Originally posted by orfeo:
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
You just add to your catalogue of nursed grievances, Zach, and the big adults will talk over your head.
EDIT: I'm always here.
quote:When a state relies on the church to provide welfare to that extent and allows the church to dictate the terms, this is what can happen.
Originally posted by Evensong:
Ouch.
Church collusion with patriarchy makes for one very unholy mess.
![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
quote:Be careful with such a line of argument, though. Every church, every person has done things wrong of one sort or other. Are we all therefore 'bad trees'?
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Jesus said that "a good tree cannot bear bad fruit".
This is bad fruit.
Therefore....
quote:Nor would I. But I think it's hard to see them as the "one good tree", isn't it?
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
quote:Be careful with such a line of argument, though. Every church, every person has done things wrong of one sort or other. Are we all therefore 'bad trees'?
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Jesus said that "a good tree cannot bear bad fruit".
This is bad fruit.
Therefore....
Don't get me wrong, this discovery is absolutely horrendous, likewise the thus far insipid response of the RCC. But I would't write off the whole of the RCC as a 'bad tree' because of it.
quote:I'm not sure about in collusion with; the church has been one of the pillars of patriarchy, hasn't it?
Originally posted by Evensong:
Ouch.
Church collusion with patriarchy makes for one very unholy mess.
quote:That seems exactly right to me. 'Pro-life' is a particularly bizarre and fucked-up term, since such people often seem uninterested in children living in poverty; but a foetus in a womb brings them out in boils, as if they had ownership of it and the woman involved. Sick.
Originally posted by Twilight:
This is the same church that teaches that contraception is a grave sin and aborting a one day old zygote is equal to murder. Slowly starving living children to death is just a small mishap, though. Once again, the RCC only seems to care about the unborn, or maybe what they really care about most is having control of their women's reproduction.
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[Tear]](graemlins/tear.gif)
quote:Unmarried pregnant women are rejected by society and families and hidden away.
Originally posted by orfeo:
What's patriarchy got to do with it?
quote:No. It just continued the sin it was historically born into.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:I'm not sure about in collusion with; the church has been one of the pillars of patriarchy, hasn't it?
Originally posted by Evensong:
Ouch.
Church collusion with patriarchy makes for one very unholy mess.
quote:What an outrageously pathetic excuse of a statement.
Father Fintan Monaghan, secretary of the Tuam archediocese, says: "I suppose we can't really judge the past from our point of view, from our lens."
quote:Same place, and same reason, as whoever the woman who was taken in adultery and brought before Jesus had been taken in adultery with.
Originally posted by Evensong:
Where are the men involved? Why are they not socially isolated and vilified too?
quote:But the claim to be the one true Church does not entail the claim to be the one good tree. One of the traditional truths this Church maintains is that the Church is made up of both sinners and saints.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
But I think it's hard to see them as the "one good tree", isn't it?
quote:I can't even...
The Tuam home was one of 10 institutions in which about 35,000 unmarried pregnant women - so-called fallen women - are thought to have been sent.
The children of these women were denied baptism and segregated from others at school. If they died at such facilities, they were also denied a Christian burial.
quote:WTF - they refused to baptise or give a Christian burial to the children!!!
The Tuam home was one of 10 institutions in which about 35,000 unmarried pregnant women - so-called fallen women - are thought to have been sent.
The children of these women were denied baptism and segregated from others at school. If they died at such facilities, they were also denied a Christian burial.
quote:I'm pretty sure this is DH territory, but to Catholic ears you are asking "Why does the RCC focus on the ongoing, legalised slaughter of millions upon millions of children in early development that is widely accepted across Western societies; rather than dealing with the neglect and abuse of thousands of more developed children and young adults that some of her clergy and religious were/are involved in?" The obvious answer is then that she should do both, but that the latter does not in any way motivate slacking on the former.
Originally posted by Boogie:
Please will someone explain why zygotes have such importance to the RCC, but children don't? So many instances of terrible abuse, yet an abortion of a group of cells is counted a grave sin.
quote:Why on earth not? Other than "because it would come across as ludicrous to anyone with knowledge of history, and thereby invalidate the one-true-church claim"?
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:But the claim to be the one true Church does not entail the claim to be the one good tree.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
But I think it's hard to see them as the "one good tree", isn't it?
quote:You're confusing the institution of the Church with the all too fallible people who occupy it.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
why should we believe that you really give a fuck for the poor widdle zygotes when your church has treated children so shockingly in the past and continues to make mealy-mouthed semi-apologies about it?
quote:Not really. The church is those people. The people who claim to be horrified when a zygote is flushed down the bog. The people who bugger choirboys. The people who ran these hell-holes in the first place. The people who abused their positions in church schools. People.
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
quote:You're confusing the institution of the Church with the all too fallible people who occupy it.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
why should we believe that you really give a fuck for the poor widdle zygotes when your church has treated children so shockingly in the past and continues to make mealy-mouthed semi-apologies about it?
quote:Just the other day a democratically-elected government did something bad. This conclusively proves that democracy is an undesirable and inferior form of government.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/04/children-galway-mass-graves-ireland-catholic-church
By their fruits shall ye know them?
quote:Democractic governments don't claim to be the only true ambassadors of Christ and then pull shit like this.
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
quote:Just the other day a democratically-elected government did something bad. This conclusively proves that democracy is an undesirable and inferior form of government.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/04/children-galway-mass-graves-ireland-catholic-church
By their fruits shall ye know them?
quote:I don't think that's a meaningful distinction. The church is its people.
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
I realize that, Karl. But as others have pointed out, you are confusing the institution with some of the people inside it.
![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif)
quote:Yes - all these things were institutionalised by the RC Church. The RC Church was their cover and their protector. People were made to look up to these nuns and priests and they became untouchable. (Shades of Jimmy Savile?)
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Not really. The church is those people. The people who claim to be horrified when a zygote is flushed down the bog. The people who bugger choirboys. The people who ran these hell-holes in the first place. The people who abused their positions in church schools. People.
quote:And still is!
Originally posted by Boogie:
The RC Church was their cover and their protector.
![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
quote:I sincerely have no idea what was going on in Ireland back then... The only canonical impediment to child baptism that I am aware of is that there must be reasonable hope that the child will be raised Catholic. Otherwise the child is not supposed to be baptised into the Catholic Church. My guess is hence that whatever argument was used back then, explicitly or implicitly, it was founded on that. But I have no idea how this would work even on its own terms, given that these children ended up being in the care of RC religious. Baffling.
Originally posted by TonyK:
WTF - they refused to baptise or give a Christian burial to the children!!! I suppose they argued that the penalty for the sins of the fathers (or mothers in this case) should fall upon their children. And, no doubt, they preached about the love of God!! I am not often moved to post in Hell, and very rarely swear, but this is just f...ing appalling! How on earth is the RC church going to wriggle out of this one?
quote:Knowing what is true and right, and doing what is good and right, are two rather different things. I consider this to be a basic truth of human experience... If you have no idea what I'm talking about there, then I admire your saintliness and ask for your prayers.
Originally posted by St Deird:
Why on earth not? Other than "because it would come across as ludicrous to anyone with knowledge of history, and thereby invalidate the one-true-church claim"?
quote:I might as well ask you why I should believe that you really give a fuck about a few thousand abuse and neglect cases when you are apparently perfectly fine with many millions of children being systematically killed?
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Let me put it a different way for your RC ears then - why should we believe that you really give a fuck for the poor widdle zygotes when your church has treated children so shockingly in the past and continues to make mealy-mouthed semi-apologies about it?
quote:Baffling? Not really. Churches frequently foster and act on the prejudices of the cultures around them. The children of unwed mothers were refused the sacrament of baptism because it was just so shameful to be an unwed mother in Ireland at the time that the shame carried over to their children. An 80-something-year-old life-long parishioner in my church says that when she got divorced in the 50s, she was told by the rector, "There is no place at St. Luke's for a divorced woman." Likewise, there were some local school districts that would not hire her to teach because she was divorced.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:I sincerely have no idea what was going on in Ireland back then... The only canonical impediment to child baptism that I am aware of is that there must be reasonable hope that the child will be raised Catholic. Otherwise the child is not supposed to be baptised into the Catholic Church. My guess is hence that whatever argument was used back then, explicitly or implicitly, it was founded on that. But I have no idea how this would work even on its own terms, given that these children ended up being in the care of RC religious. Baffling.
Originally posted by TonyK:
WTF - they refused to baptise or give a Christian burial to the children!!! I suppose they argued that the penalty for the sins of the fathers (or mothers in this case) should fall upon their children. And, no doubt, they preached about the love of God!! I am not often moved to post in Hell, and very rarely swear, but this is just f...ing appalling! How on earth is the RC church going to wriggle out of this one?
quote:Sure, they are all people. But in fact, they are not all the same people, but rather many different people in many different places at many different times. And as far as the institution Church is concerned, these people make up a small fraction of it. Even if you wave aside the billion plus laypeople in the Church, and focus exclusively on the religious and clergy, then what you say there (except for worrying about zygotes) applies to only a small fraction of the people in the Church. It really is a big Church.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Not really. The church is those people. The people who claim to be horrified when a zygote is flushed down the bog. The people who bugger choirboys. The people who ran these hell-holes in the first place. The people who abused their positions in church schools. People.
......again....quote:I agree about the waffling, and a sort of casuistry which seems to go on. But what is the mistaken theology? I suppose that unmarried women are sinful? I suppose it went beyond that to a view that they should be punished, and then that their children should be punished. I don't know how that connects with any kind of theology, but maybe somebody can illuminate that.
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
The point is, I think, that the original failing of allowing all of these children to die is not the action of the entire institution, but of one group of people, one particular set of individuals.
The action, however, was based on a theological perspective that is the responsibility of the church organisation as a whole. They were acting on the basis - mistaken maybe - of their churches theology. That is about a mistaken theology, and its the responsibility of the church organisation.
But the real problem is that now it has come out, the church is waffling. As so often, the response is what suggests that the church organisation today sees very little wrong. That sucks like a black hole.
quote:Untouchable by the secular authorities too, it would seem.
Originally posted by Boogie:
The RC Church was their cover and their protector. People were made to look up to these nuns and priests and they became untouchable. (Shades of Jimmy Savile?)
quote:Perhaps it seems so according to the original link in the OP. But I don't see much wrong with the reaction of ++Neary as reported by the BBC (link repeated from above).
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
But the real problem is that now it has come out, the church is waffling. As so often, the response is what suggests that the church organisation today sees very little wrong. That sucks like a black hole.
quote:Sure, I get that. But for better or worse the RCC has a hierarchical organisation, and the people who make official policy decisions usually can offer some kind of argument for what they are doing. It might be a bad argument, but it usually isn't plain stupid, and certainly it will avoid a direct clash with official rules. But here there seems to have been a really unthinking adoption of cultural practices against clear canon law. And I'm sorry, but the RCC that I know sure as heck fucks up a lot, but rarely is caught in blatant self-contradiction. So I'm baffled.
Originally posted by RuthW:
In both these cases, there was a cultural prejudice fostered by the local church. And the churches in both cases are responsible because it was the churches' teachings that were the basis of the prejudice.
quote:The fact that Roman Catholics did something contrary to the doctrine of their church does not invalidate those doctrines. To argue otherwise is erroneous. Your emotional reaction to this horrible news is leading you straight into a logical fallacy.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:I don't think that's a meaningful distinction. The church is its people.
