http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE54J4GV20090520?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&sp=true
Quote
Irish priests beat, raped children: report
By Padraic Halpin and Carmel Crimmins
DUBLIN (Reuters) - Priests beat and raped children during decades of abuse in Catholic-run institutions in Ireland, an official report said on Wednesday, but it stopped short of naming the perpetrators.
Orphanages and industrial schools in 20th century Ireland were places of fear, neglect and endemic sexual abuse, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse said in a harrowing five-volume report that took nine years to compile.
The Commission, chaired by a High Court judge, blasted successive generations of priests, nuns and Christian Brothers -- a Catholic religious order -- for beating, starving and, in some cases raping, children in Ireland's now defunct network of industrial and reformatory schools from the 1930s onwards.
"When confronted with evidence of sexual abuse, the response of the religious authorities was to transfer the offender to another location where, in many instances, he was free to abuse again," the report said.
"Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from."
The report slammed the Department of Education for its failure to stop the crimes. In rare cases when it was informed of sexual abuse, "it colluded in the silence," the report said.
Successful legal action by the Christian Brothers, the largest provider of residential care for boys in the country, led the Commission to drop its original intention to name the people against whom the allegations were made.
No abusers will be prosecuted as a result of the inquiry.
John Kelly, coordinator of the Survivors of Child Abuse (SOCA) group, said there could be no closure without accountability.
"I have been getting phone calls all day from former residents, they feel their wounds have been reopened for nothing," he told Reuters. "They were promised justice by the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) in 1999 and they feel cheated. They expected that the abusers would face prosecution."
UNDERWEAR INSPECTIONS
The Christian Brothers said they were appalled at the revelations but denied that their lawsuit had obstructed the report. "We are deeply sorry, deeply regretful for what has been put before us today," Brother Edmund Garvey said.
Many of the children were sent into church care because of school truancy, petty crime or because they were unmarried mothers or their offspring. Some were used as laborers, churning out rosary beads or set to work on farms.
Sexual abuse was endemic in boys' institutions and girls were preyed on by sexual predators who were able to operate unhindered.
The Commission interviewed 1,090 men and women who were housed in 216 institutions including children's homes, hospitals and schools. They told of scavenging for food from waste bins and animal feed, of floggings, scaldings and being held under water. There were underwear inspections and in one case, a boy was forced to lick excrement from a priest's shoe.
Absconders were flogged and some had their heads shaved.
Tom Sweeney, who spent five years at industrial schools including two years at the notorious Artane Industrial School, said it still haunted its former residents.
"Unfortunately there are a lot of people that have committed suicide, there are a lot of people that have ended up in hospitals and they have been forgotten about," he said.
Revelations of abuse, including a string of scandals involving priests molesting young boys, have eroded the Catholic Church's moral authority in Ireland, once one of the most religiously devout countries in the world.
The inquiry, conducted at a reported cost of 70 million euros ($95.16 million), was announced in 1999 by then Prime Minister Bertie Ahern after he apologized to victims following revelations made in a series of television documentaries.
The government has paid out around 825 million euros in compensation to former residents of the institutions and the final bill is likely to top 1 billion euros.
The report can be downloaded at:
http://www.childabusecommission.ie/index.html
Absolutely terrible stuff. Some church sexual abuse scandals had come out before but the scale of abuse is shocking.
The Catholic church has had far too much power in Ireland. The fact that the two main parties are both centre right conservative parties (both very sympathetic to the Catholic church) doesn't help things at all.
I hope this scandal will put people off the Catholic church and their political supporters.
Bah, toughens them up.
By 'toughens them up', you mean deeply damages them for the rest of their lives and causes some of them to commit suicide?
Quote from: Cerr on May 20, 2009, 07:21:39 PM
By 'toughens them up', you mean damages them for the rest of their lives and causes some them to commit suicide?
Suicide culls the herd. Whatever improves traffic in the morning.
Besides, Catholics are usually damaged for the rest of their lives anyway. ZOMG MY DEAD GRANDMA KNOWS WHEN I MASTERBATE
Quote from: Cerr on May 20, 2009, 07:21:39 PM
By 'toughens them up', you mean deeply damages them for the rest of their lives and causes some of them to commit suicide?
Suck it up. Priestly abuse has been going on for millenia. Who are you to judge them?
Ireland: All the alcoholism and barbarity of Russia, little of the innovation, grit or brilliance.
Quote from: Queequeg on May 20, 2009, 10:51:43 PM
Ireland: All the alcoholism and barbarity of Russia, little of the innovation, grit or brilliance.
No innovation or brilliance among the Irish? WTF?
It must be hard to suck all that Russian cock while smoking crack.
Don't blame me. I have long supported burning away Popery with atomic fire. The Catholic Church needs to be destroyed utterly.
Quote from: Valmy on May 20, 2009, 11:22:46 PM
It must be hard to suck all that Russian cock while smoking crack.
I would imagine it makes it more bearable. :D
Quote from: Valmy on May 20, 2009, 11:22:46 PM
Quote from: Queequeg on May 20, 2009, 10:51:43 PM
Ireland: All the alcoholism and barbarity of Russia, little of the innovation, grit or brilliance.
No innovation or brilliance among the Irish? WTF?
It must be hard to suck all that Russian cock while smoking crack.
:ph34r:
I'm not a huge fan of the Irish and I thought I might be able to get a rise out of CDM.
Quote from: Queequeg on May 21, 2009, 02:40:59 AM
Quote from: Valmy on May 20, 2009, 11:22:46 PM
Quote from: Queequeg on May 20, 2009, 10:51:43 PM
Ireland: All the alcoholism and barbarity of Russia, little of the innovation, grit or brilliance.
No innovation or brilliance among the Irish? WTF?
It must be hard to suck all that Russian cock while smoking crack.
:ph34r:
I'm not a huge fan of the Irish
Well the feeling is mutual. Now piss off.
:lol:
The Irish are fine, as long as they're not Irish-Americans living in the Boston area. :bleeding:
(Who, you Euros will agree, are not really Irish anyway. :) )
Here's a good editorial on the subject:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0521/1224247034262.html
QuoteThe savage reality of our darkest days
THE REPORT of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse is the map of an Irish hell. It defines the contours of a dark hinterland of the State, a parallel country whose existence we have long known but never fully acknowledged. It is a land of pain and shame, of savage cruelty and callous indifference.
The instinct to turn away from it, repelled by its profoundly unsettling ugliness, is almost irresistible. We owe it, though, to those who have suffered there to acknowledge from now on that it is an inescapable part of Irish reality. We have to deal with the now-established fact that, alongside the warmth and intimacy, the kindness and generosity of Irish life, there was, for most of the history of the State, a deliberately maintained structure of vile and vicious abuse.
Mr Justice Ryan’s report does not suggest that this abuse was as bad as most of us suspected. It shows that it was worse. It may indeed have been even worse than the report actually finds – there are indications that “the level of sexual abuse in boys’ institutions was much higher than was revealed by the records or could be discovered by this investigation”.
With a calm but relentless accumulation of facts, the report blows away all the denials and obfuscations, all the moral equivocations and evasions that we have heard from some of the religious orders and their apologists. The sheer scale and longevity of the torment inflicted on defenceless children – over 800 known abusers in over 200 institutions during a period of 35 years – should alone make it clear that it was not accidental or opportunistic but systematic.
Violence and neglect were not the result of underfunding – the large institutions, where the worst abuse was inflicted, were “well-resourced”. The failure of the religious orders to stop these crimes did not result from ignorance. The recidivist nature of child sexual abusers was understood by the Brothers, who nonetheless continued deliberately to place known offenders in charge of children, both in industrial schools and in ordinary primary schools. At best, this represented what the report calls “a callous disregard for the safety of children”. At worst, it was an active protection of, and thus collusion with, the perpetrators of appalling crimes.
