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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: One True Church? Don't make me laugh.
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
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.
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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3rdFooter
Shipmate
# 9751
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Posted
Apologies if I have missed the discussion as I skimmed the thread, but why is there so little discussion of the failure of the Irish government and by extension our(1) nation when these tragedies are discovered?
I appreciate that it doesn't fit our(1) national myth of a brave Irish nation oppressed by outside forces but that's a crock anyway. The Church (either one) is not blameless but let's face the facts that this was perpetrated by Irish people under laws passed by a democratic parliament.
I would not for a moment suggest that the Irish are uniquely malevolent or indeed any worse than any other group. Just that sidestepping the state involvement and acquiescence just lines up the next tragedy.
3F
(1) Correct pronoun. Like many, I am of mixed descent.
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3F - Shunter in the sidings of God's Kingdom
Posts: 602 | From: outskirts of Babylon | Registered: Jul 2005
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Autenrieth Road
Shipmate
# 10509
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Posted
Triple Tiara, thanks for linking the retraction article.
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?
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Truth
Posts: 9559 | From: starlight | Registered: Oct 2005
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
AR, this is a question I have been asking myself ever since I was on the brink of converting to Catholicism in the earlier years of Benedict XVI's reign. When I saw and heard the majority of the mainstream media's coverage - and I very much include (indeed make special mention of) the BBC - of that pope and compared it to what was actually verifiably true, I was often staggered. The scales fell from my rheumy eyes.
I think I was the first here to mention my scepticism about what was being reported about Tuam (it was on another thread in which IngoB was duking it out with the usual opponents) - but whatever the details, it is a scepticism founded on a lustrum-and-more's awareness of much of the media's blatant - sometimes seemingly brazen - misrepresentation of the Church.
For others, the Damascene issue will something else, but...
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
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.
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
I didn't need the details of this case -- the supposed details or the real ones -- to convince me that the RCC is not the one true church. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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The Rhythm Methodist
Shipmate
# 17064
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Posted
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:
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.
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.
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?
Posts: 202 | From: Wales | Registered: Apr 2012
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
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.
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.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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The Silent Acolyte
Shipmate
# 1158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:
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.
My own passionate disgust at the RCC remains yada yada yada
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.
quote:
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?
Quite a QED of an opening post, nu?
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.
[ 26. June 2014, 04:48: Message edited by: The Silent Acolyte ]
Posts: 7462 | From: The New World | Registered: Aug 2001
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
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.
I stand by every word I posted on this thread.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
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:
And what happens to the fornicating men who helped the women become pregnant?
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.
Your accusation that everyone who got involved in this Hell thread did so in bad faith doesn't add to your popularity, or that of your beleaguered church.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:
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.
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.
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?
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.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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The Rhythm Methodist
Shipmate
# 17064
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Posted
@The Silent Acolyte: I do apologise if you found my post a little opaque. I sometimes forget that there are different levels of comprehension on these boards.
Just to clarify for you: the point I was making, is that there have been a number of attempts to divert attention away from these tragic and inexcusable deaths, by focussing on comparatively trivial side-issues. It doesn't actually matter exactly how many of the victims were consigned to the cesspit. It doesn't matter that not all Catholics kill children, or that somebody might have made a sectarian comment. What matters, is that hundreds of children died while in the care of the RCC.
I can appreciate why some who hold a brief for Rome would rather hide behind a smokescreen of trivia, than grapple with that harsh truth. But that doesn't make it right, does it? This is an appalling and disgraceful event, where those who claim to represent Christ have presided over the deaths of hundreds of small, defenceless children. But of primary importance, apparently, is that those who believed that most of the victims were dumped in the cesspit should grovelingly apologise. Really?
Posts: 202 | From: Wales | Registered: Apr 2012
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Your accusation that everyone who got involved in this Hell thread did so in bad faith
exists entirely in your own head.