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
I realize that, Karl. But as others have pointed out, you are confusing the institution with some of the people inside it.
quote:Except for that thing about good trees and good fruit, and bad trees and bad fruit, which if I recall correctly comes from a quite reliable source. The same person who said that also said something about being known by the love we have one for another. Unless that other is poor, or a child, it would seem. So the only logical fallacy here is one shared by the aforementioned source of these two statements.
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
quote:The fact that Roman Catholics did something contrary to the doctrine of their church does not invalidate those doctrines. To argue otherwise is erroneous. Your emotional reaction to this horrible news is leading you straight into a logical fallacy.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:I don't think that's a meaningful distinction. The church is its people.
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
I realize that, Karl. But as others have pointed out, you are confusing the institution with some of the people inside it.
quote:The Roman Church taught that having children out of wedlock was a sin. This is the root cause of their treatment of the women and the children.
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
This would be different if it could be shown that the Roman Church taught that allowing poor children to starve was laudable.
quote:It still teaches that, as do many other churches. The teaching does not ineluctably lead to maltreatment of unwed mothers or their children.
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:The Roman Church taught that having children out of wedlock was a sin. This is the root cause of their treatment of the women and the children.
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
This would be different if it could be shown that the Roman Church taught that allowing poor children to starve was laudable.
quote:It clearly did.
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
The teaching does not ineluctably lead to maltreatment of unwed mothers or their children.
quote:That's not at all clear. How about the millions of other Catholics who haven't starved children born to unwed mothers?
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:It clearly did.
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
The teaching does not ineluctably lead to maltreatment of unwed mothers or their children.
quote:At the moment, I don't think I have any parents who had kids out of wedlock. If I discovered I had, nothing would change, and anyone who treated them differently because of that would get an ass-kicking.
Whether it still does, I'm not sure. How many unmarried Mums and their children attend your Church?
quote:The mistaken theology is that women who have sex outside of marriage are then beyond the help or support of the church, and, by implication, God.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But what is the mistaken theology? I suppose that unmarried women are sinful? I suppose it went beyond that to a view that they should be punished, and then that their children should be punished. I don't know how that connects with any kind of theology, but maybe somebody can illuminate that.
quote:You wrote polemics, and I mirrored it right back at you, in order to show you that your were writing polemics. You don't really get to complain about that, it is tit for tat. But FWIW, if we consider the "you" in these statements to be in the plural, then what you individually believe is not so important. Rather we were then both caricaturing positions of large groups of people. But if the "you" in these statements was to address us personally, then I'm elated to hear that you give a fuck about both the abuse/neglect in the RCC and about abortion. However, what then gave you the right to claim that I do not? Can you point to anything that I have written that would show that I do not? I don't think so.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I could be wrong, IngoB, but I don't think I've ever posted on the subject of abortion on SoF in all the time you've been here, so you don't know what my position is, nor whether it matches up to your caricature of it. Since addressing your caricature would involve discussions of a deceased equine nature, as well you know, it's probably going to have to be left on one side. Rest assured it's nothing like you appear to think. But feel free to make presumptions.
quote:That's pretty much the rant of St Peter in Acts 5 against Ananias and Sapphira. Or of St Paul against St Peter in Galatians 2. And if you were either of these gentleman back then, you'd be excused for thinking that you were dealing with a rare exception to the rule of how this whole Church thing would work out. Two millennia of Church later, that is just hilariously naive...
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
It doesn't paint the entire RCC as evil. My point is that I'd expect the "one true church" to be a lot better than this. I'd expect it to be a bit more fucking obvious to its nuns that this sort of thing isn't acceptable.
quote:You could of course spend a couple of minutes to find out about the original motivations behind these institutions. But it might lead to a more informed and balanced perspective, and less ranting.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
But to the contrary; if RuthW's evidence is aught to go by, it seems to me that its teachings reinforced the prejudices that can lead to this sort of thing. How else did the Magdalene slave labour camps, I mean laundries, ever get set up in the first place, except through utterly despising those they were for.
quote:Here is the full statement the BBC was quoting from. I think it is pretty clear that he thinks that something went gravely wrong.
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
Ingob - The response in your link is expressing sorry, but not admitting that what was done was wrong. There is something of trying to distance from it, while accepting that they need to deal with it now.
quote:What he in fact is saying is that while he is the local archbishop, he simply does not have any access to records of this institution and that his archdiocese was not responsible for running it. He points to where he believes these records can be found, names who was responsible for running it, welcomes the public enquiry and promises to help in any way he can. What else exactly do you want of the man? That he sends in a SWAT team of albino monks to to torture the truth out of the Bon Secours Sisters?
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
It all sounds like he is saying "we will find out if there is anyone responsible who we need to consider first". With the history re covering up abuse, this is not good enough.
quote:Indeed. Every church.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:I'm not sure about in collusion with; the church has been one of the pillars of patriarchy, hasn't it?
Originally posted by Evensong:
Church collusion with patriarchy makes for one very unholy mess.
quote:Was he referring to churches in that pronouncement, or individuals? If the latter, can what he said reasonably be transferred from the one to the other, particularly when the church cannot realistically control the behavior of all the bad trees it might contain? The same reliable source also foretold weeds and tares growing together until the judgment, and forbade trying to dig up the tares.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:Except for that thing about good trees and good fruit, and bad trees and bad fruit, which if I recall correctly comes from a quite reliable source.
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
The fact that Roman Catholics did something contrary to the doctrine of their church does not invalidate those doctrines. To argue otherwise is erroneous. Your emotional reaction to this horrible news is leading you straight into a logical fallacy.
quote:In my revenge fantasies.
What else exactly do you want of the man? That he sends in a SWAT team of albino monks to to torture the truth out of the Bon Secours Sisters?
![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
quote:Children who were born to married parents suffered equally if they came into the care of church-run orphanages, etc. The Ryan report documents many abuses. There was an eleven-year-old girl whose mother had died. The father did not feel capable of raising a motherless girl, so he sent her to a nearby convent. Unfortunately, this was one of the Magdalen laundries.
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:The Roman Church taught that having children out of wedlock was a sin. This is the root cause of their treatment of the women and the children.
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
This would be different if it could be shown that the Roman Church taught that allowing poor children to starve was laudable.
quote:If the church puts up no walls beyond the confessional it is not to its credit. It is only because of the church's long record of obstruction in issues like this that its behaving with basic decency can be seen as creditable.
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
But I think you are right, I think it is clear that the Archbishop realizes the horror and tragedy of the situation and sounds ready to have his diocese to its part in revealing the full extent of the truth. If he indeed puts up no walls beyond that of the confessional, it will be to the church's credit.
quote:Well, RC institutions may indeed have been responsible for sexually abused, overworked, malnourished and brutalised children - but its nice to know that some survived. I'm sure we can all take comfort from assertions such as Fr Weber's, that (in essence) it is not RC company policy to starve helpless babies and toddlers to death. And who can deny he is right when he says there are millions of Catholics who don't engage in such practices? So very reassuring!
The Ryan committee heard testimony from many witnesses who had been raised in RC institutions. Some reported sexual abuse; many reported being seriously overworked, and not being sent to school. Almost all reported being seriously underfed. The nuns had much better food than the children. The leftovers from the nuns' tables were put into buckets for the pigs. Any child who was caught taking food from the pig bucket was severely punished.
quote:It still is in some areas: there have been a few recent scandals over hospitals not telling the truth. One, I think Addenbrookes in Cambridge, was found to be cremating the bodies of miscarriaged children to heat the hospital when they told the parents that the children had been buried.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I completely agree that this is a horrifying, nightmarish thing that has happened. But before we get too self-righteous with regard to Catholicism in Ireland, we might remember that burial of the dead in unmarked mass graves was common practice in asylums and workhouses in England until well into the 20th century.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
...That's pretty much the rant of St Peter in Acts 5 against Ananias and Sapphira. Or of St Paul against St Peter in Galatians 2...
quote:If St Peter and St Paul ranted on occasion then I think it's a reasonable response to this scandal. Don't you?
Originally posted by IngoB:
You could of course spend a couple of minutes to find out about the original motivations behind these institutions. But it might lead to a more informed and balanced perspective, and less ranting.
quote:I do understand this, but his statement sounds like a political expression of regret. I have no doubt that he feels that mistakes have been made, and that this is a horrific find.
Originally posted by IngoB:
What he in fact is saying is that while he is the local archbishop, he simply does not have any access to records of this institution and that his archdiocese was not responsible for running it. He points to where he believes these records can be found, names who was responsible for running it, welcomes the public enquiry and promises to help in any way he can. What else exactly do you want of the man? That he sends in a SWAT team of albino monks to to torture the truth out of the Bon Secours Sisters?
quote:I have to be frank and say I didn't get that from reading the statement. I thought it sounded genuine and appropriate.
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I do understand this, but his statement sounds like a political expression of regret.
quote:
I still recall the crisp autumn day in the old cathedral city of Durham, England, when at a conference on abandoned children, the full extent of a phenomenon I had been aware of for years sank in. The talks were routine scientific fare. Overhead projectors flashed graphs and charts onto a screen. The black lines sprawling across the grid summarized data from European foundling homes, tracking changes in infant mortality rates over time. As the morning wore on, the phenomenon of child abandonment was described, country by country, epoch by epoch, for England, Sweden, Italy, even Portugal’s colony in the Azores. Gradually it dawned on me that this phenomenon affected not tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of infants, as I had long assumed, but millions of babies. I grew increasingly numb. Hrdy, p. 302.
quote:The treatment of children at this particular hostel seems inexcusable, and I have no wish to mitigate that fact.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Nothing I've heard today on R4 about the attitude of the church and Irish state towards unmarried mothers, their concept of "double original sin" on the children of these mothers, the forced adoptions that were routine has done anything to lessen my belief in the connection between Catholic teaching and the maltreatment of children in the "care" of these institutions. When you treat people as a problem, this happens.
quote:I am wary that it would be the same in similar institutions. Some evidence on Mother and Baby homes suggest otherwise. And the researcher based alot of her evidence on direct conversations.
According to Corless, death rates for children in the Tuam mother and baby home, and in similar institutions, were four to five times that of the general population.
quote:This sort of sectarian opportunism is what is most unsettling about this thread.
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
The Church of Ireland welcomes you.
quote:Or Protestant teaching, for that matter, as the record shows. It just so happens the Catholic Church was the biggest player, so its defects are most obvious.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Nothing I've heard today on R4 about the attitude of the church and Irish state towards unmarried mothers, their concept of "double original sin" on the children of these mothers, the forced adoptions that were routine has done anything to lessen my belief in the connection between Catholic teaching and the maltreatment of children in the "care" of these institutions. When you treat people as a problem, this happens.
quote:And this is the unsettling image that rises above all in this story. Except it is inaccurate. I too reacted in horror at the thought of children being disposed of as sewage. But that is clearly not the case. It was the "disused septic tank" that was re-used as a grave. In one article I read this was described as "a convenient hole", a description designed to raise the temperature, but nevertheless true. Yet the men who first unearthed remains there as boys describe the bodies they found as "neatly stacked".
Originally posted by Penny S:
And I've been spending the day fantasising about millstones and slurry pits.
quote:Moo has a good point about the awful treatment of children in all sorts of institutions. I remember that two of Charlotte Bronte's sisters died from the effects of the school for daughters of Church of England clergy that they attended. I live near Columbus Ohio where, in 2014, we have an infant mortality rate that rivals third world countries.
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
The mistaken theology is that women who have sex outside of marriage are then beyond the help or support of the church, and, by implication, God.
It is this theological position that meant it was acceptable to refuse baptism or sacred burial to these women and their children.
quote:You mention what happpens when survivors ask for information. Those in the mass graves aren't in such a position.
