Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has said information being held by diocese and religious congregations about clerical sex abuse in Ireland should be released, saying "people want the entire truth to come out."While he refused to be drawn on whether Cardinal Seán Brady should resign over his role in canonical investigations in 1975 in which victims of paedophile priest Brendan Smyth were asked to swear an oath of secrecy, Archbishop Martin called for accountability."I have always said that it is not my job to tell people to resign or to tell people to stay," the Archbishop said."I have never done that. People should be accountable, render account of what they've done. Resignations are personal decisions."Speaking before attending an ecumenical service at City Quay Church in Dublin city centre, Archbishop Martin emphasised the importance of disclosure."What is very important in all of this is that the truth comes out. I am worried about this because you are talking now about information that is there in various places - in diocese - in religious orders. People want the entire truth to come out," Archbishop Martin said.When asked what message he had for victims of Fr Smyth, Dr Martin said: "All I'll say is Brendan Smyth should have been stopped from the first time it was known that he abused. I don't know when that was. Thank God we have measures today which would hopefully have done that. But how a person would have abused and continued to abuse for so long - eighteen years after and God knows how many years before."Meanwhile, Northern Ireland deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said tonight that Cardinal Brady should consider his position. Mr McGuinness, who is on a trade and political mission to the US capital for St Patrick's Day, expressed grave concern about the reports and suggested it was time for the Cardinal to consider stepping down."I am a Catholic, I do my best to practise my religion and I think that many Catholics throughout the island of Ireland will be absolutely dismayed at these latest revelations and I do think the Cardinal should consider his position," he said.
While he refused to be drawn on whether Cardinal Seán Brady should resign over his role in canonical investigations in 1975 in which victims of paedophile priest Brendan Smyth were asked to swear an oath of secrecy, Archbishop Martin called for accountability.
"I have always said that it is not my job to tell people to resign or to tell people to stay," the Archbishop said.
"I have never done that. People should be accountable, render account of what they've done. Resignations are personal decisions."
Speaking before attending an ecumenical service at City Quay Church in Dublin city centre, Archbishop Martin emphasised the importance of disclosure.
"What is very important in all of this is that the truth comes out. I am worried about this because you are talking now about information that is there in various places - in diocese - in religious orders. People want the entire truth to come out," Archbishop Martin said.
When asked what message he had for victims of Fr Smyth, Dr Martin said: "All I'll say is Brendan Smyth should have been stopped from the first time it was known that he abused. I don't know when that was. Thank God we have measures today which would hopefully have done that. But how a person would have abused and continued to abuse for so long - eighteen years after and God knows how many years before."
Meanwhile, Northern Ireland deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said tonight that Cardinal Brady should consider his position. Mr McGuinness, who is on a trade and political mission to the US capital for St Patrick's Day, expressed grave concern about the reports and suggested it was time for the Cardinal to consider stepping down.
"I am a Catholic, I do my best to practise my religion and I think that many Catholics throughout the island of Ireland will be absolutely dismayed at these latest revelations and I do think the Cardinal should consider his position," he said.
i definitely ascribe this to the influence, ubiquitous and to my instincts mostly pernicious effects of the catholic church on society.
this is a great shame for the good priests and lay catholics who persevere within the institution to better the world, according to jesus' teachings.
it's with heavy heart, but here's how i think the church has got so sexually twisted over the centuries. sometimes i have gone to massage at a ex-convent, now a hotel. this place always gave me the shivers, in the middle of stunning countryside, the place had an aura of darkness that made working there difficult on some level, though i worked also at a villa a few miles away, and felt nothing but positive energy there.
i was told that the church used to shut away girls in the convent for being difficult or rebellious, a sort of prison, and when i heard that, i understood why i felt so much pain in the walls. i have worked at other ex-convents without that ugly feeling, maybe the women there had some choice.
i suspect that if a mother knew her son was gay, it was a relief to know he could find a sanctioned 'safe place' in the arms of the church, where his lack of attraction to women could be rationalised.
i think the mothers even subconsciously knew that the church was basically a homosexual organisation, and its efforts to help humanity were collateral to that fact. the church's power was so close to total for centuries here, it was probably worth it in many a mother's judgment to 'overlook' the distasteful sexual practices many priests were indulging in, in order to have that 'safe' haven maintained, and the shame of an unmarried non-breeder in the family was discreetly swept under the church's rug.
having stuck my head in the vatican on a visit to the Unholy See, i will never forget the feeling of evil i felt emanating from that place, as the words 'homosexual cabal' echoed in my mind, as i shuddered and walked away, fast. the 'chosen for their cuteness' swiss guard in their medieval drag and blond curly locks, in counterpoint to the sinister crow-like characters in their black and brown hooded robes, it had such an ancient, repulsive vibe, i felt weird for a while.
god made all kinds of love, and it was the shame and misunderstanding, the taboo that had created such a perverse atmosphere, the banishment from the heterosexual community perhaps, and an immense compensation for the inferiority ensuing from that, which caused the split, and what then seems to be a kind of revenge.
