Funny, those Catholics
The Catholics have come under a bit of stick lately (here and here). So now it’s time to poke a bit of fun at them.
There’s an amusing little test you can take to see what sort of Pope you would be. I seem to come out just all weird:
Seek help now!
You are a giddy combo of the weirder Popes, Stephen VI, Benedict XVI and St Peter
When I saw this headline, “Pope Forgives Molested Children”, I thought, “Yes – of course that’s how he would respond.” But truth is no less stranger than fiction. This one is from The Onion:
“Though grave and terrible sins have been committed, our Lord
teaches us to turn the other cheek and forgive those who sin against
us,” said the pope, reading a prepared statement from a balcony
overlooking St. Peter’s Square. “That is why, despite the terrible
wrongs they have committed, the church must move on and forgive these
children for their misdeeds.”“As Jesus said, ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,’”
the pope continued. “We must send a clear message to these
hundreds—perhaps thousands—of children whose sinful ways have tempted
so many of the church’s servants into lustful violation of their holy
vows of celibacy. The church forgives them for their transgressions and
looks upon them not with intolerance, but compassion.”
Yes, very difficult to separate truth from fiction.
If there is any humour to be found in the vile excretion from that repulsive sack of vomit Bill Donohue and his defense of child abuse, it is in him being totally pwned by Colm O’Gorman, Executive Director of Amnesty International Ireland and a child rape victim himself.
Catholic Church downplays child abuse
As was expected, the Catholic Church is largely in denial about the revelations contained in the Ryan Report of widespread child abuse perpetrated in Irish Catholic institutions, over a period of many decades. The Ryan Report itself is under attack for providing a smokescreen for the Catholic church.
The Irish government has bent over backwards to shield the Church. In this video Michael O Brien, a victim of this abuse, lays into minister Noel Dempsy who signed a deal limiting the Church’s liability.
The South African Catholic Bishops’ Conference really tackled the issue head-on. They lead with a highly gripping story of Abbot Francois Pfanner’s centenary. Yeah, whatever. They did have the energy to comment on Angels and Demons, though.
The Archbishop of Westminster, the new Catholic leader in England and Wales, used his installation ceremony to attack atheists, but of course said nothing about child abuse.
At least we have one senior cleric condemning the outrages listed in the Report. Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has criticised the Irish Catholic orders for concealing the abuse, and called for much more money to come from these orders to compensate the victims – 90% of which are being paid by the Irish taxpayer, thanks to slime-balls like Noel Demsey.
True to form, the orders refuse to do so. These human puss-bags, probably too busy piously fingering their rosaries made by child slave labour, have a better idea:
Sensing the rapidly growing public mood of anger, senior members of the clergy
have been urging the religious orders to do more. Those appeals appeared to
have fallen on deaf ears last night, when the congregations issued a
statement saying that while they “accepted the gravity” of the Ryan report
they would not do what Cardinal Brady and others have urged.A statement from the orders said: “Rather than reopening the terms of the
agreement reached with Government in 2002, we reiterate our commitment to
working with those who suffered enormously while in our care. We must find
the best and most appropriate ways of directly assisting them.”
That’s right – they want to find the “most appropriate ways” to assist their victims. Aren’t they exactly the right people to judge what is best for their countless victims. Of course, it would not include compensating their victims for the lifelong suffering they’ve endured. As Mary Raferty says, “At the rate they are going, not even the pope himself could separate them from their cash.”
But the most depraved, disgustingly immoral and arrogant response came from Bill Donohue, president of the US-based Catholic League.
Reuters is reporting that “Irish Priests Beat, Raped Children,” yet the report does not justify this wild and irresponsible claim. Four types of abuse are noted: physical, sexual, neglect and emotional. Physical abuse includes “being kicked”; neglect includes “inadequate heating”; and emotional abuse includes “lack of attachment and affection.” Not nice, to be sure, but hardly draconian, especially given the time line: fully 82 percent of the incidents took place before 1970. As the New York Times noted, “many of them [are] now more than 70 years old.” And quite frankly, corporal punishment was not exactly unknown in many homes during these times, and this is doubly true when dealing with miscreants.