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
I am not convinced about the denial of baptism. Many survivors of these awful institutions recount stories of later appalling treatment when they ask for their baptism certificates. Many recount finding their birth parents through information on baptismal certificates.
quote:Spot on, TT. The thing is, this is how the privileged treat the marginalised.
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
There is a massive tragedy here about the poor and the marginalised. And the Church - all Churches - which should have been at the forefront of caring and alleviating their suffering turned the moral tables on their heads and instead joined in the punishment. Sickening.
quote:And there were large exports of food from Ireland, during the Famine, as obviously, you couldn't let a little famine stand in the way of doing good business.
Adeodatus wrote:
On Radio 4's 'Today' this morning there was someone who seemed to suggest there was some initial confusion over whether this 'grave' might be linked with a nearby 'famine grave'. The reference, of course, is to the Irish Famine of the late 1840s, in which something like a million people died, while their (Protestant) British landlords dined in luxury on their Irish estates. There are stories a-plenty of starving people begging for food and literally being turned away at the landlord's door.
quote:I am trying to get my head around why you wrote that, and I'm afraid I am lost.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
You mention what happpens when survivors ask for information. Those in the mass graves aren't in such a position.
quote:[my italics]
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:You mention what happpens when survivors ask for information. Those in the mass graves aren't in such a position.
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
I am not convinced about the denial of baptism. Many survivors of these awful institutions recount stories of later appalling treatment when they ask for their baptism certificates. Many recount finding their birth parents through information on baptismal certificates.
quote:Then I am cynical in my old age, and will wait to see what actually happens.
Originally posted by deano:
quote:I have to be frank and say I didn't get that from reading the statement. I thought it sounded genuine and appropriate.
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I do understand this, but his statement sounds like a political expression of regret.
But I guess we all read between the lines based on our own subjective views.
quote:Protestant churches are every bit as likely to embrace the hateful practices of their particular cultures as Catholic parishes are, and that's been acknowledged on this thread -- I acknowledge it, at least, by including an example of such a thing from my own parish. The Catholic Church isn't worse than any other -- but it isn't better, either, which is why I'm on board with the title of this thread.
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
quote:This sort of sectarian opportunism is what is most unsettling about this thread.
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
The Church of Ireland welcomes you.
quote:I'm curious as to which ones you mean.
Originally posted by anteater:
There seems a really sinister sense of glee in some of the posts.
quote:Who said this? Who even implied it?
And as if dreadful atrocities had not been being committed throughout history by humans who belong to whatever: Catholicism, Anglicanism, Socialism.
quote:So start a thread in Purgatory.
Somewhere buried, there is a serious issue worth debating, which is whether evil things can be done within the church instituted by Jesus. And if so, how evil.
quote:You got that out of "by their fruits ye shall know them"? Cause to me it looks like you pulled it out of your ass.
The thesis - implied - of the OP is that notable evil existing within an organisation invalidates any claim to be a valid expression of the church of Christ. I don't, personally, buy that.
quote:No, it's that it invalidates their claim to be THE ONLY valid expression of the Church of Christ. If they're going to make that claim then they'd damn well better be able to back it up, and they can't.
Originally posted by anteater:
The thesis - implied - of the OP is that notable evil existing within an organisation invalidates any claim to be a valid expression of the church of Christ.
quote:And what evidence do you have that this was not done in this instance? The eye-witness accounts of those who unearthed the grave said the remains were neatly stacked. Why is it so shocking that what was no longer in use for its original purpose was put to use for the decent interment of human remains? I repeat - these children were not thrown into a cesspit: their bodies were buried in a hole in the ground where once a septic tank had been.
Originally posted by Penny S:
Triple Tiara, a disused septic tank is still a septic tank. What sort of treatment would render it a suitable grave for anyone?
Neanderthal graves have been found into which people have been placed with care and flowers.
quote:C'mon, TT, read what Marvin actually wrote. We think this is yet more evidence that the RCC is not the One True Church. If it were, y'all would collectively be better than the rest of us, but things like this show that you aren't. No one says this invalidates the Catholic Church.
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
Come off it Ruth, you are being disingenuous.
And Marvin steps right up to the mark to prove the point. It's not the events which are at issue, it's that they "invalidate" the Catholic Church.
quote:For many of us who do not believe the claims the Catholic church makes for itself, this is also disingenuous.
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
It's not the events which are at issue, it's that they "invalidate" the Catholic Church.
quote:I think, had my life been abbreviated by neglect and starvation, that my corpse had been 'neatly stacked' would not count for a lot.
. A health board report from 1944 on the Tuam home describes emaciated, potbellied children, mentally unwell mothers and appalling overcrowding.
quote:OK, maybe I hadn't realised they made such exclusive claims. I was raised as a JW and they certainly did. I find it hard to believe that the RCC, one of whose loyal members leads Churches Together in our area, has such a down on other christians, and frankly I doubt it.
No, it's that it invalidates their claim to be THE ONLY valid expression of the Church of Christ. If they're going to make that claim then they'd damn well better be able to back it up, and they can't.
quote:And that is the real point, and I agree with you. The shitstorm that is being brewed up about many of the other issues detracts from that.
Originally posted by Firenze:
quote:I think, had my life been abbreviated by neglect and starvation, that my corpse had been 'neatly stacked' would not count for a lot.
. A health board report from 1944 on the Tuam home describes emaciated, potbellied children, mentally unwell mothers and appalling overcrowding.
This was treatment legitimised by the church and the society around it, because the one is the expression of the other.
quote:There's actually nothing behind the claim that RCs are like everybody else (or worse...). One would need a proper definition of terms ("better", "collectively", "rest of us" "things like this"), sufficient data collection, conceptual analysis and appropriate statistics before one would come close to establishing some objective meaning for this assertion. And to find out the truth about it, I'm pretty sure one has to be God. For example, just how bad is the Protestant wrecking of the sacramental order in the Divine scheme of things? I simply do not know how to weight his up against for example the case at hand; and I reckon neither do you, nor does anybody else.
Originally posted by RuthW:
We think this is yet more evidence that the RCC is not the One True Church. If it were, y'all would collectively be better than the rest of us, but things like this show that you aren't.
quote:I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 'the Protestant wrecking of the sacramental order,' but I believe that in the divine scheme of things it's outweighed by the cry of the orphan, the widow, and the stranger.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:There's actually nothing behind the claim that RCs are like everybody else (or worse...). One would need a proper definition of terms ("better", "collectively", "rest of us" "things like this"), sufficient data collection, conceptual analysis and appropriate statistics before one would come close to establishing some objective meaning for this assertion. And to find out the truth about it, I'm pretty sure one has to be God. For example, just how bad is the Protestant wrecking of the sacramental order in the Divine scheme of things? I simply do not know how to weight his up against for example the case at hand; and I reckon neither do you, nor does anybody else.
Originally posted by RuthW:
We think this is yet more evidence that the RCC is not the One True Church. If it were, y'all would collectively be better than the rest of us, but things like this show that you aren't.
quote:It does sound as if these institutions functioned very much like workhouses, and on the basis of similar cultural ideas. The underseving destitute and poor must be made to work, must be deprived to motivate them.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I completely agree that this is a horrifying, nightmarish thing that has happened. But before we get too self-righteous with regard to Catholicism in Ireland, we might remember that burial of the dead in unmarked mass graves was common practice in asylums and workhouses in England until well into the 20th century.
quote:My point precisely. You believe that, and I'm sure RuthW does, too. But of course one can also believe that hell is real and that without the sacrament of confession a lot of Christians are going to end up there. Then the numbers may stack up rather differently... Who is right, who is wrong? God knows. Anyway, even if we grant your view that only charitable action counts, and furthermore that only corporeal charity need be considered, then still RuthW's assertion is empty. Even then we still don't know what must be counted and how, and we still haven't actually counted it. This here is just emotions driven by spectacular events. But sentiments are not a synonym for statistics.
Originally posted by Amos:
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 'the Protestant wrecking of the sacramental order,' but I believe that in the divine scheme of things it's outweighed by the cry of the orphan, the widow, and the stranger.
quote:1. Forgive me for my earlier comments. Stacking the bodies makes it OK. Huh!
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
[QUOTE]
1. Yet the men who first unearthed remains there as boys describe the bodies they found as "neatly stacked".
2. The tragedy of this is the tragedy of the pauper's grave. There are many of these, including in England, and still functioning today.
quote:Fuck off. Just fuck right the fuck off, and take the suggestion that sacramental order is more important to God than the lives of children with you.
Originally posted by IngoB:
There's actually nothing behind the claim that RCs are like everybody else (or worse...). One would need a proper definition of terms ("better", "collectively", "rest of us" "things like this"), sufficient data collection, conceptual analysis and appropriate statistics before one would come close to establishing some objective meaning for this assertion. And to find out the truth about it, I'm pretty sure one has to be God. For example, just how bad is the Protestant wrecking of the sacramental order in the Divine scheme of things? I simply do not know how to weight his up against for example the case at hand; and I reckon neither do you, nor does anybody else.
quote:You are joking aren't you?
Originally posted by IngoB:
For example, just how bad is the Protestant wrecking of the sacramental order in the Divine scheme of things? I simply do not know how to weight his up against for example the case at hand; and I reckon neither do you, nor does anybody else.
quote:Boogie, I think Ingo wants us to accept that the Reformation explains all the sin in this world, even those of the RCC. It's all our fault for daring to ask questions and act on the answers.
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:You are joking aren't you?
Originally posted by IngoB:
For example, just how bad is the Protestant wrecking of the sacramental order in the Divine scheme of things? I simply do not know how to weight his up against for example the case at hand; and I reckon neither do you, nor does anybody else.
Jesus taught us what is right and that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. It's blatantly obvious that caring for the poor, giving them clothes when they need them, visiting the sick and those in prison is far more important than the churchy wurchy this comes before that dancy prancy dress like this wordy nerdy light that candle first sacraments!
eta - and what Marvin said, he put it much better.
quote:At least you are stating some terms here - so we are now going to evaluate being a "better" Christian exclusively by "avoiding the oppression of the vulnerable"? Fair enough. Next, tell us whom we are going to consider for comparison, a range of time and space and social belonging. Then we will have to talk about what exactly counts as oppression, and how bad what oppression is, comparatively speaking. Then we will have to gather lots of data, process it and then we will have some kind of objective answer to whether RuthW was right in asserting that RCs are just like everybody else (or worse).
Originally posted by Amos:
InigoB, you've just taken the Scriptural injunction forbidding oppression of the vulnerable and turned it into 'corporal acts of mercy.' Refraining from abuse is not a corporal act of mercy. ('Oh goody! I didn't hurt or humiliate any widows or orphans today! That's my good deed!').
quote:To the contrary, I actually discussed this as a likely problem of systemic evil above.
Originally posted by Amos:
It also implies that you think that the nuns in question knew they were doing wrong. That seems to be a disputable point. My impression is that that particular order thought then, and possibly thinks now, that everything it did was for the good and that it has been sadly misunderstood.
quote:Sure. But since that has nothing to do with what I was talking about, I'm not sure why you mention it.