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. Indeed, as full of shit as the septic tank wasn't. 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.
RuthW: ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I don't hold a brief for Rome, but I became suspicious of this story early on. I got familiar with anti-Catholic hysteria during the Pope's visit, and in particular, how newspapers like the 'Guardian' would print garbage.
In addition, it's pretty clear that orphanages and similar homes took in millions of children in Europe during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and millions of them died.
In fact, the Tuan story is still unfinished. I was warning people on various forums not to accept '800 babies in septic tank', but people need their outrage.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
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.
Sure, let's compare those nuns to concentration camp guards, that is totally justified. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) 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:
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.
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.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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The Rhythm Methodist
Shipmate
# 17064
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Posted
quote:
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.
We don't know that hundreds of children perished, while in the care of the RCC?????
quote:
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.
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.
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."
Posts: 202 | From: Wales | Registered: Apr 2012
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl:
quote:
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.
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.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Well, hasn't the British press reverted to a kind of lazy anti-Catholicism? I thought this during the Pope's visit, and I think the BBC joined in as well.
So a story like '800 babies in septic tank' could be inserted into a pre-existing narrative without too much checking. What, checking? What kind of bourgeois fucking rubbish is that? We are radical journalists, and we have an ear for nooz.
Sarah Hrdy's work should also have been ringing alarm bells, and her discoveries about orphanages, and all the other awful institutions to which children were often consigned during the last 2 centuries, and where (apparently) millions died.
[ 26. June 2014, 09:25: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Rosa Winkel
Saint Anger round my neck
# 11424
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Posted
Which concentration camps did you have in mind, Karl? Dachau was one of the "better" concentration camps, and an estimated 20% of prisoners died there (including about 5000 Soviet POWs who were executed). That's way above the percentages given by Ingo. The highest being 13.2% an' all. I'm not up on percentages in other concentration camps, but know that places like Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Mauthausen and the Auschwitz concentration camp (not the "extermination" camp) had much higher percentages.
If what happened in Ireland was to belittle the RC claims, what happens to RC claims with the RC monasteries and convents in Poland where Jewish children were protected, at risk to the lives of those monks and nuns? Or the likes of Kolbe? Or the Polish RC priests who died in Dachau? I'm not saying that one makes up for another, like, but wonder if only the bad things are being held as "evidence". (This at the same time when knowing that the Vatican were pretty quiet after they had been informed about the Shoah, helped Nazis to escape to South America and had dodgy dealings in Croatia.)
I get that claims to be the "One True Church" merit not just theological rejection, but also an application of the fruits, as you say. It's like with some non-Christians who say that "Christians are bad because they are hypocrites", i.e. they don't judge us according to their own standards, but according to what they consider to be ours. The basic questions is, perhaps, are RCC members and its institutions the ultimate test of whether its claims are valid?
If my behaviour is the ultimate test of my Christian claims, then I'm fucked.
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The Disability and Jesus "Locked out for Lent" project
Posts: 3271 | From: Wrocław | Registered: May 2006
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
The other strange thing about this story, from the journalistic point of view, is that the 'Irish Times' story of 7 June, actually interviewed Ms Corless, the Galway local historian, who had done all the initial investigation, and had discovered the records of 800 deaths. And in that article, she protests that her discoveries have been given a melodramatic treatment.
There is actually a map of all the children's burial grounds in Galway, and there are a lot of them - about 500.
http://tinyurl.com/q6h8ocl
And this item was published on 6 June. So we can conclude that there was plenty of material out there to give journalists a pause in their rush to judgment. Ah well, moral panics are so exciting; who needs facts?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
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:
And what happens to the fornicating men who helped the women become pregnant?
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.
Twas my beef too. But not one that can be blamed solely on the RCC. Fairly standard practice in western history.
Tis Bullshit.
Father's should be forced to pay for their children's welfare and take responsibility. It takes two to Tango.
