Should we use the Eucharistic Congress 2012 as a point to show the Catholic Church they are not welcome?

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

That is the crucial difference between the mediterranean mickey-mouse 'canon law' and any other legal system developed as a contract between government and governed.

'canon law' is based wholly on catholic dogma and is based purely on the notion that any 'sin' can be forgiven. They may use the word 'crime' when talking to outsiders but what they mean is 'sin'.

'Canon law' is obliged to take note of a 'true and penitent confession'- you can confess all you like in any secular court to child abuse for example but you won't be looking forward to a transfer and a new career in a new location to start all over again with secular courts.

Of course psychopaths can game that system ... Brendan Smyth certainly did and Ivan Payne was sent to New York to be seen by a psychologist at catholic churchgoers expense and managed somehow between himself and the diocesan office in Dublin to convince the psychologist that Ivan wasn't a repeat paedophile but someone suffering from a crisis of faith because of inappropriate feelings towards a young man- carefully shaped by Ivan and his church as a one off problem and the psychologist not told the truth at all.

hence the report that came back was a very mild report and not based on the true Ivan Payne. Which then allowed for the transfer rather than Payne being defrocked or removed from ministry.

[Monetpenny]

I'm an irregular mass goer (my wife wants me to go on occasion & to maintain domestic harmony I oblige).
I heard an astonishing homily at one of these & I'm glad I was in attendance to witness it.
The priest said that many purported abuse victims were fabricating their allegations to attain a status of respectability amongst their peers & in the wider community.

It would be naive in the extreme to think that there was no instance of fabricated allegations, but there have been a huge number of truthful allegations & I would imagine that actual incidence of clerical abuse that was unreported significantly exceeds the number of fabricated allegations.

I find mass very strange.
One of the first things we do is pray to god for our sins.
But god made us flawed.
Isn't praying to god for our sins akin to buying a rotten fish & then apologising to the fish monger when you get sick?
If god is perfect why does he make flawed product?
We shouldn’t be praying to god for forgiveness for our sins.
If any logic was being utilised god would be cursed & damned for our sins.
Perhaps Waterford glass would still be a thriving enterprise if the business model was based on only making & selling flawed product to customers who then apologised & continued to pay weekly instalments to the vendor.

It wouldn't work in the real world.
That sort of mania could only thrive where widespread generational lunacy is allowed to run rampant.

[C. Flower]

I'm an irregular mass goer (my wife wants me to go on occasion & to maintain domestic harmony I oblige).
I heard an astonishing homily at one of these & I'm glad I was in attendance to witness it.
The priest said that many purported abuse victims were fabricating their allegations to attain a status of respectability amongst their peers & in the wider community.

It would be naive in the extreme to think that there was no instance of fabricated allegations, but there have been a huge number of truthful allegations & I would imagine that actual incidence of clerical abuse that was unreported significantly exceeds the number of fabricated allegations.

I find mass very strange.
One of the first things we do is pray to god for our sins.
But god made us flawed.
Isn't praying to god for our sins akin to buying a rotten fish & then apologising to the fish monger when you get sick?
If god is perfect why does he make flawed product?
We shouldn’t be praying to god for forgiveness for our sins.
If any logic was being utilised god would be cursed & damned for our sins.
Perhaps Waterford glass would still be a thriving enterprise if the business model was based on only making & selling flawed product to customers who then apologised & continued to pay weekly instalments to the vendor.

It wouldn't work in the real world.
That sort of mania could only thrive where widespread generational lunacy is allowed to run rampant.

If we are looking for logic, then religion isn't the place to find it. The forms of mass religion that prevail originated in agricultural societies that had very little scientific knowledge, and in which people lived with the uncertaintly of whether or not the next harvest would be successful. Trying to find some way, no matter how irrational, to explain and influence weather patterns, and the arrival of our enemies to steal our food stores, people came up with the idea of invisible, all powerful, people/gods who controlled it all. The priesthood were of course the main beneficiaries of these beliefs, and stoked the fear to keep people under their thumbs.

So, harnessing peoples' regrets over anti-social actions, and promising that these "sins" could be absolved (for a small consideration) was a great little earner.

[bernadette]

I'm an irregular mass goer (my wife wants me to go on occasion & to maintain domestic harmony I oblige).
I heard an astonishing homily at one of these & I'm glad I was in attendance to witness it.
The priest said that many purported abuse victims were fabricating their allegations to attain a status of respectability amongst their peers & in the wider community.

It would be naive in the extreme to think that there was no instance of fabricated allegations, but there have been a huge number of truthful allegations & I would imagine that actual incidence of clerical abuse that was unreported significantly exceeds the number of fabricated allegations.

I find mass very strange.
One of the first things we do is pray to god for our sins.
But god made us flawed.
Isn't praying to god for our sins akin to buying a rotten fish & then apologising to the fish monger when you get sick?
If god is perfect why does he make flawed product?
We shouldn’t be praying to god for forgiveness for our sins.
If any logic was being utilised god would be cursed & damned for our sins.
Perhaps Waterford glass would still be a thriving enterprise if the business model was based on only making & selling flawed product to customers who then apologised & continued to pay weekly instalments to the vendor.