Originally posted by Amos:
So: the act of confessing to your priest that you have, shall we say, committed a murder, and receiving absolution is important, but it is secondary to the commandment which says 'Thou shalt not kill.'
quote:First, and let's be very clear about this, there is no contest here between having either the sacramental order or saving children's lives. There is no reason not to have both in any concrete case. What I was talking about was this this easy evaluation of overall Christian performance to arrive at a label "better", which implicitly ignores any spiritual or other-worldly realities. This is not about saying, "sacrifice this child so we can celebrate Mass", or some other horrible Aztec-Christian cultism. This is about saying that the "fruit" that trees bear come in many flavours, and pointing at a rotten apple tells us nothing about how many pears we are going to harvest.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Fuck off. Just fuck right the fuck off, and take the suggestion that sacramental order is more important to God than the lives of children with you.
quote:I don't have the slightest problem with admitting that members of my Church have done horrible things, most likely are doing horrible things right now, and certainly will be doing some horrible things in future, and all this while representing my Church in some way or the other. I don't have the slightest problem with admitting that other churches have been more holy, charitable or whatever at times and in places, in the same sense. What I do have a problem with is the argument "and therefore your Church is not the one true Church". Why? Because that argument is bullshit, and relies on sentimental rhetorics. Not that I think that I can prove my Church to be the one true Church by somehow calculating its performance. My point is rather that such calculations are basically impossible.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
And your "the Church is always better, even when it obviously isn't" crap is what got it covered up for so long.
quote:No. Because there is some shit no reasonable person can swallow.
Originally posted by IngoB:
What if the sacramental order is the main thing that stands between the earthly lives of children and an eternity in hell?
quote:I will never understand this sort of argument:
Originally posted by QLib:
No. Because there is some shit no reasonable person can swallow.
quote:Fixed it for you, IngoB.
Originally posted by IngoB:
"I can't even begin to rationalise it with the concept of a God who is love and desires all to be saved, therefore it is not real / cannot be the case."
The logical non sequitur is painfully obvious.
quote:OK ask your church to stop referring to itself (implicitly or explicitly) in this way.
Originally posted by IngoB:
[QUOTE]Not that I think that I can prove my Church to be the one true Church by somehow calculating its performance. My point is rather that such calculations are basically impossible.
quote:True, but by calculating its performance you could prove it - as, I dare say, we all could with regard to our own Churches - to be a bunch of brazen fuckwits who seem to be positively going out of their way to have the "I never knew you" conversation on the Last Great Day.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Not that I think that I can prove my Church to be the one true Church by somehow calculating its performance.
quote:I believe it. Sorry.
Originally posted by QLib:
quote:No. Because there is some shit no reasonable person can swallow.
Originally posted by IngoB:
What if the sacramental order is the main thing that stands between the earthly lives of children and an eternity in hell?
quote:Don't worry; QLib left you a get out clause. You can define yourself as "not a reasonable person".
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:I believe it. Sorry.
Originally posted by QLib:
quote:No. Because there is some shit no reasonable person can swallow.
Originally posted by IngoB:
What if the sacramental order is the main thing that stands between the earthly lives of children and an eternity in hell?
quote:Seems you and Qlib share IngoB's repulsive general attitude that no rational, decent person could ever disagree with you.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:Don't worry; QLib left you a get out clause. You can define yourself as "not a reasonable person".
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:I believe it. Sorry.
Originally posted by QLib:
quote:No. Because there is some shit no reasonable person can swallow.
Originally posted by IngoB:
What if the sacramental order is the main thing that stands between the earthly lives of children and an eternity in hell?
Hope this helps.
quote:"Nope, but yep."
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Nope. Just that there are some things that no rational person can swallow.
quote:I'm sure God has better things to do with Her time.
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:"Nope, but yep."
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Nope. Just that there are some things that no rational person can swallow.
Oh well. If my rationality must bow down to the Sacred Scriptures, then it will bend the knee, with God's help.
quote:I don't share your certainty that you speak for God, which you and Karl say bears on my rationality.
Originally posted by QLib:
quote:I'm sure God has better things to do with Her time.
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:"Nope, but yep."
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Nope. Just that there are some things that no rational person can swallow.
Oh well. If my rationality must bow down to the Sacred Scriptures, then it will bend the knee, with God's help.
quote:The problem with selective quotes is that they are . . selective.
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practised without neglecting the others."
quote:I rather realized that when your first, and subsequently only, response was "You're just obviously irrational and a bad person for disagreeing with me."
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
...it's clear that further discussion would be an absolute exercise in futility.
quote:Except it wasn't, and I don't bother chatting with twats who misrepresent (i.e. lie about) what I say. And either you're as thick as shit or deliberately lying about what I said.
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:I rather realized that when your first, and subsequently only, response was "You're just obviously irrational and a bad person for disagreeing with me."
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
...it's clear that further discussion would be an absolute exercise in futility.
quote:What misrepresentation? You called me irrational because I believe something you don't, and offered little else. Now you're throwing a pathetic little temper tantrum when it's pointed out.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:Except it wasn't, and I don't bother chatting with twats who misrepresent (i.e. lie about) what I say. And either you're as thick as shit or deliberately lying about what I said.
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:I rather realized that when your first, and subsequently only, response was "You're just obviously irrational and a bad person for disagreeing with me."
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
...it's clear that further discussion would be an absolute exercise in futility.
So fuck you and the horse you rode in on.
quote:If it truly makes you feel better, I honestly didn't mean to comment on your behavior at all times and in all places.
Right. Since you are playing the thick as shit card, let me clarify...
quote:Well, no, you didn't. Even with your edits it remains a non sequitur. That you cannot grasp something simply does not make it untrue per se. Furthermore, who says that God is not a horrendous monster? I may share QLibs' belief that He isn't, but just because we agree does not make that true either.
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
quote:Fixed it for you, IngoB.
Originally posted by IngoB:
"I can't even begin to rationalise it with the concept of a God who is love and desires all to be saved, therefore it is not real / cannot be the case."
The logical non sequitur is painfully obvious.
quote:Zach, the fallacy of the excluded middle was pointed out to you ages ago. Stop engaging in it if you want to prove that you are, in fact, rational.
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:If it truly makes you feel better, I honestly didn't mean to comment on your behavior at all times and in all places.
Right. Since you are playing the thick as shit card, let me clarify...
Though since you still have nothing to offer by "You're just obviously irrational for disagreeing with me," it still seems there is nothing to talk about.
quote:Yes, but the point is, are you still prepared to worship God if She tuns out to be horrendously monstrous?
Originally posted by IngoB:
.... who says that God is not a horrendous monster? I may share QLibs' belief that He isn't, but just because we agree does not make that true either.
quote:Well, believe it or not, the relationship between church, society, and the prejudices that lead to this kind of behavior is in part what I was trying to address. What I added to that is that in my eyes the Catholic Church is just as likely to be enmeshed in such behavior and to provide justification for it as any other church, which provides more support for a position I already hold, i.e., that the Catholic Church is not the one true church. I don't expect you to agree with me, TT, but surely you can see why I think the way I do about this.
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
quote:And that is the real point, and I agree with you. The shitstorm that is being brewed up about many of the other issues detracts from that.
Originally posted by Firenze:
quote:I think, had my life been abbreviated by neglect and starvation, that my corpse had been 'neatly stacked' would not count for a lot.
. A health board report from 1944 on the Tuam home describes emaciated, potbellied children, mentally unwell mothers and appalling overcrowding.
This was treatment legitimised by the church and the society around it, because the one is the expression of the other.
quote:I don't have the context for this that you do. And I have no idea what LsK's context is. "The Church of Ireland welcomes you" to me here sounds a lot like "The Episcopal Church welcomes you" - which could have a couple of different meanings in such a context, depending on who was speaking and the tone they took. Here in Southern California, the Episcopal Church doesn't begin to compete with the Catholic Church for numbers, but we do get lots of disaffected Catholics - a small number in a Catholic context, a large number in an Episcopal context. What most of us mean when we say "the EC welcomes you" to Catholics who are abandoning their church is that we think they might be at home in ours. The one person I know who really is gleeful when he says this is a former Catholic who is quite bitter about his experience.
RuthW and Organ Builder - I entered this thread because of the gleeful and, imo, appalling one line intervention of LsK: the Church of Ireland welcomes you.
<snip>
Ruth, the sectarianism in Ireland is starkly different from what you experience in your part of the world. The Catholic Church is taking a real battering - legitimately. It's not religion, or Christians, it's the Catholic Church. So crass interventions like the one from LsK are not innocent ones.
quote:The Roman church frightening people into submission? Some things never change, do they?
When the time came for the bill to be voted on, the Church announced that any Catholic who voted for it would be committing a mortal sin. The bill failed, and the Church kept all its power.
quote:The disdain of sad Australian spinsters is less and less of a concern for me these days.
Originally posted by orfeo:
You just add to your catalogue of nursed grievances, Zach, and the big adults will talk over your head.
EDIT: I'm always here.
quote:And power corrupts.
Originally posted by Moo:
The government asked the Church to send representatives to work with legislators in drafting the new regulations. The Church refused.
When the time came for the bill to be voted on, the Church announced that any Catholic who voted for it would be committing a mortal sin. The bill failed, and the Church kept all its power.
quote:This is a vital point often overlooked; partly because Irish society does not want to look at it. In some cases women were sent to these places because they had become pregnant and could no longer work and were deemed to be nothing more than another mouth to feed with no return in work. Sometimes they were sent because they had learning difficulties, disorders that were not understood or were in some way disabled. Some were sent to these institutions as a form of punishment for bringing shame on a family or because they were thought to be undisciplined or 'naughty children'. Society knew only too well what went on in these places. There are people alive today who will say that when they were bad as children they would be threatened with 'You'll be sent to the institution'. People in society knew what was going on and it was compounded by a society that was facing horrific poverty and a deeply uncertain future, where someone who didn't fit in or couldn't put a hand to the plough was deemed an unnecessary burden.
It is not just about what the nuns, priests, church hierarchy did or didn't do. It is about what the rest of society did or didn't do, the questions nobody asked, the complaints that were ignored.
quote:But people do become definitively alienated from their Church communities for a variety of reasons. Do you prefer they cease being practicing Christians, that they cease to receive the means of grace (which V2 recognized are possessed in at least some sense within "protestant" churches), that they drift along very likely never to return to the Catholic Church in any real sense (a lapsed Catholic being buried with Catholic rites hardly counts, as it's done to/for them, not by them)?
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
I know exactly where your one-liner came from LsK. And that was what I found so crass - making capital out of what was once again seen as a Catholic issue. The truth is it is an Irish issue. Granted, the Catholic Church is intricately caught up in that, but so are other churches. To try and say "oh it's those evil Catholics - why not become a protestant?" is gross.
quote:While I don't find LsK's comments particularly savory, Roman Catholics on this board have argued "The Catholic Church welcomes you" in response to problems in Anglicanism many, many times.
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
Oh stop it. Did you bother to follow the links I provided?
The situation of those who were in CofI institutions seems to be even worse than those in Catholic ones. Is an appropriate response to those stories "The Catholic Church welcomes you"?
quote:Some writers suggest that the abandonment of children, their maltreatment, and their frequent deaths, was a Europe-wide phenomenon, often found in foundling hospitals, homes, and so on. How many children died? Millions?
Originally posted by Boogie:
But what if the wickedness is systemic?
The very systems of the Church encouraging silence about such matters, reverence of those who should never be revered and protection of those who commit terrible abuse?
quote:Then those systems need to change. Beneath the shrill and the headline, if anyone actually wants to know the truth, then you will discover that the Catholic Church is now extremely robust when it comes to issues of child-protection. This impacts daily parish life in a way not done before. As an example: I publish the name of our safeguarding officer on the front page of every parish newsletter; children acting as altar servers need to be vested and out of the sacristy before I get there; CRB checks for everyone working with children's liturgy, or any child activity and so on. These were all implemented over a decade ago.