Nor did the abuse continue because of secrecy. Again, the very scale of the violence made it impossible to keep it sealed off from either officialdom or society at large. Contemporary complaints were made to the Garda, to the Department of Education, to health boards, to priests and to members of the public. The department, “deferential and submissive” to the religious congregations, did not shout stop. Neither did anyone else. Indeed, perhaps the most shocking finding of the commission is that industrial school inmates were often sexually exploited by those outside the closed world of the congregations, by “volunteer workers, visitors, work placement employees, foster parents” and by those who took them out for holidays or to work.
The key to understanding these attitudes is surely to realise that abuse was not a failure of the system. It was the system. Terror was both the point of these institutions and their standard operating procedure. Their function in Irish society was to impose social control, particularly on the poor, by acting as a threat. Without the horror of an institution like Letterfrack, it could not fulfil that function. Within the institutions, terror was systematic and deliberate. It was a methodology handed down through “successive generations of Brothers, priests and nuns”.
There is a nightmarish quality to this systemic malice, reminiscent of authoritarian regimes. We read of children “flogged, kicked . . . scalded, burned and held under water”. We read of deliberate psychological torment inflicted through humiliation, expressions of contempt and the practice of incorrectly telling children that their parents were dead. We read of returned absconders having their heads shaved and of “ritualised” floggings in one institution.
We have to call this kind of abuse by its proper name – torture. We must also call the organised exploitation of unpaid child labour – young girls placed in charge of babies “on a 24-hour basis” or working under conditions of “great suffering” in the rosary bead industry; young boys doing work that gave them no training but made money for the religious orders – by its proper name: slavery. It demands a very painful adjustment of our notions of the nature of the State to accept that it helped to inflict torture and slavery on tens of thousands of children. In the light of the commission’s report, however, we can no longer take comfort in evasions.
* * *
Almost unbearable though it may be, it is important that everyone who can do so should read and absorb this report. We owe that especially to those victims who first broke the silence on the RTÉ documentaries Dear Daughter and States of Fear and to those who came forward to tell their stories to the commission. It is to be hoped that, in spite of the failure of the religious congregations to take full responsibility for what happened, those who have suffered have found some comfort in that process and in a report of such unflinching lucidity.
Most importantly, though, we owe it to all who are vulnerable in today’s Irish society. For their sakes, we need to know what happens when institutions acquire absolute power over defenceless people and when the State and society come to believe that it is better to collude in crimes than to challenge cherished beliefs. Mr Justice Ryan suggests the erection of a monument to the victims of abuse with the words of the State’s 1999 apology inscribed on it. That should happen, but the real monument will be that we inscribe on our collective consciousness as a society the two words “Never again”.
Quote from: Caliga on May 21, 2009, 07:06:58 AM
:lol:
The Irish are fine, as long as they're not Irish-Americans living in the Boston area. :bleeding:
(Who, you Euros will agree, are not really Irish anyway. :) )
The Irish in Ireland are tainted by their treason.
And Cerr, your editorial is hillarious. 'TORTURE! SLAVERY! LOL!'
Quote from: Neil on May 21, 2009, 07:12:35 AM
Quote from: Caliga on May 21, 2009, 07:06:58 AM
:lol:
The Irish are fine, as long as they're not Irish-Americans living in the Boston area. :bleeding:
(Who, you Euros will agree, are not really Irish anyway. :) )
The Irish in Ireland are tainted by their treason.
And Cerr, your editorial is hillarious. 'TORTURE! SLAVERY! LOL!'
What would you call this?
QuoteWe read of children “flogged, kicked . . . scalded, burned and held under water”. We read of deliberate psychological torment inflicted through humiliation, expressions of contempt and the practice of incorrectly telling children that their parents were dead. We read of returned absconders having their heads shaved and of “ritualised” floggings in one institution.
or this?
QuoteWe must also call the organised exploitation of unpaid child labour – young girls placed in charge of babies “on a 24-hour basis” or working under conditions of “great suffering” in the rosary bead industry; young boys doing work that gave them no training but made money for the religious orders – by its proper name: slavery
Quote from: Cerr on May 21, 2009, 07:21:02 AM
What would you call this?
Harsh parenting. They should suck it up.
You guys are hilarious. :lol:
As for the abuse - it sounds truly horrible.
So Church institutions were pretty much above the law eh?
It sounds almost medieval, the old idea that somehow religion alone could make people behave. 'Nobody who speaks Latin could be evil.'
Quote from: Valmy on May 21, 2009, 08:26:30 AM
So Church institutions were pretty much above the law eh?
It sounds almost medieval, the old idea that somehow religion alone could make people behave. 'Nobody who speaks Latin could be evil.'
Quote from: Christopher Hitchins"Good people will do good things, evil people will do evil things but it takes religion to make good people do evil things,"
Quote from: Christopher Hitchens"Good people will do good things, evil people will do evil things but it takes religion to make good people do evil things,"
Really, he's selling nationalism (and dedication to any cause, really) short there.
Quote from: ulmont on May 21, 2009, 08:47:25 AM
Quote from: Christopher Hitchens"Good people will do good things, evil people will do evil things but it takes religion to make good people do evil things,"
Really, he's selling nationalism (and dedication to any cause, really) short there.
[Hitchins]Nazism and Communism were and are quasi religious ideologies[/Hitchins]
Hitchins operating definition of Religion is probably more along the lines of "any organized subservience of reason, logic or science to dogma" rather than any religious person's definition of Religion.
Can you imagine how it was in the middle ages?
Quote from: Siege on May 21, 2009, 08:53:09 AM
Can you imagine how it was in the middle ages?
You could just tell us about your life as a child. :)
Quote from: Siege on May 21, 2009, 08:53:09 AM
Can you imagine how it was in the middle ages?
Give me a few years and I'll be there.
Here's another good article about the scandal:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0521/1224247036973.html
QuoteOPINION: IT IS quite simply a devastating report. It is a monument to the shameful nature of Irish society throughout most of the decades of the 20th century, and arguably even today, writes MARY RAFTERY
Mr Justice Seán Ryan and the child abuse commission have produced a work of incalculable value to this country. They have painstakingly charted the vast scale of abuse of tens of thousands of children within institutions. Crucially, they have ascribed responsibility for that abuse by examining the role and reactions of the authorities concerned – the twin pillars of church and State which colluded so disastrously in the misery of so many children.
Irish society has a long record of running away from the appalling truth of the physical and sexual torture experienced by so many children across over 100 childcare institutions. Many have found a myriad of ways to remain in denial.
Just a few bad apples, they say. And it’s all in the past anyway. Most disgraceful have been the snide suggestions that those revealing their abuse are motivated by compensation rather than the truth. These are the excuses which have been peddled by the religious orders, most notably the Christian Brothers, over the decades. The Ryan commission report makes clear that it has been a deliberate strategy by this and other orders to deny, to obfuscate and to challenge any and all of the allegations against them. What is so important is that it is not merely a historic failing on their part – it remains their approach to this day. Only a single religious order is singled out as having a more open and accepting approach to both the inquiry process and to the victims themselves – this is the Institute of Charity, known as the Rosminian order, who ran viciously abusive schools at Ferryhouse in Clonmel and Upton in Cork and who now seek to understand how their ideals could have become so debased.
While some of the other religious orders, and indeed the State, have made public apologies, these are of highly questionable value in the face of the continuing attempts by both church and State to evade responsibility and intimidate victims.
The Ryan report is particularly interesting on this particular form of hypocrisy. On the public apology by the Christian Brothers, it says it was “guarded, conditional and unclear”, and that “it was not even clear that the statement could properly be called an apology”.
Crucially, the abject failure by most of the congregations to accept any responsibility for the abuse has been identified repeatedly by the commission. In this respect, its findings are targeted directly at the current leadership within these organisations. Again in the case of the Christian Brothers, the report draws a pointed distinction between the evidence of contrition given by many individual Brothers who had worked in the industrial schools, and the attitude of blanket denial coming from those who are currently in charge of the congregation.