Regarding sexual abuse, “kissing,” and “non-contact including voyeurism” (e.g., what it labels as “inappropriate sexual talk”) make the grade as constituting sexual abuse. Moreover, one-third of the cases involved “inappropriate fondling and contact.” None of this is defensible, but none of it qualifies as rape. Rape, on the other hand, constituted 12 percent of the cases. As for the charge that “Irish Priests” were responsible, some of the abuse was carried out by lay persons, much of it was done by Brothers, and about 12 percent of the abusers were priests (most of whom were not rapists).
The Irish report suffers from conflating minor instances of abuse with serious ones, thus demeaning the latter. When most people hear of the term abuse, they do not think about being slapped, being chilly, being ignored or, for that matter, having someone stare at you in the shower. They think about rape.
This revolting creep thinks there’s nothing wrong with a bit of rape, beating and emotional isolation, particularly since many of the children were “miscreants”. Yes, they got (slightly less than) what they deserved. Could anyone in the Catholic laity read this depraved defence and then still send their children into the care of these utterly morally bankrupt and corrupt church officials?
I repeat, Shut them down!
Shut them down!
Imagine a secular charity organisation, say Rotary International, running a large network of orphanages and schools and it is found that widespread abuse and exploitation was being perpetrated on the boys and girls under its care. That this routinely included regular, vicious beatings, rape and other sexual abuse by the care-givers, deprivation in appalling conditions and slave labour. Imagine that when any complaints against people in the organisation were made, the hierarchy closed ranks and the complainants were punished and sidelined and the abuser was left to continue his cruelty without censure. Imagine that.
What do you think would happen to such an organisation? Do you think governments would commit young offenders to its care? Do you think parents would ignore all the ugly rumours and send their misbehaving children to these institutions?
No, this is what would happen: the organisation, and all its orphanages, schools and other institutions would be CLOSED DOWN and its members rounded up in public disgrace and sentence to long periods of imprisonment. That is what would happen.
So when a religious organisation, say the Catholic Church, does exactly that, should there be any difference in how this outrage is handled by the authorities? Well the Irish authorities certainly do. The many complaints over the years, the large number of unexplained suicides, the bitter, broken people ending up on the fringe of society – all these the Irish authorities shrunk away from in their obsequious deference to the Catholic Church.
Even the damages that have been awarded to some of the victims will largely be paid by Irish taxpayers. The Church is always accommodated. Names of known offenders – evil rapists and serial abusers – will not be revealed in another deal with this organisation that has brought so much misery to so many helpless victims in its captivity and “care”. The Church is always accommodated.
As we all know, this systematic child abuse by Catholic priests has been reported from all around the world. And wherever complaints have been made the Catholic leadership has protected the perpetrators and more often than not punished the victims. A story from South Africa illustrates this perfectly.
John McCann was molested by his Catholic priest at a church Christmas party. He happened to be the nephew of the Archbishop of Cape Town, Cardinal Owen McCann. This neither deterred the priestly paedophile rapist nor gave John McCann a chance at justice. Instead the Catholic instinct of of protecting the Church before anything else – including one’s own family or even simple things like evil being done by its agents – kicked in. This man of God, so lauded by his congregation and his country – Nelson Mandela called him “one of South Africa’s great sons” and “a man of great ability and wisdom” – this man turned his own family into victims for daring to murmur a complaint against a nasty child rapist:
My devoutly Catholic mother stood up to my uncle, both over what happened to me and my younger brother, who was severely beaten by a drunk teacher at De La Salle. She was shunned for it: the cardinal declined to visit her when she was terminally ill, despite being nearby in Pretoria on Bishops’ Conference business. My sister, who is older than I, witnessed a heated discussion between them some years later.
My parents met him at the bishop’s house in Johannesburg to discuss her intention to withdraw her sons from Catholic schools. She recalls my mother saying words to the effect of: “I am sick of my children being assaulted and abused by the church.” He threatened her with excommunication.
He was elevated to the College of Cardinals by Pope Paul VI, so this was a threat from a prince of the church. She, in turn, threatened to go to the press and he backed down.
If there is any sanity left in this world, the cry must go out” “SHUT THEM DOWN!”
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