Originally posted by Boogie:
But what if the wickedness is systemic?
The very systems of the Church encouraging silence about such matters, reverence of those who should never be revered and protection of those who commit terrible abuse?
quote:About theological issues, no doubt.
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:While I don't find LsK's comments particularly savory, Roman Catholics on this board have argued "The Catholic Church welcomes you" in response to problems in Anglicanism many, many times.
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
Oh stop it. Did you bother to follow the links I provided?
The situation of those who were in CofI institutions seems to be even worse than those in Catholic ones. Is an appropriate response to those stories "The Catholic Church welcomes you"?
quote:What evidence do you have for such a sweeping generalisation?
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
[QUOTE] When there are bad priests and bad bishops, Catholics actually get angrier than those outside because these things tarnish that which we know to be good.
quote:In this case it is: try to understand how those 5 words might seem to one of the mothers whose child was buried in that garden.
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
[QUOTE] It's not a Catholic issue.
quote:I've never claimed to be any better either on behalf of myself or nay denomination. There are enough problems in all churches but the sheer indifference and bluster never ceases to amaze me.
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
Poppycock, all of that.
quote:It is not "all" being shifted onto the RCC. Specifics have. Tell us how it is being addressed and will be?
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
Poppycock again.
For as long as we mark this a "Catholic" issue then we fail to address the deeper issues at stake.
There are specifically Catholic issues which indeed need to be addressed, have been addressed and are being addressed.
But conveniently shifting it all onto being simply a Catholic issue - that fails to address a massive part of the issue. That may suit you, but it does not serve the truth, nor making sure it never happens again.
quote:It might be better to say that "Irish Catholics get angrier....". There are and have been Irish Catholics in my family: when cases like this come up some roll their eyes and say "Oh God, not again", other cry and pray while there are always some who walk out of the RCCs door and never enter any church again save for weddings and funerals.
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
quote:What evidence do you have for such a sweeping generalisation?
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
When there are bad priests and bad bishops, Catholics actually get angrier than those outside because these things tarnish that which we know to be good.
The other examples you provide are clear and correct. But, they weren't perpetrated by the church but by secular authorities. In Ireland, the church was the state for the care of these women and children. That was not the case anywhere else.
Please don't try to pass the buck on to other people either. Ok other churches and denominations are not whiter than white - but we have a specific case to debate here and the level and scale of abuse perpetrated by the RCC appears to have no rival, anywhere. It is systemic, inhuman and for years was covered up - even long after it had stopped. Why? Not simply to protect the guilty people actually to salve the conscience of a guilt ridden church.
Saying "Catholics get angrier ..." is rather like saying "we do it better than anyone else." Well, in this case, I accept it, you do - and you have a lot more reasons for doing so.
quote:Think for yourself - don't just follow the party line. What would you do if it was on your patch?
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
Poppycock again.
Read the whole thread. I was addressing those who were making sectarian capital out of this.
There is sufficient written and linked to on this thread to address the Catholic Church's remorse about what has happened.
quote:The spokesman in the article originally linked didn't seem to show any remorse.
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
There is sufficient written and linked to on this thread to address the Catholic Church's remorse about what has happened.
quote:When the reports on historical child abuse by priests in Ireland were published, I was surprised to learn that, if a case was reported to the Garda, the chances of then doing anything about it was slim to nil. I was also surprised by how rarely this was mentioned in the press coverage.
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
Posted by cheesy marzipan:
quote:This is a vital point often overlooked; partly because Irish society does not want to look at it.
It is not just about what the nuns, priests, church hierarchy did or didn't do. It is about what the rest of society did or didn't do, the questions nobody asked, the complaints that were ignored.
quote:That was essentially the position in the UK for a very long time.
Originally posted by JoannaP:
quote:When the reports on historical child abuse by priests in Ireland were published, I was surprised to learn that, if a case was reported to the Garda, the chances of then doing anything about it was slim to nil. I was also surprised by how rarely this was mentioned in the press coverage.
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
Posted by cheesy marzipan:
quote:This is a vital point often overlooked; partly because Irish society does not want to look at it.
It is not just about what the nuns, priests, church hierarchy did or didn't do. It is about what the rest of society did or didn't do, the questions nobody asked, the complaints that were ignored.
quote:Do you know what the question was to which the spokesman gave his answer? I don't. Do you think those were the only words he spoke? I don't.
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
quote:The spokesman in the article originally linked didn't seem to show any remorse.
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
There is sufficient written and linked to on this thread to address the Catholic Church's remorse about what has happened.
quote:See how easy it is to take something out of context and then use it to hammer someone? Fortunately, it's here in writing so we can see what Exclamation Mark has done.
If you don't like hierarchy and you don't like clergy, that is your issue. It's not a Catholic issue. Catholics know their value.
quote:Back in the 80s when I first read a news article about sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in Louisiana, parents said when they complained about the abusive/illegal behavior of the local priest, the community ostracized them. How dare you criticize our priest! Being an intensely Catholic community, ostracism means losing customers, losing jobs, kids harassed in school, etc.
Originally posted by JoannaP:
quote:When the reports on historical child abuse by priests in Ireland were published, I was surprised to learn that, if a case was reported to the Garda, the chances of then doing anything about it was slim to nil.
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
This is a vital point often overlooked; partly because Irish society does not want to look at it.
quote:The Catholic Church is the one making the claim to be the one true church, not mine.
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
I have been addressing very specifically those on here who have been making sectarian capital out of this. "Come to us, we're better".
No, sadly, you were and are no better in these issues.
quote:Thank you for posting that full response - it is most revealing.
So if you want to know what the full response was, you need to read the statement of the Archbishop of Tuam.
quote:Point taken, thanks TT (or why do I always think it should be TTT? That "triple" is a powerful magnet...)
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
quote:Do you know what the question was to which the spokesman gave his answer? I don't. Do you think those were the only words he spoke? I don't.
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
The spokesman in the article originally linked didn't seem to show any remorse.
quote:Huff Post article today
June 8, 2014 03:42 PM EST | AP
DUBLIN (AP) — Ireland should investigate the Catholic Church's mistreatment and burial of babies who died decades ago in nun-operated homes for unmarried mothers, a senior church official declared Sunday as the country confronted another shameful chapter of its history of child abuse.
Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin made his appeal following revelations that hundreds of children who died inside a former church-run residence for infants were buried in unmarked graves at the site in western Ireland.
Martin said the probe should have no church involvement, be led by a judge ...
quote:Yes it's very easy to blame others isn't it? Yes I took the phrase and I accept it is (sort of) out of context. But the fact is you have used a form of words - as the RCC is wont to use words - to dissemble.
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
[QUOTE]Fortunately, it's here in writing so we can see what Exclamation Mark has done.
quote:That's about 35 years overdue but nevertheless I applaud his words.
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
Giving credit where due --
quote:Huff Post article today
June 8, 2014 03:42 PM EST | AP
DUBLIN (AP) — Ireland should investigate the Catholic Church's mistreatment and burial of babies who died decades ago in nun-operated homes for unmarried mothers, a senior church official declared Sunday as the country confronted another shameful chapter of its history of child abuse.
Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin made his appeal following revelations that hundreds of children who died inside a former church-run residence for infants were buried in unmarked graves at the site in western Ireland.
Martin said the probe should have no church involvement, be led by a judge ...
quote:Why would that make him independent? Sectarianism and British rule have been the curse of Ireland for at least 400 years. Any findings of an inquiry chaired by a judge from the UK would be unacceptable to Irish politicians, religious figures and the Irish population alike.
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
Just make sure the Judge is independent: might be best to have one who is non RCC and from the UK.
quote:Point taken but the Judge does really need to be independent, hear the evidence in public, allow no stone to remain unturned and keep no evidence secret, otherwise the allegations of cover up will continue. [There are ways of ensuring that the names of the families affected can be kept secret for reasons of sensitivity].
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:Why would that make him independent? Sectarianism and British rule have been the curse of Ireland for at least 400 years. Any findings of an inquiry chaired by a judge from the UK would be unacceptable to Irish politicians, religious figures and the Irish population alike.
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
Just make sure the Judge is independent: might be best to have one who is non RCC and from the UK.
(x-p with Doublethink)
quote:Bullshit. He's defending the RCC as an institution, as a whole, he's not defending the treatment of children in this or any other of the Irish homes (which weren't all Catholic!).
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
I won't play that game TT. You're in mortal danger of adding your culpability to the list of others: you are defending the indefensible.
quote:Spare us this histrionic crap!
Spare a thought, would you, for the families affected - ask your congregation what they think as I suggested earlier and you might get a non priestly view of it all.
quote:Mea Culpa. I don't recall doing that. Consider yourself unignored. Indeed, consider the matter closed. I over-reacted.
Originally posted by Zach82:
I hope it isn't unseemly for me to say it in front of others, Karl, but since you've added me to your ignore list I can't respond to your PM otherwise. I assure you I will not argue with you on the Lord's Day.
quote:When the first reports came out regarding child abuse and the Roman Catholic church there was a rather clear desire to create a bit of distance. While I don't defend this, it is an entirely human and understandable response. Many clergy had trained with those who turned out to be serial abusers, some were left in total shock, others refused to believe it and this trickled through to the hierarchy in an unhelpful way.
The Archbishop's words left me feeling that what they couldn't cover up, they would disown...
quote:I don't fucking believe this! 800 babies dead and the Catholic Apologists still manage to find a way of claiming that the most disturbing thing is how persecuted those poor ickle Catholics are.
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
quote:This sort of sectarian opportunism is what is most unsettling about this thread.
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
The Church of Ireland welcomes you.
quote:Then you should just give up now on the idea of preaching that God is good in any sense other than the Greeks used the term "The Kindly Ones". If you believe a sacramental order is the main thing that stands between children and hell then you are a maltheist, believing that God is evil and must be placated because otherwise it is God's will that the innocent be tortured past human imagining.
Originally posted by IngoB:
What if the sacramental order is the main thing that stands between the earthly lives of children and an eternity in hell?
quote:I accept what you say. I recognise that my words and attitudes have been inappropriate. Sorry.
Originally posted by QLib:
Exclamation Mark - the fact that you managed to get outraged about pretty much everything and see corruption everywhere and always know what's wrong with every church diminishes the credibility of your assertions and dilutes the impact of the truly outrageous. Or would dilute the impact of the truly outrageous if anyone was still listening to you.
quote:I can't help but to see it as an expression of God's unfathomable mercy that a mere splash of water and the recitation of a line of Sacred Scripture is all it takes for a baby to become part of the body of Christ.
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:Then you should just give up now on the idea of preaching that God is good in any sense other than the Greeks used the term "The Kindly Ones". If you believe a sacramental order is the main thing that stands between children and hell then you are a maltheist, believing that God is evil and must be placated because otherwise it is God's will that the innocent be tortured past human imagining.
Originally posted by IngoB:
What if the sacramental order is the main thing that stands between the earthly lives of children and an eternity in hell?
quote:I knew that at some stage you were bound to hove into view.
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:I don't fucking believe this! 800 babies dead and the Catholic Apologists still manage to find a way of claiming that the most disturbing thing is how persecuted those poor ickle Catholics are.
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
quote:This sort of sectarian opportunism is what is most unsettling about this thread.
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
The Church of Ireland welcomes you.
Yes, LSK's comment was in poor taste. But yours was fundamentally lacking in humanity.
quote:FWIW, I was thinking there about a regular life of those children growing up and living as adults, where most of the sacramental order comes into its own. In the particular context here that perhaps was not readily apparent. My expectation for what happens to unbaptised infants who die is that at worst they will live in a state of eternal natural (but not supernatural) happiness that is traditionally assigned to limbo.