The commission describes a range of problems encountered when dealing with the Christian Brothers: assertions “known to be incorrect or misleading”; relevant facts omitted; and a policy of denying that a Brother was ever in an institution where “a complainant had got a name even slightly wrong”.
It should be remembered that many of the religious congregations implicated in the abuse continue to run hundreds of primary and secondary schools across Ireland today.
The Christian Brothers remain the largest provider of schools for boys, while the Sisters of Mercy provide the same facility for girls. Another savagely abusive congregation – the Brothers of Charity, whose abuse of mentally handicapped boys is catalogued in the report’s chapter on its institution at Lota in Cork – continues today to be the largest provider of care facilities for both adults and children with intellectual disabilities.
This asks important questions of us as a society: are we simply to sweep this under the carpet, to conveniently agree that everything is much better today? Or should we instead look to change a system where so much of the educational and care provision for our children is farmed out to organisations who are unaccountable and now proven to have a long track record of abuse and cover-up?
And what of the State and the Department of Education? They too stand condemned for their abject and grotesque failures to protect the children in their care. Grossly inadequate inspection and regulation, combined with wilfully turning a blind eye when complaints were made are detailed repeatedly in the commission’s report.
And again, we perceive a pattern where this is no mere failing of a past era. We know that the Department of Education is currently fighting child sex abuse victims in the courts to ensure that the State is declared to have no legal responsibility for what happened to them. The State has even gone so far as to threaten victims that it will force them to pay its own legal costs (as well as theirs) should they continue to attempt to hold the State to account. This kind of bullying, threatening behaviour is redolent of the attitudes which the Ryan commission report describes as pervasive in the 1940s and 1950s. Nonetheless, hundreds of victims of child sexual abuse by day-school teachers continue today to experience what can fairly be described as a campaign of State-sponsored intimidation in their attempts to seek justice in the courts.
We have heard all about the ordeal of Louise O’Keeffe, terrified that she might lose her house to pay the State’s legal bills on foot of her case against the Department of Education over sexual abuse by her school principal, which she suffered at the age of eight.
A number of cases concerning another primary school teacher, the notorious former Christian Brother Donal Dunne, are similarly being fought by the State. This sexual predator is the subject of an entire chapter in the Ryan commission report, which also included day-school abuse within its remit.
It is an account of staggering negligence on the part of every single element of the educational system involved. Dunne (referred to as John Brander in the report) moved blithely from school to school across the midlands, sexually assaulting children in each of them, despite detailed knowledge at senior government and Catholic Church levels that he was a paedophile.
It should be pointed out that the report has some failings, most particularly the decision not even to name perpetrators of abuse who have been criminally convicted. It is difficult to fathom the rationale for this, and it is likely to lead to a certain understandable frustration from victims.
Further, the report’s recommendations are disappointingly vague and brief, and do not do justice to the meticulous attention to detail and the plain, frank language of the main body of the report.
In particular, there are two key issues which are not addressed. In the face of such an avalanche of abuse of highly vulnerable children, the question of a specific constitutional provision for the protection of the rights of children should become central to any debate flowing from this report. It is painfully clear that the general protections for children as part of a family unit were pitifully inadequate to save these tens of thousands of children from abuse in times past, and seem similarly incapable today. A recommendation in this area would have been helpful.
Secondly, there is the issue of mandatory reporting of child abuse. This has been a highly controversial area, with strenuous opposition from various professional groups responsible for child welfare. A White Paper on the issue, promised by the then taoiseach Bertie Ahern when he made his historic apology to child abuse victims in 1999, failed to materialise. It remains up to any individual as to whether information about a child at risk is passed on to the appropriate authorities.
The Ryan report is a testament to what happens when discretion prevails. While there has undoubtedly been enormous progress in child protection mechanisms since the days of the industrial schools, we do know that children at risk continue to be let down by the State, remaining in abusive conditions without protection. At the very least, it would have been useful for the child abuse commission to have again raised the reporting issue for debate.
However, what the Ryan commission report has done with great thoroughness is to give us a compelling vision of the hell to which so many children were consigned. It is up to ourselves as a society to demand from Government a series of guarantees, constitutional in part, to ensure that it is never again repeated.
Mary Raftery is a freelance journalist who has written extensively about how children were abused while under the care of both the Catholic Church and the State
Is it really a scandal? After all, it's not like nobody knew that the Catholic Church was full of Martinuses for years now.
It'll be interesting to see if this does much damage to the church worldwide.
Here's a piece from a British Catholic:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/21/catholic-abuse-ireland-ryan
QuoteAn abuse too far by the Catholic church
Tales of systematic abuse in Irish Catholic institutions leave me wondering how long I can continue to feel part of this church
Madeleine Bunting
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 21 May 2009 16.31 BST
Article history
This could not be worse. The Ryan report is the stuff of nightmares. It's the adjectives which chill: systemic, pervasive, chronic, excessive, arbitrary, endemic. They pretty much tell the whole story of the violence and sexual abuse suffered by a generation of some of the most vulnerable children in Ireland over several decades of the middle of the 20th century. This is a crisis for Ireland – Irish bloggers yesterday were describing the scandal as their equivalent of the Holocaust – but it is also a crisis for global Catholicism. After all, it is not just Ireland going through this terrible reckoning with its Catholic history but the US, Australia and to some extent the UK.
The Ryan report's meticulous gathering of evidence over several volumes paints a picture of a system of church and state in Ireland which was horrifically dysfunctional with its combination of sadism and deference. Page after page punches the point home with relentless clarity. Squarely in the frame are the religious orders who systematically protected and tolerated their members' actions even when they knew they were breaking the law. But also culpable is the state charged to inspect the childrens' homes and schools. It was too deferential to the Catholic church to ever do the job properly.
When child abuse in the Catholic church first began to be taken seriously in the late 80s/early 90s, the line of argument reluctantly conceded after straight denial became impossible to sustain, was that it was all about a "few bad apples". But the Ryan report destroys this fig leaf of a defence because of the sheer scale of what went on. The report rightly challenges the relevant religious orders to "examine how their ideals became debased" and why it was that they consistently put the interests of their institutions before individuals.
The report is so damning, not just in dealing with the past, but on how it calls up short present behaviour – the lamentable reluctance of the religious orders to engage with the inquiry or fully accept their role. The report argues that the public apology by the Christian Brothers was "guarded, conditional and unclear", and that "it was not even clear that the statement could properly be called an apology".
The Irish government has officially apologised and is footing the lion's share of the bill for compensation to victims. The Ryan report calls for a national memorial. There is growing pressure for some commensurate gesture of atonement from the Catholic church. The apologies flooding out yesterday seem too little, too late. And there is still, extraordinarily, denial – ranging from Mary Kenny's jaunty variety of "I've never met a priest who is a paedophile" to the new Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, who praised the courage of the religious orders concerned and seemed to exonerate their reluctance to face the past as "instinctive and quite natural". It's a form of wording which, from such an experienced media operator as Nichols, beggars belief.
There needs to be a far more probing analysis of the structure of authority within the Catholic church, and the culture of deference and obedience expected of lay people towards priests. These bred a preoccupation with maintaining the prestige and authority of church institutions; any threat to that priority – regardless of the cost to the welfare of individuals - had to be stifled. These are the characteristics which have made the Catholic church morally bankrupt.
As one Jesuit-edited blog put it this week:
Why did so many Catholic institutions fail so appallingly? A hundred reasons can be suggested, but three come to mind: undue respect for authority (which was self-justifying and rarely self-critical); religious authoritarianism (government of communities by self-perpetuating cliques, who rarely saw the need for fresh thinking); and a rancid clericalism (product of a religious culture that increasingly turned in on itself).