Don't want to pay? Don't want to take responsibility? Don't fuck around.
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Thanks for the AP link Triple Tiara. Good to know the media is as reliable as ever. (Oh but how do we know IT is true? - and the circle continues).
Personally I find the standard infant mortality rates Bingo quoted important.
Oh but are THEY true?
*sigh*
And so it goes.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
Hang on. The article in the OP states:
quote:
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.
So how does that work?
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a theological scrapbook
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Hang on. The article in the OP states:
quote:
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.
So how does that work?
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.
Good luck!
See IngoB's figures above, which seem to show that Tuam wasn't worse than other homes.
[ 26. June 2014, 11:43: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
No, sorry, IngoB's stats seem to refer, not to other homes, but to other parts of Ireland, presumably meaning the 'general population'.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
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."
That's pathetic, TRM. You're overplaying a piss-poor hand.
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.
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Net Spinster
Shipmate
# 16058
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Posted
quote:
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'.
But are they equivalent? Deaths per 1,000 but 1,000 what. Newborns? Children under 1 year of age. Children under 5.
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spinner of webs
Posts: 1093 | From: San Francisco Bay area | Registered: Dec 2010
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
<cross-post with some others>
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
See IngoB's figures above, which seem to show that Tuam wasn't worse than other homes.
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.
This was apparently an overcrowded institution containing many children housed in a run-down building with insufficient state funding. (Apparently in 1949 Senator Martin Quinn rejected the urgent appeals by the sisters with the words “I do not like these statements which receive such publicity.”) Any parent knows the "kindergarten effect", i.e., putting a young child in a place with many other children will lead to a significant increase in the number of illnesses that child will have to deal with. Basically, they kids keep infecting each other in a merry germ go around. Now, when my son got sick, we would pull him out of kindergarten and have him recover in a warm, nice home with plenty of extra care and if need be with the full medical interventions of modern medicine (antibiotics etc.). This obviously would also reduce the re-infections in the kindergarten, with my son not infecting others (only his parents...). Frankly, all I need to do to imagine what was going on in places like Tuam is to say 1) lots more children in less space than in our kindergartens, staying there day and night, 2) sick children are not removed, 3) child care is severely limited, 4) living conditions (food, warmth, ...) are sub-optimal, and 5) little access to medicine. I would expect these kids to drop like flies, frankly...
[ 26. June 2014, 14:22: Message edited by: IngoB ]
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Net Spinster:
quote:
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'.
But are they equivalent? Deaths per 1,000 but 1,000 what. Newborns? Children under 1 year of age. Children under 5.
I don't know, but you are right to highlight the distinctions that might apply.
It's going to take someone with a lot of patience to sift through all this material and come up with an accurate description of what went on.
Meanwhile, rumblings still go on about the Bethany home in Dublin, ('a door of hope for fallen women'), where 222 unmarked graves of babies and infants were found - but they were Protestant dead babies, not Catholic ones, so therefore not worth any kind of hysteria over.
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.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
Posted by Quezacotl:
quote:
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.
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.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
Posted by Quezacotl:
quote:
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.
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.
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.
The Irish Examiner has written some pretty scalding words about it all, but then you can address some of this to the Irish state, as well as the churches. And then you can turn to other countries, where similar homes for children existed - think of the orphanages after the fall of the regime in Romania. It is said by some that it has been a pan-European phenomenon.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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The Rhythm Methodist
Shipmate
# 17064
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Posted
quote:
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.
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.
I do not doubt your ability to make me look like a "petty, blowhard tit". After all, you've done such a cracking job of portraying yourself in that light.
As for Peter and the "Pearly Gates", that (in common with the whole gamut of Catholic superstition/mythology) holds no terrors for me.
Posts: 202 | From: Wales | Registered: Apr 2012
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
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.
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.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
Perhaps we just have different standards.
Oh yes indeedy.