Originally posted by Justinian:
Then you should just give up now on the idea of preaching that God is good in any sense other than the Greeks used the term "The Kindly Ones". If you believe a sacramental order is the main thing that stands between children and hell then you are a maltheist, believing that God is evil and must be placated because otherwise it is God's will that the innocent be tortured past human imagining.
quote:I find it crass rather than disturbing. I find your attempts to claim that that's the most disturbing thing on the thread to be far, far worse. As if you believe that the real horror is people sniping at the Roman Catholic Church.
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
quote:I knew that at some stage you were bound to hove into view.
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:I don't fucking believe this! 800 babies dead and the Catholic Apologists still manage to find a way of claiming that the most disturbing thing is how persecuted those poor ickle Catholics are.
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
quote:This sort of sectarian opportunism is what is most unsettling about this thread.
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
The Church of Ireland welcomes you.
Yes, LSK's comment was in poor taste. But yours was fundamentally lacking in humanity.
If you didn't always attempt to charge in on your white rocking horse you would have noted the words "this thread".
And you don't find using dead babies to promote sectarian opportunism disturbing?
quote:"Don't scandalize the faithful." Hah! Believe it or not, the laity can handle the concept of sin, even in their leadership. They understand falling short of the glory of God and of penitence and of perseverance. What they really have trouble with is hypocrisy.
I'd say that what is more worthy of present concern is how ecclesiastical polity operates in ways that can foster a variety of ills in the Church, moreover hiding much from public view.
quote:
On almost every level, the news reports in respectable media outlets around the world were plain wrong. Most importantly, the constantly repeated line about the bodies of 800 babies having been found was pure mythmaking. The bodies of 800 babies had not been found, in the septic tank or anywhere else [...] it’s actually not possible that all 800 dead babies are in this tank-cum-crypt, as pretty much every media outlet has claimed. Mainly because, as the Irish Times reports, the septic tank was still in use up to 1937, 12 years after the home opened, during which time 204 of the 796 deaths occurred - and ‘it seems impossible’, the paper says, ‘that more than 200 bodies could have been put in a working sewage tank’. Also, the Irish Times spoke to one of the men who in 1975, when he was 10 years old, disturbed the former septic tank and saw skeletal remains, and he says now that ‘there was no way there were 800 skeletons down that hole. Nothing like that number.’ He says there were ‘about 20’.
[...]
There is no doubt that life was grim in that home in Tuam, as it was across the west of Ireland in the early to mid-twentieth century. Poverty was rife and disease was rampant in rural parts of Ireland back then, and such problems were even more pronounced in no doubt badly run homes for single mums and illegitimate children. As the Irish Times says, infant mortality was depressingly high in early twentieth-century Ireland, ‘particularly in institutions, where infection spread rapidly’. It might be worth doing a serious analysis of conditions in these institutions, and of how the poverty combined with the severe moral strictures to create an unhealthy and repressive environment. But what we have today in pretty much every discussion of Ireland’s history is nothing like analysis but rather a kind of perverted dirt-digging, a scrabbling about in the events of the past for evidence of Catholic depravity and human suffering that we can all now get off on denouncing and being showily shocked by.
The transformation of Ireland’s past into a cesspit of human wickedness that modern Irish historians and assorted Catholic-bashers can dip into in search for stuff to stand up their contemporary prejudices inevitably leads to the skewing of facts.
[...]
Whenever the exaggerations and myths about Ireland’s past are exposed, the same thing is said: okay, these might have been lies but they were good lies, because they got people talking about the history of Catholic abuse in Ireland.
[...]
Was the Ireland of yesteryear a sometimes harsh and unpleasant place? Yes. Did the Catholic Church mistreat some of the women and children in its care? Undoubtedly. But the unhealthy obsession over the past 10 years with raking over Ireland’s past has little to do with confirming such facts and instead has become a kind of grotesque moral sport, providing kicks to the anti-Catholic brigade and fuel to the historical self-flagellation that now passes for public life in Ireland.
quote:I have no doubt that is true in your case, Father TT, and reading your posts through the years I truly believe this is something you care about very much. Nonetheless, in the US it is not always so well done. That's not to say the church has been universally horrid here--even in the late 1970s when such matters were first coming to light there were dioceses where very strong safeguards were put into place and followed strictly. Unfortunately, it was not--and is not--universal. Those who enforce the rules and policies usually take their lead from the bishop, and if he isn't as convinced it is a serious matter, it won't be treated as one. As a result, therefore, new allegations are still coming out of crimes that took place long after policies should have been implemented, and even as recently as last year we saw trials of mid-level clerics.
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
Beneath the shrill and the headline, if anyone actually wants to know the truth, then you will discover that the Catholic Church is now extremely robust when it comes to issues of child-protection. This impacts daily parish life in a way not done before. As an example: I publish the name of our safeguarding officer on the front page of every parish newsletter; children acting as altar servers need to be vested and out of the sacristy before I get there; CRB checks for everyone working with children's liturgy, or any child activity and so on. These were all implemented over a decade ago.
quote:No, not at all. I had my piece to say about the Church myself, in the very post from which you quoted. May I remind you:
Originally posted by Justinian:
I find it crass rather than disturbing. I find your attempts to claim that that's the most disturbing thing on the thread to be far, far worse. As if you believe that the real horror is people sniping at the Roman Catholic Church.
quote:LsK I have no problem with you canvassing for people to join the Anglican Church, and a decent purgatory thread would do the trick. To me your intervention simply overlooked the tragedy at issue with a stupid remark.
There is a massive tragedy here about the poor and the marginalised. And the Church - all Churches - which should have been at the forefront of caring and alleviating their suffering turned the moral tables on their heads and instead joined in the punishment. Sickening.
quote:My intent was not "we were bad, but so what, you were too?" I was attempting to show the false premise of LsK's posts, namely "Leave those evil RCs and come to us lovely, nice Anglicans". Playing moral one-upmanship is a stupid, stupid thing to do when one is traversing this sad issue.
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
I did find it--interesting--that you used the off-the-cuff remark to give four links stories about how awful the C of I had been while decrying a cheap attempt to make partisan points off of the Catholic story.
quote:Oh dear! Fr TT, you really took my comment way too seriously and extrapolated meaning that just wasn't there. It's a tag liner, ok? If you think I was being grossly flippant about a very sad matter, I can concede that. However, the comment was not intended seriously either to scapegoat or denigrate the RCC, nor to exalt Anglicans -- it just wasn't that deep, nor intended to be. I've indicated here that in the present day I consider that if I were going to criticise a particular aspect of the RCC it would be in respect to its polity and the way in which the hierarchy tends at its worst to function in result of that polity.
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
quote:My intent was not "we were bad, but so what, you were too?" I was attempting to show the false premise of LsK's posts, namely "Leave those evil RCs and come to us lovely, nice Anglicans". Playing moral one-upmanship is a stupid, stupid thing to do when one is traversing this sad issue.
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
I did find it--interesting--that you used the off-the-cuff remark to give four links stories about how awful the C of I had been while decrying a cheap attempt to make partisan points off of the Catholic story.
quote:Bugger me puce, Louise - who the freuchie said anything about "clean bill of health - nothing to see here"?
Originally posted by Louise:
[I]t would be unwise to conclude because of the unproven and probably exaggerated or wrong septic tank story that there is nothing to see here - move along. It needs investigation to see whether there was something very badly wrong here in particular or systemically wrong. The mortality rates are the thing to think about. There's no clean bill of health here because the septic tank story is on shaky ground.
quote:Telling you to "shut up about that because someone [I] don't trust as a reporter happens to comment on it" was exactly what I wasn't doing. I was suggesting to you some better sources for saying that the septic tank thing was dodgy - as you'd see if you checked my links, as I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that you didn't know this guy was notorious for atrocity denial and so a terrible choice to link to. This is not someone you want on your side when you can have historians and archaeologists backing you up instead.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:Bugger me puce, Louise - who the freuchie said anything about "clean bill of health - nothing to see here"?
Originally posted by Louise:
[I]t would be unwise to conclude because of the unproven and probably exaggerated or wrong septic tank story that there is nothing to see here - move along. It needs investigation to see whether there was something very badly wrong here in particular or systemically wrong. The mortality rates are the thing to think about. There's no clean bill of health here because the septic tank story is on shaky ground.
Reality check: people were puking their guts out with outrage - whether entirely spontaneous or in part manufactured to advance their prejudices only they can know - precisely over the "fact" that nuns had chucked away 800 kiddies they'd neglected to death like so much shit. Precisely that. Not over whether conditions of care in the home in question were to some greater or lesser degree worse than the average for the Ireland of the day.
And now, when the news reports all over the world of precisely these sensational details - which, let's face it, made the story newsworthy in the first place - look as reliable as a broken geiger-counter, we're to just shut up about that because someone you don't trust as a reporter happens to comment on it? After all the shit that people here have flung on the Catholic Church on the back of those details?
With the greatest respect, fuck that.
quote:I suppose if there were horrendous death rates through infection, then vaccination trials might have seemed like a godsend. The way people with advanced cancer sign up for drug trials, it might not work - but what if it did ?
Originally posted by Evangeline:
Irish children may have been subject of vaccine trials
Not saying this is true, who knows but if it turns out to be true, how exactly could the passionately right-to-life church justify this? It just gets worse and worse.
quote:From a P.R. perspective, it would be wise to make a general apology now for whatever happened while these children were under the Catholic Church's care, and then make specific apologies later when what exactly happened has been discerned.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
But at the moment we don't even know what precisely the apology would be for. When we know what happened and why, then we can have proper apologies and expressions of regret that actually have a chance of meaning something.
quote:Thanks, Louise - I'm bandaging my foot as we speak and hoping it blightys me out of the conflict for a bit. Genuinely sorry if I picked you up wrongly, passions were flying high. But I don't think it is honest of posters here - of whom youwere a noble exception - who were screaming abuse at the Church over "800 babies dumped as excrement by evli Catholics" just to ignore it when it is pointed out that that "detail" turns out to have been in no way substantiated - just to blank it and move on to criticise the Church on other ground without so much as a blink. I accept that you were not doing that an apologise.
Originally posted by Louise:
Telling you to "shut up about that because someone [I] don't trust as a reporter happens to comment on it" was exactly what I wasn't doing. I was suggesting to you some better sources for saying that the septic tank thing was dodgy - as you'd see if you checked my links, as I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that you didn't know this guy was notorious for atrocity denial and so a terrible choice to link to.
quote:I can see why you would say that, but I don't think that such a general "we apologise now for what happened, whatever it turns out did happen" would be fair, honest or respectful - and I don't think the public would buy it as meaningful. Instead, saying something like what Abp Martin did say - i.e., it looks as if something was badly wrong here, let's work hard to find out what did happen and who was responsible - is much more sensible and proportionate. Imagine if he'd apologised for those 800 babies dumped as sewage.
Originally posted by GCabot:
From a P.R. perspective, it would be wise to make a general apology now for whatever happened while these children were under the Catholic Church's care, and then make specific apologies later when what exactly happened has been discerned.
quote:I think you're onto something here, but to be fair to the Catholic-bashers, it seems to be the Catholic Church that gets by far the biggest kicking in the press and public opinion. Perhaps they think that the worse the Catholic Church comes out looking the better they'll look in comparison?