How can this cosiness by shaken up, challenged and reformed? This is not a new debate within the Catholic church; ever since the second Vatican council in the early 1960s there have been a minority who believed that the hierarchy of the church owed more to the Roman Empire than it did to the Jewish carpenter, and have sought measures of reform. But their efforts have met with so little success that they have retreated to the margins faced with a resurgent conservatism. Many others have given up the fight, and abandoned Catholicism altogether as too irredeemably unreformable.
The whole sorry chapter raises a very private dilemma. For years now, I've had an intermittent conversation with an admirable and devout relative: How long can we hang on? When do our fingernails break? Belonging to any institution involves sometimes having to clamp a clothes peg on your nose, as my colleague Polly Toynbee urged in the very different circumstances of disaffected voters sticking with Labour in 2005. But there comes a point when the clothes peg option runs out, the fingernails break.
The Catholic church is one of the world's most enduring institutions: no other global body counts more than a billion adherents whose practices and behaviours are guided by an organised, disciplined hierarchy, but this whole awful history of abuse is a reminder that too often in history that institutional survival has come at the cost of everything it purports to believe.
Quote from: garbon on May 21, 2009, 08:56:17 AM
Quote from: Siege on May 21, 2009, 08:53:09 AM
Can you imagine how it was in the middle ages?
You could just tell us about your life as a child. :)
:lol: Nice one
Quote from: garbon on May 21, 2009, 08:56:17 AM
Quote from: Siege on May 21, 2009, 08:53:09 AM
Can you imagine how it was in the middle ages?
You could just tell us about your life as a child. :)
:face:
QuoteWhy did so many Catholic institutions fail so appallingly? A hundred reasons can be suggested, but three come to mind: undue respect for authority (which was self-justifying and rarely self-critical); religious authoritarianism (government of communities by self-perpetuating cliques, who rarely saw the need for fresh thinking); and a rancid clericalism (product of a religious culture that increasingly turned in on itself).
So they were just following orders?
Anyways, the abuse sounds absolutely horrific.
I think next time I play EU3 I'll play Sweden and purge Europe of the Catholic church.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on May 21, 2009, 11:57:14 AM
Anyways, the abuse sounds absolutely horrific.
I think next time I play EU3 I'll play Sweden and purge Europe of the Catholic church.
It is good to see somebody on this board stopping to just talk about appaling injustices and taking direct action! If there is such a thing as justice may you show them justice noble Tim!
Quote from: Valmy on May 21, 2009, 12:18:59 PM
It is good to see somebody on this board stopping to just talk about appaling injustices and taking direct action! If there is such a thing as justice may you show them justice noble Tim!
:lol:
Quote from: Valmy on May 21, 2009, 12:18:59 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on May 21, 2009, 11:57:14 AM
Anyways, the abuse sounds absolutely horrific.
I think next time I play EU3 I'll play Sweden and purge Europe of the Catholic church.
It is good to see somebody on this board stopping to just talk about appaling injustices and taking direct action! If there is such a thing as justice may you show them justice noble Tim!
Why thank you. ^_^
Tim, you are a Hero Of The Federation!
And you guys didn't believe me when I told you the catholic church is a tool of Satan. Now, I'm pretty sure the same kind of abuse has been going on in Poland, and it is only a matter of time when the catholic church stumbles and falls here as well. I can't wait for the day to come.
Quote from: Martinus on May 22, 2009, 05:33:47 PM
And you guys didn't believe me when I told you the catholic church is a tool of Satan. Now, I'm pretty sure the same kind of abuse has been going on in Poland, and it is only a matter of time when the catholic church stumbles and falls here as well. I can't wait for the day to come.
Does/did the church in Poland run intsitutions similar to those in Ireland?
I would have thought that the state would have taken control of any of those after WW2 when the communists came to power.
Quote from: Martinus on May 22, 2009, 05:33:47 PM
And you guys didn't believe me when I told you the catholic church is a tool of Satan.
The Church does alot of good as well but when you have a billion person club and a bureaucracy that basis its legitimacy on being morally pure, there are going to be alot of shit going on and covered up.
Quote from: Martinus on May 22, 2009, 05:33:47 PM
And you guys didn't believe me when I told you the catholic church is a tool of Satan. Now, I'm pretty sure the same kind of abuse has been going on in Poland, and it is only a matter of time when the catholic church stumbles and falls here as well. I can't wait for the day to come.
Given that what you've done is far worse than anything the Catholics have done...
Quote from: Queequeg on May 20, 2009, 10:51:43 PM
Ireland: All the alcoholism and barbarity of Russia, little of the innovation, grit or brilliance.
Joyce, Beckett, Yeats, Synge and that's just the beginning. You have a penchant for countries with corrupt over-bearing regimes with religious nationalist overtones. Look into Charles Haughey, GUBU, de Valera and say Ireland doesn't deserve some consideration :p
Quote from: Martinus on May 22, 2009, 05:33:47 PM
And you guys didn't believe me when I told you the catholic church is a tool of Satan. Now, I'm pretty sure the same kind of abuse has been going on in Poland, and it is only a matter of time when the catholic church stumbles and falls here as well. I can't wait for the day to come.
It's hardly unique to the Catholic Church though.
We've had similar scandals in Canada. What first comes to mind were the Indian Residential Schools, which were government funded but church administered. There was ongoing sexual and physical abuse both in the Catholic and Anglican schools.
But even then there were abuses going on in any environment where adults had unfettered access to children. Society, both secual and religious, just wasn't very aware of the issue of child sexual abuse up until almost the 1980s.
Here's an article with some quotes from the victims:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0523/1224247210382.html
QuoteThe voices of the abused emerge raw and bleak from pages 113 to 119 of Volume V of the Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse . They told their stories to an interviewing team. In an introductory note to the section, the team acknowledged their courage: “We were deeply moved, inspired and humbled by our contact with you. Although we spent only a few hours with you, meeting you and listening to your stories was a moving and enriching experience for all of us. We felt privileged and honoured that you trusted us with such intensely personal and private experiences. . .” Here are sample extracts – unedited – of what the team heard.
Statements of “worst thing” that happened to participants while living in an institution
– Severe physical and sexual abuse.
– Stripped naked by a nun and beaten with a stick and given no supper and humiliated.
– After running away having my hair cut off to a very short length and was made to stand naked to be beaten by nun in front of other people.
– At 6 I was raped by nun and at 10 I was hit with a poker on head by nun.
– When I told nuns about being molested by ambulance driver, I was stripped naked and whipped by four nuns to “get the devil out of you”.
– Sexual and physical abuse, no education, and not enough food.
– Forced oral sex and beatings.
– A brother tried to rape me but did not succeed, so I was beaten instead.
– Taken from bed and made to walk around naked with other boys whilst brothers used their canes and flicked at their penis.
– Tied to a cross and raped whilst others masturbated at the side.
Severe physical abuse
– I was polishing the floor and a nun placed her foot on my back so I was pushed to the floor. I was locked in a dark room.
– Having to empty the toilets and being lifted off the ground by my sideburns.
– Put in bath of Jeyes fluid with three others.
– They used to make my sisters beat me.
– Having my head submerged in dirty water in the laundry repeatedly by a nun.
Being beaten regularly
– Physical abuse and segregation from other children for no reason.
– A severe beating by two nuns for a trivial misdemeanour until I was bleeding.
– Being beaten for wetting the bed and allocated to do worst work like cleaning potties and minding children
– Tied to a bed and physically abused by three carers.
– I was beaten and hospitalised by the head brother and not allowed to go to my father’s funeral in case my bruises were seen; also the head brother threatened to kill me.
– Being accused of sexually interfering with other boys and being beaten until made to write down the names of boys I had touched. In the end I wrote down two names to stop the torture.
– They made me change my surname and beat me until I accepted it. They took my identity from me. The put me through mental torture which is still with me now. They separated me from my sister and sent her to another institution.
