like my gran who was widowed young, with no social security: the state took her son and put him in the care of the catholic church.

Mindblowing today, knowing what we all know, but they, the government, the church and people in Ireland knew what was happening and noone stopped them. The whole bloody lot should burn in hell for what has happened and the catholic church done for crimes against humanity.

My family lives everyday with the fallout of the catholic church and the damage is beyond belief. Evil bastards, the bloody lot of them.

Christinedepiznan you can renounce your faith, a very close friend of mine walked to the bishops house and signed documents to have himself ex-communicated.

I think this conversation is abit silly - it seems to suggest that if you are a catholic you agree with abusing children - wtf?

might I point out there are perverts out there who are not catholics - I am sure some are doctors (should all doctors leave the profession?), blonde (should all blondes colour their hair?) etc.

I dont reconcile being a catholic with the child abuse horrors - they are nothing to do with eachother - these people should be removed from access to kids and given help/counselling whatever, preferably in prison - like any pervert regardless of what religion they purport to be.

I do think the catholic hierarchy react like slow moving rocks to the whole thing but it seems right not to throw these priests out - keeping them in the church means we can watch them thought dont understand why they arent being prosecuted - though assume some are?

SpanishLady Yes, abusers have been prosecuted and civil action taken in some cases against parishes/dioceses if it can be shown they knew and took no action.

Agree that this is a deliberately provocative thread pushing the irrational theory that all Catholics are pro child abuse.

SpanishLady Since the catholic hierarchy cooperated with the abusers and assisted them in moving around and maintaining secrecy they are responsible for the abuse just as if they helped hold the kids down for the abuse.

Yours and others attempts to exonerate the catholic hierarchy from blame are just the kind of thing that helped the abuse continue.

In the past I have pointed out atrocities in the bible and church. A common response on MN is that the bible and church are not your faith. That Catholicism is whatever Catholics do here and now in modern times. Independently of church or bible.

So according to that you can be Catholic and not support an organisation that encourages and enables the abuse of children, of homosexuals and of women.

'...keeping them in the church means we can watch them...'

Would you apply the same logic to teachers, doctors etc? A priest needs to be a respected and trustworthy figure in the community and unless you mean we can keep them locked in a room in the Vatican I think that is being unreasonable.

SpanishLady, I think the difference is with your doctor analogy that if a senior doctor discovered a junior doctor was raping children on a regular basis the first call would be to the police, not to the bishop or the next parish to see if there was a vacancy. And it wasn't an isolated case, it happened in many countries around the world, and the church leadership has over the last 10 years responded to the situation in an appalling manor.

In the catholic scenario the calls to the police were never made, it was all hushed up, which in most peoples eyes makes those in high church office complicit. Compounded by their instructions to priests on how to deal with these matters.

If I was a member of an organisation shown to have such high level complacency about children being abused I'd have nothing further to do with it.

I have no problem with people holding beliefs however whacky I might find them, I find it odd that people feel the need to put middlemen between themselves and an omnipotent God, and I find it hypocritical to the extreme listening to the Pope moralizing whilst epically ignoring or sidestepping serious abuse on innocent children.

WineandPizza - I take great exception to that. I am not saying that all Catholics are pro child abuse, I was asking how you reconcile your faith with the appalling child abuse that has been perpetrated by people in authority within the Church and which has gone largely unpunished.

If you want people outside of Catholicism to understand and support you in your continued adherence to your faith, you need to be a lot less defensive. Otherwise I'm sorry but it does come across as if you condone the cover up.

ETA - and many of the posts on this thread have managed to do that very eloquently and I am very grateful for those people who have taken the time and trouble to do that.

Spanishlady - they aren't being prosecuted because the church is protecting them. The Catholic church is hiding child abusers from the police. Not just in one country, but in every continent on the Earth.

This isn't about one bad apple. The whole fucking barrel is rotten. The whole orchard. And the corruption goes all the way to the very top.

This is an organisation that claims to worship a man who said 'suffer the the little children to come unto me' and said anyone who hurt a child had hurt God. It's sickening.

You really do have to ask whether those in positions of power in the RC Church are all a bunch of liars who don't believe a word of Holy Scripture. Because if they did, surely they'd be quaking in their boots, given the way they've completely disobeyed the very, very, very clear teachings of Jesus?

Edam, I do agree that it seems rather unlikely that the priests who have abused children, broken the vow of chastity, committed adultery even, and squirrelled funds away in the vatican bank do actually believe in God at all.

edam They probably believe scripture as much as I do. The roman catholic church has been about abuse of power since the days of the Borgias, if not a long time before.

YANBU OP They should all be shot.Simple.

Hear Hear Edam, a rotten barrel is right

Abuse within a system is not soley a Catholic thing though, is it? I watched a documentary about Neil Morrisey. He was in a care home and was aware of abuse going on there. Also wasn't there an abuse probe into a care home on Jersey in recent years?

Don't you know the saying 'Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely' ?

There were massive cover ups - it is appalling but people must remember the absolute power the Catholic hierarchy wielded over the Irish people. It in no way excuses anything that happened but it does explain why very few spoke out and why those who did were not believed or if they were believed it was no acted upon.

The birth of the Irish state came after years of turmoil following hundreds of years of oppression. The people were used to being oppressed.

They had not been allowed speak their own language and at times had to practice their religion in secret. They starved in the famine of the 1840 while food was exported from their fields.

Nothing happens in isolation.

None of this makes what happened acceptable. It doesn't take away the pain and hurt and humilation suffered by so many children and young adults.

It doesn't make me any less horrified that men who claimed to following the teachings of Christ put the needs of a corrupt organisation ahead of those of vulnerable children.

But I think it does go some way to explaining the mindset that allowed the behaviour of priests and bishops etc to go unchallenged.

Good post Kindle,
The generation before us were utterly ruled by the church because of our history and Dev. wanted to isolate Ireland in order to let them rule themselves but the church got so powerful within our tiny island, resulting in corruption.
My generation are better educated, travelled open, opinionated,etc., but I still can't understand how my peers and sibs. have their children make their communion and comfirmation when they themselves have no strong beliefs. They don't want to 'rock the boat' upset the olds, lack of even bothering to think it through in some cases. It is weak, principle lacking and I wish they'd stop inviting me and my family to these events.

Well said Kindle.

Ours is the first generation that has had the freedom to question - not just the church. In my childhood, my parents would never have challenged the teacher, doctor etc either. There was a culture of obedience and subservience.

With the mindset that people have today, it's hard to look back and think people knew but did nothing, but most people felt powerless in those days. The priest, especially in rural communities, had immense power and wielded that power.

For those who suffered at the hands of the abusive clergy, that's no comfort I know. But it's part of the set of circumstances that allowed systematic abuse to take place.

And remember, it wasn't only sexual abuse that took place. The Ryan report dealt with institutional physical abuse. A friend of mine is a garda who was dealling with the victims and to me the most awful part was that the statute of limitations had been exceeded (is that how you say it?) and prosecutions could not be made because it was too long ago. Is is 7 years is the statute of limitations, or something like that? Basically, unless you were sexually abused, in which case there is no statute of limitations, your abuser got away with it.

Only one nun has been convicted of 'cruel and unnatural' treatment of a child and she wasn't even sentenced. Her excuse ; she had a heart condition. She walked free from the court after a history of battering, kicking and emotionally abusing children for years.
Again, protected by Church and State.
Now she will live her life out in comfort in the full knowledge that apart from a few hecklers outside the court, she got off lightly.