Originally posted by GCabot:
Also, I do not see the point of all this sectarian schadenfreude. What affects the public perception of the Catholic Church also affects their perception of all organized religion, especially Christ's Church. This is a significant cause behind the rise in irreligiousity among the current generation.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
quote:Be careful--the only good martyr is a dead martyr.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
... it seems to be the Catholic Church that gets by far the biggest kicking in the press and public opinion. Perhaps they think that the worse the Catholic Church comes out looking the better they'll look in comparison?
quote:Even if that were a reasonable explanation within Ireland, it wouldn't explain the beating the Catholic Church gets in the UK press. And, believe me, it gets the biggest beating. There will doubtless be any number reasons for that - one of which is the general liberal tendency of the UK media - but it doesn't excuse, for example, the BBC this afternoon still headlining radio news with the "remains of 800 babies found in septic tank in Catholic home" angle.
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
The Catholic Church is always going to get the biggest beating in Ireland because they have always been the biggest game in town.
quote:The situation may be different in the U.K. where there is an established church, but in the U.S., people are far less likely to distinguish between Roman Catholicism and general Christianity than in the past when there was a dominant Protestant social establishment. Since the Catholic Church is currently the biggest and most prominent denomination, it becomes the default Christian church in people's minds. Thus, when a scandal occurs in the Catholic Church, people are far less likely to see it as merely a Roman Catholic problem, but rather a problem with Christianity in general.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:Even if that were a reasonable explanation within Ireland, it wouldn't explain the beating the Catholic Church gets in the UK press. And, believe me, it gets the biggest beating. There will doubtless be any number reasons for that - one of which is the general liberal tendency of the UK media - but it doesn't excuse, for example, the BBC this afternoon still headlining radio news with the "remains of 800 babies found in septic tank in Catholic home" angle.
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
The Catholic Church is always going to get the biggest beating in Ireland because they have always been the biggest game in town.
quote:I remember when the Pope visited, I was amazed at the anti-Catholic narrative which was pursued in the media, including the BBC. But then I suppose it has always existed in England, well 'always' means since Henry VIII, maybe. There is probably still a residual anti-Irish narrative as well. I am curious about foundling hospitals which existed in England, to find out if similar things happened. Of course, it doesn't reduce the horror of Tuam.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:Even if that were a reasonable explanation within Ireland, it wouldn't explain the beating the Catholic Church gets in the UK press. And, believe me, it gets the biggest beating. There will doubtless be any number reasons for that - one of which is the general liberal tendency of the UK media - but it doesn't excuse, for example, the BBC this afternoon still headlining radio news with the "remains of 800 babies found in septic tank in Catholic home" angle.
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
The Catholic Church is always going to get the biggest beating in Ireland because they have always been the biggest game in town.
quote:Thanks. And I'm suggesting that that point will have been reached when we actually know what happened at Tuam - not before. Is that so very controversial?
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
You are free to continually--and correctly-- point out that 800 babies did not end up in the septic tank. At some point, though, an explanation or apology will be necessary for why 796 babies died and some (perhaps 20 or fewer) did end up in the septic tank.
quote:Knee-jerk? What's "knee-jerk" about a response that is a reasoned reply to a barrage of anti-Catholic "outrage" which turns out to have been premised on a completely unsubstantiated claim?
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
The knee-jerk defense, however, helps the Church no more than the knee-jerk attack.
quote:"All their bodies"? The one witness who was asked about this recently has said he saw "maybe 20". And the septic tank was not concurrently being used as a septic tank.
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
As I understand it, there is nothing unsubstantiated about the claim that 796 babies died at Tuam. It is only the disposal of all of their bodies in a septic tank that is unsubstantiated.
quote:It would also be nice to know what happened to the bodies that were not in the septic tank. The historian only found a burial record for one of the 796 dead children (they were not all babies) which suggests that the others were not buried with the usual rites in consecrated ground.
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
You are free to continually--and correctly-- point out that 800 babies did not end up in the septic tank. At some point, though, an explanation or apology will be necessary for why 796 babies died and some (perhaps 20 or fewer) did end up in the septic tank.
quote:If it meant a mortality rate of .01%, 796 deaths would be a figure to be celebrated. The article Louise linked above, though, states that in 1943 Tuam had a 35% mortality rate. Admittedly, that would have been a war year--but Tuam wasn't exactly Dunkirk or the beaches of Normandy. Indeed, an infant born last year in Afghanistan with all the upheaval going on there had a better chance of surviving than a child born in the home at Tuam.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
But yes, the 796 figure over 40 or so years is not disputed. But do we know why there were so many fatalities? Was it deliberate neglect? Was it murder? Was it indifference to health? was it medical imcompetence? Was it poor sanitation? Was it epidemic disease?
If we don't know, we don't know what kind of tragedy we're even talking about here.
quote:Well, I thank you for that, Organ Builder - sincerely.
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
We have had enough discussion in the past, Chesterbelloc, that I know you love your church and I do not for a moment believe you to be heartless and unfeeling. However, if I had never read anything from you except your posts on this thread I would find it very easy to believe you thought the fact that the Catholic Church was being asked to account for this a greater tragedy than the deaths of those children.
quote:[Hostly edit to remove most of the lengthy quote, entirely to avoid potential copyright infringement issues - it's all in the link]
“We didn’t want to bring any attention to those little babies,” said Anne Collins, a member of the committee that has tried to raise money for a plaque at the site. “But if you buried your dog in the back garden, you would want it marked, and that’s all we wanted.”
quote:Many of the children in Catholic institutions did not attend local schools, and some of them received very little education.
Originally posted by Joanne P
Of course the community knew of the high death rate. It's hard not to notice when one child at your school dies every week, but the local children were told not to mix with the kids from the home and were encouraged to bully them.
quote:Most interesting - thanks.
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
I'm digging up an old thread, but I thought people who had participated in it might like to read this AP News . "Correction" would be too generous a word to use of the article imo.
quote:[tangent]It's fairly well known that the first question to ask anyone who was associated with Living Marxism/ Spiked et. al. "is what did you deny during the Bosnian War daddy?" That said, it's not always obvious what revolutionary groupscules these people were before they headed towards right wing contrarianism and the right-wing media have always been prepared to give their new found mates carte blanche with the dear old oblivion and indeminity with alacrity. I feel fairly sure that if Mr O'Neil's politics were somewhere in the region of, say, Mr Owen Jones the likes of, say, Mr Damian Thompson might work the whole "Slobo, much maligned bit" into the conversation from time to time instead of giving him a platform. Just sayin'. But none of the buggers are household names and they have gone strangely silent about the erstwhile Yugoslav Civil War since ITN successfully sued them for libel, so it's not the kind of thing one picks up automatically.
But as to Brendan O'Neill's notoriety as an atrocity denier, I admit that I knew nothing about that whatsoever, having previously only glanced at his wiki entry. But if he is, the notoriety of it is not so very notorious as to make it into his profile there.
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quote:My own passionate disgust at the RCC remains undiminished. They presided over the deaths of 797 helpless babies and infants who had been entrusted to their care. At times, the mortality rate rivalled that of some concentration camps - but that's OK....because only a few of them were consigned to the cesspit. And so you gleefully crow over those who believed the early reports, but it seems you cannot show the slightest remorse for your church's victims.
P.S. Nice to see so many of those who earlier in this thread posted such, um, passionate disgust at the RCC, ostensibly over the details of this case, trudge dutifully back to post their acknowledgement that they may have been rather hasty.
quote:My memory is that the story was 'bust open' by the 'Irish Times' on June 7, and I think also by Forbes (online). It had little impact on the media at the time, or on online blogs and comments, since I suppose people were enthusiastically seizing on the 'babies in septic tank' story, and didn't want to check it. This is normal for bloggers and so on, but it's amazing that quite reputable newspapers just printed the stuff. That's journalism today for you.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Thanks for that, Gildas - I'm still in relative ignorance about O'Neill's particular, personal involvement in atrocity denial (not that I've looked around much for evidence), but this helps a bit with the background. I hold no brief for him.
However, now that the story's been bust open by others, his contribution seems less crucial.
quote:First: your cleverly idiosyncratic quoting style sucks foetid fecal pond water as soon as someone wants to quote you quoting someone. But, since the rest of your post lacks cogency I suppose there is no need for a "second", since there is no need to waste bits quoting anything you say.
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:My own passionate disgust at the RCC remains yada yada yada
P.S. Nice to see so many of those who earlier in this thread posted such, um, passionate disgust at the RCC, ostensibly over the details of this case, trudge dutifully back to post their acknowledgement that they may have been rather hasty.
quote:Quite a QED of an opening post, nu?
Originally posted in a spirit of trembling outrage, or schadenfreude, or something by the outrageously outraged Karl: Liberal Backslider:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/04/children-galway-mass-graves-ireland-catholic-church
By their fruits shall ye know them?
quote:I stand by every word I posted on this thread.
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
Why is it that nobody is slinking back with a chastened 'oops'? The afterglow of that Outrage Orgasm prolly feels just too sweet to want to spoil it with the due serving of crow.
quote:which is one of those ongoing injustices - the woman is treated as fallen, a sinner, unredeemed, but the fornicating men who impregnated her escape unrecognised and unpunished.
And what happens to the fornicating men who helped the women become pregnant?
quote:What he said. Unfortunately the RCC makes "RCC Bashing" rather easy when it still pulls shit like http://lipmag.com/news/in-brief-philippines-high-court-wins-the-fight-against-church-in-birth-control-laws/ where thankfully it's been told to take its desire to control everyone's lives and sentence women to serial pregnancy until they die or with luck survive till menopause and stuff it.
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:My own passionate disgust at the RCC remains undiminished. They presided over the deaths of 797 helpless babies and infants who had been entrusted to their care. At times, the mortality rate rivalled that of some concentration camps - but that's OK....because only a few of them were consigned to the cesspit. And so you gleefully crow over those who believed the early reports, but it seems you cannot show the slightest remorse for your church's victims.
P.S. Nice to see so many of those who earlier in this thread posted such, um, passionate disgust at the RCC, ostensibly over the details of this case, trudge dutifully back to post their acknowledgement that they may have been rather hasty.
You are not alone. On this thread, we've been told that not all Catholics kill children. We've had someone else seizing on a throw-away one-liner, and trying to turn this massacre into a sectarian issue. It seems anything is preferable to the One True Church taking responsibility for its actions.
Perhaps your ill-concealed delight at there being far fewer of the victims actually dumped in the mire (while any remorse for those tragic deaths is so much better concealed - if it exists at all) tells us something rather profound about the RC mindset. Or is it just you?
quote:exists entirely in your own head.
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Your accusation that everyone who got involved in this Hell thread did so in bad faith
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
quote:Sure, let's compare those nuns to concentration camp guards, that is totally justified.
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
My own passionate disgust at the RCC remains undiminished. They presided over the deaths of 797 helpless babies and infants who had been entrusted to their care. At times, the mortality rate rivalled that of some concentration camps - but that's OK....because only a few of them were consigned to the cesspit.