– Being physically beaten by nuns and referred to as a number. My head was pushed under water in the bath. The nuns threw food into a group of children and I would have to struggle to get some food.
– Being told at 6.30pm on way to bed that I would be beaten next morning at 6.30am. It was torture waiting for it.
– Being stripped and thrown into nettles and sleeping with pigs for a week.
– I was left hanging out of a window for hours with finger stuck in it, and was guaranteed to be beaten every day.
– Having my hair cut off in spite and being beaten on the floor.
– Being locked in a furnace room and left, bitten by rats, found by coal delivery man, removed, washed in cold water, bites cleaned and then put back there.
– Being punished when tired and no one listening to me about the abuse.
– Starving and beatings like a concentration camp. There were so many worst things. Every day was a nightmare.
– My hair was cut short as punishment and I was beaten very badly in front of everyone when I came home late.
– We were all lined up naked and slapped in the face a lot. We all had to drink water from toilets and were all washed in same dirty bath water.
– Receiving a severe beatings and witnessing my younger brother returning from a severe beating.
– Lashing; name calling (the name “good for nothing” is still with me today); starving while watching pets being fed.
– Being beaten until knocked out and my head split. Having my finger placed in boiling water until all feeling was lost; the finger swelled up, skin wore away, and the nail fell off.
– Being thrown and ducked in scalding hot baths; being taken to hospital and anaesthetised with ether when getting my tonsils out. I have awful memories of feeling like being smothered with ether, similar to being ducked in the bath; I came as near death as you can imagine.
– Being whipped and humiliated in front of the other children.
– Being abused; once my tongue was almost cut out.
– Constant beatings; I was forced to sit on potty until my rectal muscle popped out.
– Beaten by nuns with cat-o-nine-tails that left deep cuts.
– Beaten and scarred with hurley.
– Kicked down the stairs.
– Being hit on my back by a brother and sustaining a lifelong injury.
– I was beaten in the shower naked, and not allowed to say goodbye when leaving.
– Whipping.
– Beaten until I had bones broken.
– Being stripped and flogged and locked in room for 2-3 weeks.
– Beaten.
Severe sexual abuse
– Sexual abuse – molested at night.
– Oral and anal sexual abuse on one occasion.
– Molested and masturbation.
– Rape.
– Sexual abuse and made to feel so insecure.
– Sexual abuse, starvation and secrecy in an institution that wasn’t fit for habitation.
– Gang rape.
– Sexually molested by a priest visiting the institution on 6-8 occasions.
– Sexual abuse perpetrated by gardeners, a social worker and other male convent employees.
– Being left out in the cold one winter and staying out near the boiler where older boys who had been sent by the courts tried to molest him and I had to fight them off.
– A Brother sexually abused me.
– Child sexual abuse by older boys (not the brothers).
– Sexually abused in a toilet twice, and mental abuse, shown horror movies.
– Sexual abuse and witnessing violence. I had a rubber hose stuck up me and I had to watch my carers beating the youngest most vulnerable children.
– Being raped by the director of the school.
Severe emotional abuse
– When my mother first came to visit after six months, she cried lots at how much weight I and all the kids had lost. She cried lots saying “I didn’t put ye here.”
– Watching other boys who had just been beaten for wetting the bed coming out of the office in pain, hearing the crying and seeing other boys trying to help.
– Father prevented from seeing me.
– They told my brothers I had died. I was hit for crying in response and told to stop.
– Not being loved.
– Neglect. Craving love but getting none.
– After a disagreement with a nun, my long hair was cut off in my sleep as they knew I loved it.
– Living in fear.
– Being painted with a paint brush.
– The night I entered the institution, my clothes and teddy thrown away.
– Getting chilblains, frostbite, and sores so deep I could see my bones on my hand from working in the fields was worse than the beatings.
– The fear, starvation and hard labour.
– Deprived of chance to go to my grandmother’s funeral.
– The first day I was told my mother didn’t want me.
– Seeing a young boy die. He was 12 years old, beaten by brothers on landing and fell over bannister.
– Told to say I was the devil and had to wear a “devil’s tongue” hat.
– I had my identity taken away. I was known by a number only.
– Having pubic hair shaved off and a nun telling people about it at dinner. She said “I shaved the monkey”.
– I can take any abuse, but the worst thing was having no one. Seeing other kids going out with their families and not knowing why I had no one. I was lied to: told that my parents were dead. I only found out in my 50s that they were alive.
– I could stand the beating. The worst thing was the mental abuse: being put in there in the first place and not understanding why.
– At age nine I was sent to pluck turkeys in a coal shed in the cold and had freezing fingers.
– The worst thing was the emotional removal of self: it still has a huge effect on my life.
– Lack of education: not being taught how to read or write. That’s the most hurtful thing.
– It was threatened that my father would lock me in a mental institution if I didn’t stop causing trouble.
– Punishment was meted out repeatedly for the same misdemeanour. Constantly being threatened with punishment.
– Listening to them talking badly about my mother and being taunted about my physical appearance. I was called “four eyes”.
– Loneliness at Christmas time.
– Public humiliation about my mother being unmarried.
– Loss of finger through gangrene due to lack of medical attention. She loved to play the piano and this meant loss of hope to become a music teacher.
– We were children and we did so much hard work. We were up at six o’clock in the morning. We have no childhood memories. We knew no better.
– The worst thing was the overall effect of breaking my spirit; the violence; and the constant blanket of terror.
– The constant fear. I was called into the office and told my mother had died. I actually felt relief that it wasn’t a punishment.
– Feeling alone and unloved.
– Witnessed my sister being whipped until she bled, then made to kneel in refectory for three months.
– The worst thing was the sense of being an orphan and being incarcerated and criminalised: the monotony; the ball-aching mind-aching hopelessness.
– Feeling like a “nobody” and that everyone was better. Always feeling insecure.
– Constantly being told I was worthless and shouldn’t have been born.
– Seeing my brother being beaten.
– Being taken into the office and told my foster mother had died and then immediately sent away again.
– I overheard someone say that my mother had died the night before. When I asked about it I was ignored and dismissed. My friend was beaten so badly for wetting the bed that I watched her die. I was constantly starving. I had to bribe my carers with bread so I wasn’t beaten.
– I was put naked into a coffin as punishment.
– Fear of everything. Fear of God. Fear of the Christian Brothers. Fear that I would go to hell.
– It was all bad.
Pathetic. What a bunch of whiners.
Quote from: Barrister on May 22, 2009, 06:53:00 PM
Society, both secual and religious, just wasn't very aware of the issue of child sexual abuse up until almost the 1980s.
It was perfectly aware of it - the issue has been topical for decades- but again things like deference to authority, subordination of children to adults, the view that the state should not intervene in family or church units (in short: basic conservative "virtues") made it impossible to address the problem. It's another example where your side has fought tooth and nail to defend the state of affairs that is now considered a barbarity.
Quote from: Cerr on May 22, 2009, 07:41:40 PM
Here's an article with some quotes from the victims:
[SNIP]
Ok if it wasn't minors and it wasn't involuntary, I must say some of it would be quite hot. :blush:
QuoteTied to a cross and raped whilst others masturbated at the side.
The inner catholic in me squeals in delight. :lol:
Just nuke the whole cursed island and be done with it.
In Swedish "Staten Irland" means "the state of Ireland". Makes you thimk.
Quote from: The Brain on May 23, 2009, 04:40:11 AM
In Swedish "Staten Irland" means "the state of Ireland". Makes you thimk.
It's not a meme if you are the only one doing it. :P
Quote from: Martinus on May 23, 2009, 05:12:57 AM
Quote from: The Brain on May 23, 2009, 04:40:11 AM
In Swedish "Staten Irland" means "the state of Ireland". Makes you thimk.
It's not a meme if you are the only one doing it. :P
Don't hate, mate.