"you hate us and want us out of your hair, well we'll amass so much power we'll have you begging for our approval, or to take that gay son or daughter off your hands so you can face your neighbours...
and we'll diddle your kids, and you'll be so afraid of the hell we've painted on your imagination-screen as children, you'll let us get away with it."
many places even had a woman, a spinster who was the village priest's lover, even bearing his children, everyone looking the other way, so it's not just homosexuality or pedophilia that are the problem, it's the whole cog-diss around sex.
attending (nominally c of e) public school in 60's england, there was a similar double standard around homosexuality. the school priest was gay, but didn't act out, the poor guy was as tense a human as could be, his conflict was palpable, looking back i have nothing but pity for him, so close, but so far away. a tortured man...
it was common knowledge there was all kinds of really nasty sexuality throughout the school, but no-one said a thing, it went on entirely unimpeded. i was raped the first week i was there, and did not even think of reporting it, i was far from the only one. i don't even hate him for what he did, as he was running the same program laid on him, probably. sexual was only one of other forms of abuse, corporal and psychological, sadism seemed like the very raison d'etre for the place...
i just cried, but no-one cared.
the matron came around before lights out and asked us if we had 'done our big job' that day, duly inscribing the answers on a chart.
then after the lights were out it was mayhem, some consensual.
i think those who have integrity in the church will have to leave it, as unless something huge happens, their credibility as a safe zone for kids will continue to be shredded daily, and eventually the hypocrisy will implode any vestiges of spiritual authority still adhering to their tattered reputation.
i agree with helen and jake, they have gone so far too far, for too long, and they refuse to take responsibility, ensuring their fate. i suspect that even if they came clean now, the lawsuits would reduce the vatican treasury to dust, along with all their hip-hop bling, ferragamo pumps and satin ballgowns.
considering their betrayal of the social pact they were created for, i'm surprised how little they are hated. i'm surprised anyone can still call themselves a catholic, i'm surprised the vatican isn't an empty shell, its tenets and dogma flushed down the toilet of medieval history. they have been so wrong, so inhumanly wrong on so many vital issues well-listed in this thread, this should be the last straw.
santiago's arguments are lucid and rational, and products of a mind well trained in logic, but they remind me of jesuitic thinking, it slices so finely, is rigorous, yet seems ingenuous in the face of reality.
the idea that jesus, a man of poverty and humility, would recognise any of his teachings in the triumph of absolute pomp incarnated in the vatican and its denizens seems nothing short of insane.
anything that unmasks this cabal is good news, they are an impediment to christian faith, all the worse for their claims to exclusivity and righteousness.
let st francis be an example of christianity, he walked his talk, and loved as jesus did, despised finery and preached outside of churches.
just looking at ratzi's pinched mouth and swivelling eyes is sickening, i feel so sorry for all the poor, uneducated people still under his sway, whose faith is crumbling as fast their moral icons in rome, with all the revelations coming out from under the rocks of fear.
italian mamas aren't quite so ashamed any more if their sons are gay, so there goes that market... next up those still brainwashed in latin america and africa...
~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
You are then further arguing that the sexually devient then took their revenge for their suppression by society by "acting out" their anger against the young entrusted into their care. (Certainly Father Smyth appears to have been quite open about his paedophilia, arguing it was consensual and harmless and ignoring the religious and authoritarian context which made it possible).
If you are correct, then the liberalisation of societal attitudes to homosexuality is the greatest possible threat to the Church - as it removes all necessity for homosexuals to join the Church in order in order to attain respectability. "Vocations" will plummet if it is no longer necessary to join to in order to attain respectability for sexually deviant behaviour.
Removing the vow of celibacy within the Church would have a similar effect - as it threatens the dominance of homosexuality and homosexuals within its ranks. It also removes the need for the naturally celibate or disinterested to join the Church in order to rationalise and obtain sanction for their lack of reproductive behaviour - status in secular society often being linked to prolific fatherhood.
Of course the whole process depended on maintaining the fiction that no sexual activity took place within the Church at all - at great sacrifice by the professional joiners - and thus deserving of great admiration and reverence from those who knew they could never achieve a similar feat.
Hence the subterfuge, the secrecy, the denial, the moving on of suspects before they could be found out by secular society. There is a social science principle I am struggling to enunciate which goes something like this: Institutions set up in emulation of one set of principles end up becoming almost exactly the opposite, but they must deny the existence of any contrary tendencies in their ranks, and thus those contrary tendencies develop unchecked and indeed protected - as their discovery would destroy the raison d'etre of the whole institution in the first place.
It is something more than the law of unintended consequences: It is more like an eastern principle of yin and Yang: strive for Yin and Yang ends up taking you over! notes from no w here
There is a social science principle I am struggling to enunciate which goes something like this: Institutions set up in emulation of one set of principles end up becoming almost exactly the opposite, but they must deny the existence of any contrary tendencies in their ranks, and thus those contrary tendencies develop unchecked and indeed protected - as their discovery would destroy the raison d'etre of the whole institution in the first place.
spot on...any action has a counter reaction.
Frank Schnittger:
If you are correct, then the liberalisation of societal attitudes to homosexuality is the greatest possible threat to the Church - as it removes all necessity for homosexuals to join the Church in order in order to attain respectability.
yes, and this is why ratzi can condone and forgive what's going on inside his church, while decrying those same vices, full of pseudo moral indignation.
romans (applauded by pharisees) hacked jesus' body, the present church has hacked his message, completely inverting it.
the only things holding it together now are habit and sentiment, some will cling to anything, even a sinking raft... ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