Reality-check:quote:
Between 1925 and 1937, 204 children died at the Home — an average of 17 per year. 17 deaths out of 200 children equals a mortality rate of 8.5%. It is interesting to compare that with the rest of the country at the time. In 1933, the infant mortality rate in Dublin was 83 per thousand (ie. a mortality rate of 8.3%), in Cork it was 89 per thousand (8.9%), in Waterford it was 102 per thousand (10.2%) and in Limerick it was 132 per thousand (13.2%). (Source: Irish Press, 12th April, 1935; below).
quote:This is just slimy switch-and-bait. You did not start a thread about your general problems with the RCC and her teachings. You started a thread about a specific issue. As sad as this particular piece of Irish history is, it turns out that it is not a particular good stick to bash the RCC with. The least you can do is to acknowledge that.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
What he said. Unfortunately the RCC makes "RCC Bashing" rather easy when it still pulls shit like http://lipmag.com/news/in-brief-philippines-high-court-wins-the-fight-against-church-in-birth-control-laws/ where thankfully it's been told to take its desire to control everyone's lives and sentence women to serial pregnancy until they die or with luck survive till menopause and stuff it. Until they actually show they care more about people than their archaic and damaging rules, I'm afraid I will keep my distance from the RCC hierarchy.
quote:We don't know that hundreds of children perished, while in the care of the RCC?????
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
TRM, you're full of shit. You don't know exactly what happened at Tuam all those years ago, and neither do I. What we do know if that the media reports upon which the OP founded were as full of made-up shit as your posts on this thread.
quote:Thank you for yet again proving my point. It's all about the cesspit again, isn't it? It might seem strange to you, but my personal "horror-trigger" is that something which describes itself as a church (or even the One True Church) presided over the deaths of hundreds of infants.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
But we do have reason to believe that the two main horror-triggers - that the children were not baptised and were dumped in a cesspit without the rites of the Church - are entirely without foundation in fact.
quote:It's open goal syndrome. When you've got the keeper and two defenders closing in on you, you know you have to take your time and place your shot. When you are in front of an open goal with a sitter the temptation is just to whack it only to find that you end up skying the thing. The story, frankly, was quite damning enough without the need to Maria Monkey around with it. Could they resist it, though? Could they heck as like! Basically, if a story is way too good to be true on the moral indignation front then 90% of the time it probably is.
This is normal for bloggers and so on, but it's amazing that quite reputable newspapers just printed the stuff. That's journalism today for you.
quote:Twas my beef too. But not one that can be blamed solely on the RCC. Fairly standard practice in western history.
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Chesterbelloc, that's unhelpful, because many of us do stand by what we said on this thread. Admittedly my only post prior to this one was:
quote:which is one of those ongoing injustices - the woman is treated as fallen, a sinner, unredeemed, but the fornicating men who impregnated her escape unrecognised and unpunished.
And what happens to the fornicating men who helped the women become pregnant?
- and the circle continues).quote:So how does that work?
According to Corless, death rates for children in the Tuam mother and baby home, and in similar institutions, were four to five times that of the general population.
quote:You need to do a lot of digging on that. First, check, that Ms Corless said that; second, you have to work out what 'general population' means, since no-one (as far as I can see) disputes that children in institutions had a higher death rate than other children, since any infection would run riot through so many kids; third, check the actual mortality rates of various institutions; four, check that Irish mortality rates were worse than anywhere else comparable in Europe.
Originally posted by Evensong:
Hang on. The article in the OP states:
quote:So how does that work?
According to Corless, death rates for children in the Tuam mother and baby home, and in similar institutions, were four to five times that of the general population.
quote:That's pathetic, TRM. You're overplaying a piss-poor hand.
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
I've searched long and hard for anything you have contributed to this thread which showed a modicum of common decency. I couldn't even find anything remotely credible - unless it is where you claim to be a "moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
quote:But are they equivalent? Deaths per 1,000 but 1,000 what. Newborns? Children under 1 year of age. Children under 5.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
No, sorry, IngoB's stats seem to refer, not to other homes, but to other parts of Ireland, presumably meaning the 'general population'.
quote:Well, that's not quite the claim I made or intended, though I would expect that Tuam was not particularly exceptional as compared to other such institutions (including non-RC ones) of this period in Ireland. All I wanted to point out with my quote however is that a comparison with concentration camps death rates is idiotic (to put it kindly!), and that we are talking about a time and place where children were dying at alarming rates in the general population. I'm not sure that the comparison made in that quote is entirely valid (for example, what age ranges are implied in the various numbers?), but the numbers are sufficient to remind us just how bad the general situation was.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
See IngoB's figures above, which seem to show that Tuam wasn't worse than other homes.
quote:I don't know, but you are right to highlight the distinctions that might apply.
Originally posted by Net Spinster:
quote:But are they equivalent? Deaths per 1,000 but 1,000 what. Newborns? Children under 1 year of age. Children under 5.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
No, sorry, IngoB's stats seem to refer, not to other homes, but to other parts of Ireland, presumably meaning the 'general population'.
quote:A large chunk of this is to do with poverty which does not necessarily equal a lack of caring, but more a lack of ability to handle. You also have a huge problem with pneumonia and flu - two seriously big killer diseases in that period - no decent forms of heat in winter, poor diet, no access to proper medication etc, etc etc. It's no less hideous a picture, but the blame falls in a very different way. There certainly were some homes where there was dreadful intentional neglect and or abuse, but at a time when mortality figures for children were huge anyway (let alone adults) it's foolish to start seeing abuse cases crawling out of every crack and crevice where poverty reigned supreme.
Going back to statistics again, the Dublin Foundling Hospital has been calculated to have had a mortality rate of 90%. Once you start to investigate this stuff, there is a tidal wave of misery, death, incompetence, and lack of caring. I don't know how anyone can work on this stuff professionally, it must be soul-destroying.
quote:OK, fair enough, but I didn't really mean that the staff were all monsters and sadists. It strikes me that the notion of a foundling hospital and also homes for 'fallen women', evinces a kind of cold charity which today would strike us as uncaring.
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
Posted by Quezacotl:
quote:A large chunk of this is to do with poverty which does not necessarily equal a lack of caring, but more a lack of ability to handle. You also have a huge problem with pneumonia and flu - two seriously big killer diseases in that period - no decent forms of heat in winter, poor diet, no access to proper medication etc, etc etc. It's no less hideous a picture, but the blame falls in a very different way. There certainly were some homes where there was dreadful intentional neglect and or abuse, but at a time when mortality figures for children were huge anyway (let alone adults) it's foolish to start seeing abuse cases crawling out of every crack and crevice where poverty reigned supreme.
Going back to statistics again, the Dublin Foundling Hospital has been calculated to have had a mortality rate of 90%. Once you start to investigate this stuff, there is a tidal wave of misery, death, incompetence, and lack of caring. I don't know how anyone can work on this stuff professionally, it must be soul-destroying.
quote:Interesting that you base your claim of common decency on agreeing with the Archbishop of Dublin, when he concedes (rather mildly) the blindingly obvious and inescapable fact that the representatives of the church cannot be wholly blameless....before you launch into yet another diversionary rant about media coverage. Perhaps we just have different standards.
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
I'm not here to boost my popularity with anyone and I'm pretty hacked off with the conduct of plenty of people on this thread, but I'm calling bullshit on your character-assessment. My motive for this is not to persuade you or anyone else of my diamond geezerness, but just to make you look like the petty, blowhard tit you are prodigiously proving yourself to be.
If you can't see anything approaching bare common decency in, for example, this post then you're just a jerk. I hope for your sake that St Peter's character requirements upon your arrival at the pearly gates are laxer than your own.
quote:Finished way ahead of time with that fear and trembling workout, did you? Congratulations you are first, and the first will be ... well, let's just wait and see.
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
As for Peter and the "Pearly Gates", that (in common with the whole gamut of Catholic superstition/mythology) holds no terrors for me.
quote:Oh yes indeedy.
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
Perhaps we just have different standards.
quote:My messy habits have one major benefit: I frequently read newspapers a couple of months after they were printed. The perspective shift can be fascinating.
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
It leads me to wonder what is a responsible way to learn news. Reading the newspaper uncritically isn't the answer, but what critical skills need to be brought to one's reading of the news?
quote:Actually that only matters if they died because they were in the care of the RCC. But let's not get logical about these things.
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
What matters, is that hundreds of children died while in the care of the RCC.
quote:Exactly. This is the elephant in the room. Those who have been criticizing the Catholic church are presumably arguing that child care was worse than in non-Catholic homes. I don't know if anyone has actually demonstrated this.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:Actually that only matters if they died because they were in the care of the RCC. But let's not get logical about these things.
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
What matters, is that hundreds of children died while in the care of the RCC.
quote:It may also be significant that there is no information about their burials available but, again, we do not have the context to know how unusual that was then.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:Actually that only matters if they died because they were in the care of the RCC. But let's not get logical about these things.
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
What matters, is that hundreds of children died while in the care of the RCC.
quote:Also true. And that's the key thing - was any of this unusual? Was the rate of death unusual, was the burial unusual, etc etc. If it was then one can legitimately say that the RCC contributed in some way to a different result, compared to other carers. If not, then one can't.
Originally posted by JoannaP:
quote:It may also be significant that there is no information about their burials available but, again, we do not have the context to know how unusual that was then.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:Actually that only matters if they died because they were in the care of the RCC. But let's not get logical about these things.
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
What matters, is that hundreds of children died while in the care of the RCC.
quote:I seriously doubt it was significantly different. There is no coherent reason to believe so, unless you believe there is some specific quality deriving from religious vocation that makes you more likely to be neglectful or cruel.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:Exactly. This is the elephant in the room. Those who have been criticizing the Catholic church are presumably arguing that child care was worse than in non-Catholic homes. I don't know if anyone has actually demonstrated this.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:Actually that only matters if they died because they were in the care of the RCC. But let's not get logical about these things.
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
What matters, is that hundreds of children died while in the care of the RCC.
quote:and these homes were not all catholic - the Bethany Home was run by the Church of Ireland - there's a pdf story on the Magdalene Laundries and the Bethany Home should you want to read more.
into which unmarried women were placed by their families, has a higher infant mortality rate than the general population. In the 1920s, children born to unmarried mothers, mostly living in institutions, were six times more likely to die than children living at home with married parents. By the 1950s, they were three times higher, and by the 1960s it was equal, says historian Lindsey Earner-Byrne, author of Mother and Child: Maternity and Child Welfare in Dublin, 1922-60.
quote:I find that logic quite dodgy. Are you then predicting that the death rate in a Protestant children's home in Ireland would be lower? I have no idea if this is the case, but that is the kind of comparison that is required, and we know that the Bethany home (which was Protestant) is causing disquiet, because of the number of deaths there.
Originally posted by L'organist:
I think it has already been disclosed that the mortality rate for children under 5 in institutions in Ireland was 4-5 times that of within the population in general. Since almost all institutional 'care' of infants and children in Ireland was carried on by Roman Catholic orders its not unreasonable to extrapolate that the chances of a child dying in its first 5 years were greatly increased if it was in an RC institution so, that extent, it can be inferred that at least some of these children died because they were in the care of a Catholic institution.
quote:Because it was an institution, or because it was Catholic?
Originally posted by L'organist:
I think it has already been disclosed that the mortality rate for children under 5 in institutions in Ireland was 4-5 times that of within the population in general. Since almost all institutional 'care' of infants and children in Ireland was carried on by Roman Catholic orders its not unreasonable to extrapolate that the chances of a child dying in its first 5 years were greatly increased if it was in an RC institution so, that extent, it can be inferred that at least some of these children died because they were in the care of a Catholic institution.
quote:And yet, there is a profound difference between saying children died because they were in institutional care, and saying children died because they were in the care of Catholics. One accusation creates antipathy towards a particular religion, and the other does not.
Originally posted by L'organist:
Pretty much both because, with a couple of exceptions, the only institutions were RC.
quote:Argues for what the Spirit may think of such a claim.
Originally posted by agingjb:
the claims of that church are so absolutely that it is the one true church - with incomparably superior access to the advantages of the presence of the Spirit.