Quote from: The Brain on May 23, 2009, 05:19:05 AM
Quote from: Martinus on May 23, 2009, 05:12:57 AM
Quote from: The Brain on May 23, 2009, 04:40:11 AM
In Swedish "Staten Irland" means "the state of Ireland". Makes you thimk.
It's not a meme if you are the only one doing it. :P
Don't hate, mate.
Sorry. :hug:
hopefully this breaks the power the church has over ireland, resulting in the island going the way of spain and becoming increasingly secular.
And the Church as institution can use some reform too.
Marty, I was appalled by your message. I'd suggest seeking out psychiatric assistance, pronto!
I've been watching SVU lately. This seems rather typical.
The conservative fight back has begun. There's been a few interviews from Bertie Ahern(former prime minister), Michael Woods(former education minister) and articles from right wing journalists over the last few days. They're trying to deflect the majority of the blame from the Catholic church onto the State.
Here's a good article about it:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0525/1224247322672.html
QuoteWoods gives preview of the conservative fightback
MARY RAFTERY
ANALYSIS: In the former minister’s media appearances we heard arguments the religious will likely use
IT IS easy to discount former government minister and senior Fianna Fáil member Michael Woods. A former minister, he is no longer a prominent figure. He has, however, left a festering sore behind him which continues to weep poison every now and then.
The infamous church-State deal on redress for victims of institutional child abuse, under which the religious orders pay a mere 10 per cent of the compensation bill, was at its most septic over the weekend.
Woods, the main architect of the deal, defended it on the television news and gave a long RTÉ radio interview on Saturday. We were beginning to hear some of the defences likely to be chosen by religious conservatives as soon as they manage to regroup and fight back.
First among these is that it was all the fault of the State. To this end, Woods uttered his first untruth: “the Department of Education had control, management role, organisation”.
It is a simple fact that the department had no management role within the industrial school system – management was exclusively a matter for the religious orders. This has been legally determined in recent years by two separate High Court judges. However, while this may be the strict legal position, it is apparent from the Ryan report that, morally speaking, church and State were to blame in equal part for the abuse suffered by so many thousands of children. It is thus peculiar to see Woods, as a former cabinet minister, exaggerate the responsibility of the State and minimise the culpability of the Catholic Church. It makes you wonder who exactly he was representing all those years he was in government.
Returning to his radio interview, he went on to state that “when the government went into this in the first place, we saw and we knew the kinds of things that had happened”.
Interesting to contrast this with the evidence he gave at a public hearing of the Ryan commission in 2004. Asked if he had formed a view as to how much abuse had occurred in the institutions, he replied: “No, not really, because we hadn’t enough information at that time.”
The time he was referring to was the period during which he was negotiating the church-State deal on compensation with the religious orders.
Nonetheless, as he said on Saturday, the State was taking full responsibility “and it was a question of whether the religious orders would make a contribution towards that”.
Well, no, actually – that was not the question. It was instead whether the religious orders wanted to buy an indemnity from the State for the amount on offer, namely €127 million. In other words, for that amount they could get the taxpayer to foot the bill for all future damages found against them.
Woods explained that the congregations said at the time that they had estimated their legal liability at under €60 million should they have to fight the court cases on their own. It appears that he believed them. What he did not mention was that their estimate was based on a belief that only about 10 per cent of cases against them would succeed, in other words that they would fight and beat in court nine out of every 10 victims who sued them.
The congregations’ confidence in such a high attrition rate was based on the protection afforded to them under the statute of limitations. This is a simple piece of legislation limiting the time after an injury during which a legal case can be taken.
The statute, however, could have been altered, lifted or amended at any time, and indeed in the wake of the States of Fear documentaries in 1999 it was suspended for a short period to allow those sexually abused to pursue their legal actions. Victims of physical abuse, though, were specifically excluded from the exemption. What is clear is that without the statute, the exposure of the religious orders would be hugely magnified. And therein should lie the key to government strategy on how to renegotiate the abysmal church-State deal.
Arguing palpable bad faith on the part of the religious orders – entirely reasonable on foot of the Ryan report revelations – the State should break the deal. It follows that it must then lift the statute of limitations for all cases of child abuse, not just sexual assault, as the only way to permit victims to seek appropriate legal remedy against the religious orders.
This would open the floodgates on the religious orders, who would have to defend against a tidal wave of abuse cases not only in their institutions but crucially also in their day schools. Given that there is hardly anyone in Ireland over the age of about 45 who was not beaten in school – often far in excess of what was permitted under Department of Education rules – hundreds of thousands of cases could ensue.
And, of course, as we know from the recent Louise O’Keeffe case, the State carries no legal responsibility for abuse suffered by children in schools. The entire liability for decades of violence against children in schools and institutions rests with either religious orders or with the bishops who continue to appoint schools’ boards of management.
This then brings the hierarchy into the picture. Michael Woods was at pains on Saturday to claim that none of this concerns the Catholic Church itself, but rather the religious orders – a somewhat Jesuitical distinction. The truth is that the entire church edifice is compromised, morally, legally and potentially financially. This appalling vista may well have dawned on the bishops.
It possibly explains the apparent breaking of ranks we witnessed at the weekend, with three senior churchmen indicating clearly that the religious orders should increase their contribution to the redress scheme for victims.
However, the religious orders are tough customers. The Christian Brothers, in particular, have been fighting off similar demands for compensation across three continents for the past two decades, ever since their appalling abuse of children in Canada and Australia was revealed.
It all depends on whether the Government has the backbone to face them down, to break the shameful church-State deal, to terminate their indemnity, and to remove all obstacles to the victims’ pursuit of the congregations (and the bishops) through the courts.
As the Ryan report points out, deference and submissiveness characterised the government’s dealings with the Catholic Church during much of the 20th century. It was clear that little had changed during the negotiation of the church-State deal in 2002.
Today, the Government faces a clear choice: will it continue its supine and cowed attitude – so disastrous in the past for the children of Ireland – or will it at last on our behalf stand up to those who have bullied and intimidated us all for so long?
I hear Archbishop Nichols of Westminster got into a bit of an argument with the Archbishop of Dublin. Did Nichols remarks get any play in Ireland?
Quote from: Sheilbh on May 25, 2009, 08:57:53 AM
I hear Archbishop Nichols of Westminster got into a bit of an argument with the Archbishop of Dublin. Did Nichols remarks get any play in Ireland?
Yeah his remarks were reported on in the media but so far no one has tried to defend him.
This piece mentions Diarmuid Martin's response to his remarks:
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/martin-rebukes-bishop-over-child-abuse-gaffe-1747665.html
Cerr, in that most recent article you posted the author sure has one mutherfucking huge axe to grind against "the religious".
The problem of course is that the religious orders mentions don't have a whole lot of money besides what is tied up in various churches, schools and hospitals. Plus if you want victims to get their money anytime soon the government is the only likely source.
We had a similar debate here. There were some early court cases that did split liability between the government and the churches, and I think generally gave more liability to the church than the government. But when the government announced it's compensation package the bulk of the funding is from the federal government.
I think because it was felt that having the churches simply liquidate a large portion of their operations wasn't in anyone's interests.
Quote from: garbon on May 23, 2009, 03:58:58 PM
Marty, I was appalled by your message. I'd suggest seeking out psychiatric assistance, pronto!
:lol:
Quote from: The Brain on May 23, 2009, 04:40:11 AM
In Swedish "Staten Irland" means "the state of Ireland". Makes you thimk.
It's Staten I
sland, which is "the state of Iceland". :lmfao:
And Minnesota can also be translated into "sweet memory" or "sweet rememberance", especially given the million or so of Swedes who lost their identity and got assimilated here in America, while totally forgotten they their nearest and dearest who had remained to starve in the old Sweden. :mad:
And even though I am a lapsed Catholic, I must admit I have a little smug pride of being a Catholic. :perv:
Quote from: The Brain on May 23, 2009, 04:23:06 AM
Just nuke the whole cursed island and be done with it.
