Child sex scandal in Dublin

[new blue]

Great to see such a constructive discussion on the role of the church
I am a lay person but in my work I visit many community initiatives
I find church people in the thick of the action- with the elderly, sick, youth at risk, people with disabilities, disadvantaged communities
i have no time for criminals and especially child abusers but it's about 3% perpetrated by clergy - most happens in the home
perhaps they're an easy target for people with ulterior motives many of whom have never done anything for anyone on a voluntary basis and wouldn't even understand the concept
they must be perfect as well "let him who is without sin..."

[Dr.Nightdub]

New Blue, the criticism is cos of their rank hypocrisy. "Suffer little children to come unto me" does not mean making little children suffer.

[hamish]

Great to see such a constructive discussion on the role of the church
I am a lay person but in my work I visit many community initiatives
I find church people in the thick of the action- with the elderly, sick, youth at risk, people with disabilities, disadvantaged communities
i have no time for criminals and especially child abusers but it's about 3% perpetrated by clergy - most happens in the home
perhaps they're an easy target for people with ulterior motives many of whom have never done anything for anyone on a voluntary basis and wouldn't even understand the concept
they must be perfect as well "let him who is without sin..."

I'd agree with you there about the good priests/vicars/nuns etc etc who do such fantastic work as I experienced when my mum was dying this month three years ago. Priest was pleasant, down-to-earth, no BS about him and gave great solace to mum in her final years with regular visits which he did for so many.
People who give of their time too to meals and wheels, sports clubs, community games and the many who work for free in so many active organisations trying to ease the pain of drug addicts, the homeless are real heroes to me. The work is hard, daily often, and fcuk all notice.
The problem I DO have is with the current pope, before he was elected, threatening excommunication to the US bishops if they disclosed data to the legal/police authorities during their scandals. He's an intelligent man and you don't need to be a genius to know that was wrong, in the church;s vocabulary - sinful.
Ditto the soft pedalling in Ireland and the current mess with regard to the Churches assets. I do feel, though, that the state has a responsibility as the latter were quite happy to dump education on Ireland's kids to the clergy for many years and didn't investigate the abuse claims either until the story emerged via the media - remember RTE showing all those old State files dumped in a back office?
I also know that most priests are horrified at the abuse - especially those who were not around when it happened.
Finally, I remember a priest who used to occasionally visit my school when I was a teacher and I never liked the guy to put it mildly - he was cold, arrogant, personality-free and TBH quite unpleasant. I discovered that he was abusing kids in a nearby village school (one of our feeder schools) and ended up in the clink.
After the horror of his acts, here's the next worst bit.
Many of that priest's lay neighbours continued to visit him in prison.
An act of incredible compassion and forgiveness on their part? Maybe. From what I learned, it was more a supportive one in that they thought him innocent. The people who visited BTW - didn't have their kids violated.
I'm just sorry now that I didn't know about all this when he visited our Community School 'cos, as someone who dealt with kids in remedial class, I was often the first port of call when kids were being treated badly at home (not all sexual, beatings, emotional neglect etc) and not one of the kids mentioned the c.unts name - they were afraid they'd be brutalised by their parents if they said anything, be shunned by their neighbours or any news leaked out to the community. I found all this out afterwards from a past student who had been a regular of mine in remedial class and is now a Garda and a damn good Garda too..
The kids would tell you if they were fed badly, badly treated and eventually let it slip if there was more serious matters as above occurring. This was one secret - the priest abuse - that was a step too far.
Not blowing my own trumpet, but when any students got pregnant, the parents and daughter (usually) came to me for help (Cura etc) but this ONE THING remained a dark secret.

New Blue, that's why I feel so sorry for the good priests and the good nuns who are tarnished by the minority of evil b@stards.

[Block G Raptor]

[quote]People who give of their time too to meals and wheels, sports clubs, community games and the many who work for free in so many active organisations trying to ease the pain of drug addicts, the homeless are real heroes to me. The work is hard, daily often, and fcuk all notice.[\quote]
I agree hamish but I think in this country most of this work is unfortunetly carried out by the church and a lot of this work is preceded by catholic diatripe/dogma. I give my time to both a local youth club and hartstown utd. under 7's. whilst the church has no direct influence in either organisation the youth club has to be affiliated with the CYC in order to be legal and be insured and th efootball club has to seek permission every year to use (although this is a formality) from the local PP for the use of the parish Pitch. allthough these are fairly trivial matters it still demonstrates the monopoly the church has on all Good deeds within the comunity !!

[hamish]

[QUOTE=Block G Raptor]

People who give of their time too to meals and wheels, sports clubs, community games and the many who work for free in so many active organisations trying to ease the pain of drug addicts, the homeless are real heroes to me. The work is hard, daily often, and fcuk all notice.[\quote]
I agree hamish but I think in this country most of this work is unfortunetly carried out by the church and a lot of this work is preceded by catholic diatripe/dogma. I give my time to both a local youth club and hartstown utd. under 7's. whilst the church has no direct influence in either organisation the youth club has to be affiliated with the CYC in order to be legal and be insured and th efootball club has to seek permission every year to use (although this is a formality) from the local PP for the use of the parish Pitch. allthough these are fairly trivial matters it still demonstrates the monopoly the church has on all Good deeds within the comunity !!

That's true BGR and fair play to you and every success with your great efforst on behalf of Hartsown. It's bloody hard work keeping things going at any level of a sports club.
However, while I agree with you regarding church monopoly etc, I was only focusing on one area in my above post - yeah, there are many other aspects that are annoying about churches and their control of grounds, finance etc. Many within churches TBF are supportive but some are bloody awkward to deal with from my experience. Whether they're a minority I honestly don't know, to tell the truth but I see where you're coming from.