Although I must say that I admire your determination to squeeze a further anti-Catholic kick out of my pearly gate reference: "the whole gamut of Catholic superstition". Classy. Try chucking in "detestable enormities" next time for the full retro effect.
Anyway, thanks for making it so abundanty clear where you're coming from.
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
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?
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.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
What matters, is that hundreds of children died while in the care of the RCC.
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.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
What matters, is that hundreds of children died while in the care of the RCC.
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.
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.
In fact, there were many 'foundling hospitals' or the like throughout Europe, and I don't know if anyone has done a statistical analysis of them. It's possible actually that this would be very difficult to do, since we are talking about places that have been long shut, and where the records are probably very poor.
And the '800 babies in septic tank' story seems to show that an anti-Catholic agenda is good for headlines. Probably why a lot of journalists didn't check it adequately. The Bethany home got few headlines outside Ireland, perhaps because it was Protestant.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
One will almost never see the necessary comparators in any news story of this type, regardless of the target. You will inevitably get raw figures rather than percentages, and shocking-sounding numbers without any means of finding out whether they are more or less shocking than the numbers elsewhere.
It's quite maddening, actually, how difficult it usually is to hunt down useful figures that enable you to assess whether something that is being presented as a big deal is, in fact, a big deal.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
orfeo
This happened with child abuse also; there are statistics which one can find, but they are often difficult to compare. My memory is that paedophiles were passed around in schools, as nobody wanted to confront them or prosecute them. 'Passing the trash'.
But an anti-Catholic agenda is very popular today. I remember when the Pope visited the UK, and there was an orgy of it, including the BBC.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
What matters, is that hundreds of children died while in the care of the RCC.
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.
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.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
What matters, is that hundreds of children died while in the care of the RCC.
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.
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.
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.
I commented before on people basically crying "DEAD BABIES!" as if that answered everything. The fact is that babies die. Maybe we've become less used to it because in the modern Western world it's a lot less frequent, but once upon a time even in the Western world, babies died a lot. Once upon a time a very large proportion of families lost a child. Whether there's any issue here depends not simply on children dying, but on whether they died at an abnormal rate.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by The Rhythm Methodist:
What matters, is that hundreds of children died while in the care of the RCC.
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.
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.
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.
You also have a classic risk of correlation = cause error. If all the main welfare institutions in Ireland were RC, do you assume the problem is RCness, or is it the way in which large institutions work, or poverty, or overcrowding, or the impact of world war two etc etc
[ 28. June 2014, 13:23: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Doublethink
Yes, there are many possible confounds, and I don't know if there is a thorough analysis which addresses this. Of course, the mass media are not at all bothered about this - they will print correlations as causations quite happily. Thus, 'eating chocolate makes you live longer'; 'Catholic dead babies horror', or 'Catholic dead babies septic tank horror', or 'Catholic unbaptized dead babies septic tank horror', and so on.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
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.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
According to this more recent newspaper article those institutions:
quote:
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.
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.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
AIUI back in the 20s and 30s, the theories of proper infant care emphasized keeping germs away from the babies and not cuddling them or providing much stimulus.
Babies treated this way have a high death rate.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
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.
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.
Also, we would need to compare Irish death rates with English ones, which presumably would not be (mainly) in Catholic institutions.
Again, I don't know how that stacks up, but most studies seem to report an infant mortality rate in England of about 150 (per 1000) in the 19th century; it begins to fall in about 1900. I would guess that this is due to better hygiene, rather than decreasing Catholic influence.
It is of course, possible that being in a Catholic institution made a situation worse for a child; I just haven't yet seen that demonstrated.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
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.
Because it was an institution, or because it was Catholic?
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Pretty much both because, with a couple of exceptions, the only institutions were RC.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
That does not follow.
You could could isolate any number of characteristics, that were true of all the institutions, not all of the things true of all the instituions are necessarilly contributary to the mortality rates.
[ 29. June 2014, 19:39: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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