Please wait until August, when I'm off the island.
Your 'Merican Friend,
Ed
Quote from: Barrister on May 25, 2009, 03:14:13 PM
The problem of course is that the religious orders mentions don't have a whole lot of money besides what is tied up in various churches, schools and hospitals. Plus if you want victims to get their money anytime soon the government is the only likely source.
I don't think that's true. The Catholic church is one of the biggest land and property owners in the country. They also sold some of their holdings at the height of the property boom. It's one of the wealthiest instutions in Ireland.
If they don't have the money to pay in full, some of their land and property should be taken by the State.
Quote from: Ed Anger on May 25, 2009, 05:10:28 PM
Quote from: The Brain on May 23, 2009, 04:23:06 AM
Just nuke the whole cursed island and be done with it.
Please wait until August, when I'm off the island.
Your 'Merican Friend,
Ed
Where are you going in Ireland?
Quote from: Cerr on May 25, 2009, 07:07:28 PM
Quote from: Barrister on May 25, 2009, 03:14:13 PM
The problem of course is that the religious orders mentions don't have a whole lot of money besides what is tied up in various churches, schools and hospitals. Plus if you want victims to get their money anytime soon the government is the only likely source.
I don't think that's true. The Catholic church is one of the biggest land and property owners in the country. They also sold some of their holdings at the height of the property boom. It's one of the wealthiest instutions in Ireland.
If they don't have the money to pay in full, some of their land and property should be taken by the State.
But look at what those property holdings are: as I mentioned they are almost entirely tied up in churches, hospitals, and schools. At least in this country. Is the Catholic Church over there a big landowner in terms of agricultural or commercial property?
One of the victims of the scandal spoke on a current affairs TV show last night. It's well worth watching:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jHqndf9Kx4&feature=channel_page
Quote from: Cerr on May 25, 2009, 07:10:19 PM
Quote from: Ed Anger on May 25, 2009, 05:10:28 PM
Quote from: The Brain on May 23, 2009, 04:23:06 AM
Just nuke the whole cursed island and be done with it.
Please wait until August, when I'm off the island.
Your 'Merican Friend,
Ed
Where are you going in Ireland?
County Cork for a few days, then County Donegal for a few. Staying with my wife's cousins, so I'd have to look up the towns. I think one in Donegal is in Ballyshannon.
I'm going to use my spare time to
stalk follow the Corr sisters. :P
Quote from: Cerr on May 26, 2009, 08:01:42 AM
One of the victims of the scandal spoke on a current affairs TV show last night. It's well worth watching:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jHqndf9Kx4&feature=channel_page
Amazing and moving.
Quote from: Barrister on May 25, 2009, 07:41:38 PM
Quote from: Cerr on May 25, 2009, 07:07:28 PM
Quote from: Barrister on May 25, 2009, 03:14:13 PM
The problem of course is that the religious orders mentions don't have a whole lot of money besides what is tied up in various churches, schools and hospitals. Plus if you want victims to get their money anytime soon the government is the only likely source.
I don't think that's true. The Catholic church is one of the biggest land and property owners in the country. They also sold some of their holdings at the height of the property boom. It's one of the wealthiest instutions in Ireland.
If they don't have the money to pay in full, some of their land and property should be taken by the State.
But look at what those property holdings are: as I mentioned they are almost entirely tied up in churches, hospitals, and schools. At least in this country. Is the Catholic Church over there a big landowner in terms of agricultural or commercial property?
That's like saying companies should not be liable for their crimes, because all they own are factories and offices, and they need these to do their work properly.
Fuck the Church. If they don't have money to pay (which I find surprising) then auction all the jewelry, artwork and church buildings they have. If people still trust them, they will donate for them to recover. If not, then all the pedophiles in Vatican (with the ruling Pope himself implicated in the coverup of the American scandal) can bail them out.
Quote from: Martinus on May 26, 2009, 10:36:19 AM
Quote from: Barrister on May 25, 2009, 07:41:38 PM
Quote from: Cerr on May 25, 2009, 07:07:28 PM
Quote from: Barrister on May 25, 2009, 03:14:13 PM
The problem of course is that the religious orders mentions don't have a whole lot of money besides what is tied up in various churches, schools and hospitals. Plus if you want victims to get their money anytime soon the government is the only likely source.
I don't think that's true. The Catholic church is one of the biggest land and property owners in the country. They also sold some of their holdings at the height of the property boom. It's one of the wealthiest instutions in Ireland.
If they don't have the money to pay in full, some of their land and property should be taken by the State.
But look at what those property holdings are: as I mentioned they are almost entirely tied up in churches, hospitals, and schools. At least in this country. Is the Catholic Church over there a big landowner in terms of agricultural or commercial property?
That's like saying companies should not be liable for their crimes, because all they own are factories and offices, and they need these to do their work properly.
That's not a very useful analogy.
First we're talking about civil liability, not criminal liability. While crimes were certainly committed by the priests and lay breatheren, and that constitutes civil liability through the doctrine of an employer's vicarious liability, that doctrine does NOT apply to criminal liability. As far as I'm aware the Catholic Church has never been found to be criminally responsible from abuse arising at church-run schools.
Second, there's a rather huge difference between a for-profit company and a non-profit like the Catholic Church. If a for-profit company gets punishingly large damage award against it it, assuming its still profitable, can earn money over time to pay it off. Or it can sell assets to a competitor who will then continue making widgets under a different brand name.
But a non-profit like the Catholic Church can't do either. It's only ability to earn money is through donations, and if parishoners know that the collection plate isn't going towards the church, but to some nameless abuse victim they're not going to empty their wallets. If they were going to they'd be giving that money directly to victims groups, wouldn't they?
Then their only other option is to sell assets. But there's no competitor here. There's no other group waiting in the wings to buy a Catholic Church and turn it into a Protestant Church. No group waiting to buy a hospital and run it as a hospital.
Third, and finally, I certainly never said they shouldn't pay any money. But only that their ability to pay is limited and in the real world you needed to realize that.
Quote from: Martinus on May 26, 2009, 10:36:19 AM
That's like saying companies should not be liable for their crimes, because all they own are factories and offices, and they need these to do their work properly.
:frusty: How is that like saying that at all Mart? He said the Church does not have any commericial property and then you say that is like saying a company only has commercial property? Huh?
Quote from: Martinus on May 26, 2009, 10:36:19 AM
That's like saying companies should not be liable for their crimes, because all they own are factories and offices, and they need these to do their work properly.
Fuck the Church. If they don't have money to pay (which I find surprising) then auction all the jewelry, artwork and church buildings they have. If people still trust them, they will donate for them to recover. If not, then all the pedophiles in Vatican (with the ruling Pope himself implicated in the coverup of the American scandal) can bail them out.
The gauntlet has been thrown down; Marti has presented an Analogy.
If you're going to insist on viewing the Catholic church as an employment hierarchy, the actual offenders were fairly low on the totem pole. You don't take an employer's business away for not prosecuting an employee's offense, even when it was committed on the clock.
Calling the catholic church a "non profit" organization is... ok I just couldn't find an appropriate analogy. :lol:
Quote from: DontSayBanana on May 26, 2009, 10:49:52 AM
Quote from: Martinus on May 26, 2009, 10:36:19 AM
That's like saying companies should not be liable for their crimes, because all they own are factories and offices, and they need these to do their work properly.
Fuck the Church. If they don't have money to pay (which I find surprising) then auction all the jewelry, artwork and church buildings they have. If people still trust them, they will donate for them to recover. If not, then all the pedophiles in Vatican (with the ruling Pope himself implicated in the coverup of the American scandal) can bail them out.
The gauntlet has been thrown down; Marti has presented an Analogy.
If you're going to insist on viewing the Catholic church as an employment hierarchy, the actual offenders were fairly low on the totem pole. You don't take an employer's business away for not prosecuting an employee's offense, even when it was committed on the clock.
They weren't low on the totem pole. The cover up extended to high ups.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on May 26, 2009, 10:49:52 AM
If you're going to insist on viewing the Catholic church as an employment hierarchy, the actual offenders were fairly low on the totem pole. You don't take an employer's business away for not prosecuting an employee's offense, even when it was committed on the clock.
The hierarchy is pretty fucking liable for the whole mess as they seem to have known about it and tried to cover it up.
Under the circumstances, being a huge bureaucracy where the thing they have to be legitimate is moral authority, I can understand who that might happen but this is hardly a case of a few Priests and Nuns behaving badly but a systemic problem that came from the top. The bad apples were simply allowed to stay bad apples and were protected.
Quote from: Martinus on May 26, 2009, 10:49:52 AM
Calling the catholic church a "non profit" organization is...
It is. They run schools and other social services.
Heck they have done amazing work to help out the struggling Texas social services and they make zero demands you even be religious. The church does great work. I will forever be grateful for what the church has done to support us when the State only makes our lives miserable.
They also do fucked up things, that is a nature of a huge and authoritarian system that they have.
Quote from: Valmy on May 26, 2009, 10:47:19 AM
Quote from: Martinus on May 26, 2009, 10:36:19 AM
That's like saying companies should not be liable for their crimes, because all they own are factories and offices, and they need these to do their work properly.
:frusty: How is that like saying that at all Mart? He said the Church does not have any commericial property and then you say that is like saying a company only has commercial property? Huh?
How are churches not a commercial property? They provide a service and collect money in return.
Only because individual churches may be running at a loss doesn't make them non-commercial. The catholic church is one of the richest institutions globally - surely a "non-profit" organization wouldn't be able to pull that off.
Quote from: Valmy on May 26, 2009, 10:53:31 AM
Quote from: Martinus on May 26, 2009, 10:49:52 AM
Calling the catholic church a "non profit" organization is...
It is. They run schools and other social services.
Heck they have done amazing work to help out the struggling Texas social services and they make zero demands you even be religious. The church does great work. I will forever be grateful for what the church has done to support us when the State only makes our lives miserable.
They also do fucked up things, that is a nature of a huge and authoritarian system that they have.
Well, perhaps in third world countries, where there is a complete collapse of public infrastructure that could be the case. Fortunately, Europe is not Africa. Or Texas.
Quote from: Martinus on May 26, 2009, 10:53:40 AM
How are churches not a commercial property? They provide a service and collect money in return.
:frusty: You have got to be kidding me.
When the homeless line up at the church soup kitchen I suppose that is being done for the huge profits the church is going to reap?
Quote from: Martinus on May 26, 2009, 10:55:38 AM
Well, perhaps in third world countries, where there is a complete collapse of public infrastructure that could be the case. Fortunately, Europe is not Africa. Or Texas.
God you are an asshole.
Quote from: Valmy on May 26, 2009, 10:56:01 AM
Quote from: Martinus on May 26, 2009, 10:53:40 AM
How are churches not a commercial property? They provide a service and collect money in return.
:frusty: You have got to be kidding me.
When the homeless line up at the church soup kitchen I suppose that is being done for the huge profits the church is going to reap?
Ever heard of PR? Microsoft and McDonald's also sponsor stuff, give money to the poor and do a lot of things like that. That doesn't make them non-profit.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on May 26, 2009, 10:49:52 AM
Quote from: Martinus on May 26, 2009, 10:36:19 AM
That's like saying companies should not be liable for their crimes, because all they own are factories and offices, and they need these to do their work properly.
Fuck the Church. If they don't have money to pay (which I find surprising) then auction all the jewelry, artwork and church buildings they have. If people still trust them, they will donate for them to recover. If not, then all the pedophiles in Vatican (with the ruling Pope himself implicated in the coverup of the American scandal) can bail them out.
The gauntlet has been thrown down; Marti has presented an Analogy.
If you're going to insist on viewing the Catholic church as an employment hierarchy, the actual offenders were fairly low on the totem pole. You don't take an employer's business away for not prosecuting an employee's offense, even when it was committed on the clock.
You're not doing much better DSB.
Under civil liability if the damages caused were large enough the company pays. You could argue the captain of the Exxon Valdez was fairly low on the totem pole (well, when you consider the enormous size of Exxon), but his actions still cost the company billions of dollars.
Quote from: Martinus on May 26, 2009, 10:57:19 AM
Ever heard of PR? Microsoft and McDonald's also sponsor stuff, give money to the poor and do a lot of things like that. That doesn't make them non-profit.
And guess what douchebag? Microsoft and McDonalds also get to be considered tax free for doing those sorts of social services.
If all Microsoft and McDonalds did was take voluntary donations to do charitable work they would fully be considered non-profit like the Church because that would be fucking logical.
Quote from: Martinus on May 26, 2009, 10:53:40 AM
Quote from: Valmy on May 26, 2009, 10:47:19 AM
Quote from: Martinus on May 26, 2009, 10:36:19 AM
That's like saying companies should not be liable for their crimes, because all they own are factories and offices, and they need these to do their work properly.
:frusty: How is that like saying that at all Mart? He said the Church does not have any commericial property and then you say that is like saying a company only has commercial property? Huh?
How are churches not a commercial property? They provide a service and collect money in return.
Only because individual churches may be running at a loss doesn't make them non-commercial. The catholic church is one of the richest institutions globally - surely a "non-profit" organization wouldn't be able to pull that off.
I'm pretty sure you're just being deliberately difficult, but...
The terms "for profit" and "non profit" refer to the organizations intention, not their balance sheet. The fact that the Catholic Church might at the end of the year show a profit no more makes them a "for profit" organization than does the fact that General Motors is hemorraging money makes them a charity.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on May 26, 2009, 10:49:52 AM
The gauntlet has been thrown down; Marti has presented an Analogy.
And because of who he is, it can be discounted out of hand.
Alright, alright. Geez, I indulge in a bit of trollishness and everyone jumps on me. :P
Marti: They are a not for profit organization because they don't claim to have a profit as an intention of their business; they are successful simply because they collect charitable donations, turn around and make their own charitable donations (they can only keep a certain percentage above operating costs in order to remain an NFP- for NFP status in the US, IIRC, 70 cents of each dollar have to go either to operating expenses or charitable donations- somewhere around there). The reputation earns them more donations, and so they spiral upward into the massive organization they are today.
Yes, they earn billions of dollars, but they turn around and spend billions of dollars on their operations as well.
I would expect a lawyer to have a better understanding of the situation than a community college student.
Quote from: Martinus on May 26, 2009, 10:35:12 AM
Quote from: Cerr on May 26, 2009, 08:01:42 AM
One of the victims of the scandal spoke on a current affairs TV show last night. It's well worth watching:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jHqndf9Kx4&feature=channel_page
Amazing and moving.
Yeah, it really is.
In a few minutes of speaking, he completely shames the church and the government.
Quote from: Ed Anger on May 26, 2009, 09:55:33 AM
Quote from: Cerr on May 25, 2009, 07:10:19 PM
Quote from: Ed Anger on May 25, 2009, 05:10:28 PM
Quote from: The Brain on May 23, 2009, 04:23:06 AM
Just nuke the whole cursed island and be done with it.
Please wait until August, when I'm off the island.
Your 'Merican Friend,
Ed
Where are you going in Ireland?
County Cork for a few days, then County Donegal for a few. Staying with my wife's cousins, so I'd have to look up the towns. I think one in Donegal is in Ballyshannon.
I'm going to use my spare time to stalk follow the Corr sisters. :P
:lol:
Good decision, just make sure you avoid the brother. :P
He's a conspiracy theory nutjob.