It wouldn't work in the real world.
That sort of mania could only thrive where widespread generational lunacy is allowed to run rampant.

As with everything there almost certainly are cases fabricated abuse but the actual cases of abuse far outweigh such fabrications, and are backed up by the experiences of those in the institutions who wilst they say they didn't suffer abuse themselves witnessed other children being abused.

Such fabrications may be the result of the atmosphere created in schools where child abuse was common or the norm. I don't think its possible to have gone to one of those schools and not be affected by the atmosphere which must have been utterly poisonous to many young minds.

Some people believe in God, some believe that in order for the ancients to be so well informed about the planets the earth must have had alien visitors. Some members of my family believe aliens may have landed here, and some believe in Pagan and Craft the original faiths, which at their core are faiths in the seasons: fertility religions.

I have no respect for the RCC but there is no doubt there are good priests and very good parishioners. Its the top layer of the church that is so corrupt it needs complete clear out but the last Pope who was rumoured, no more, to be prepared to do that died, some say in mysterious circumstances after a very short period on the throne.

[fluffybiscuits]

As with everything there almost certainly are cases fabricated abuse but the actual cases of abuse far outweigh such fabrications, and are backed up by the experiences of those in the institutions who wilst they say they didn't suffer abuse themselves witnessed other children being abused.

Such fabrications may be the result of the atmosphere created in schools where child abuse was common or the norm. I don't think its possible to have gone to one of those schools and not be affected by the atmosphere which must have been utterly poisonous to many young minds.

Some people believe in God, some believe that in order for the ancients to be so well informed about the planets the earth must have had alien visitors. Some members of my family believe aliens may have landed here, and some believe in Pagan and Craft the original faiths, which at their core are faiths in the seasons: fertility religions.

I have no respect for the RCC but there is no doubt there are good priests and very good parishioners. Its the top layer of the church that is so corrupt it needs complete clear out but the last Pope who was rumoured, no more, to be prepared to do that died, some say in mysterious circumstances after a very short period on the throne.

Well between his knowings of the banking system and the abuse within the church there would be no surprises if he was murdered by someone intent on covering up their actions. Reading Montpennys post reminded me of the sermon I used to listen to when I was a kid. The local priest is known as Fr Babbles as he would go on about abortion to feminsim and stick in a mention of transubstantiation and other various random things in between. Some of these priests IMO are out of touch with the wider world. A lot of the missionary priests seem to be on the game though, they are aware of the spiritual need of the masses (excuse the pun lol), perhaps having travelled so widely they take the blinkers off. But bernadette you are correct, I have no respect for the RCC. In fact as an athiest the whole notion is laughable....

[bernadette]

Well between his knowings of the banking system and the abuse within the church there would be no surprises if he was murdered by someone intent on covering up their actions. Reading Montpennys post reminded me of the sermon I used to listen to when I was a kid. The local priest is known as Fr Babbles as he would go on about abortion to feminsim and stick in a mention of transubstantiation and other various random things in between. Some of these priests IMO are out of touch with the wider world. A lot of the missionary priests seem to be on the game though, they are aware of the spiritual need of the masses (excuse the pun lol), perhaps having travelled so widely they take the blinkers off. But bernadette you are correct, I have no respect for the RCC. In fact as an athiest the whole notion is laughable....

Its such a closed world very few know what actually goes on in the Vatican in many ways it resembles a rogue state.

You're right people do have a spiritual need and its this need that the RCC and all other religions have always exploited. The problem with the RCC has been and still is that its hierarchy are so used to absolute control they seem unable to grasp the fact that that is no longer the case.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

That is a good way of putting it ... a rogue state. There are undoubtedly many good people who happen to be catholic and they have a right to believe in what they want. Whatever gets people through life shouldn't bother anyone else.

But here's a strange thought that is very radical but true- apart from a passage where apparently their prophet jesus said to Peter that upon him as a rock that church would be built there is no mention extant in any book of the bible about priests or nuns or bishops or cardinals or monsignors.

It is entirely possible for the whole priest caste of the RCC to be removed and for the catholic faith to be untouched from that point of view and the catholic bible story to be wholely unaffected by that.

Now there is a sobering thought. I've been doing some more reading by experts on the early church and recently read an examination of the bible from a literary investigation point of view and realised that the priest caste and the rabbi caste of judaism came about originally simply because most people were illiterate and with the move from oratory in the marketplace to the quoting from VERY dodgy scrolls and many undoubtedly faked up letters between 'apostles' both judaism and christianity this is where the 'priests'were born out of scribes busy translating from hebrew to greek and into latin and even then on into modern European languages.

It is entirely possible to argue, with great sources and references, that both judaism and christianity are the result in many ways of forged and dishonest texts, dreadful editing, downright lies hoiked into the texts by dodgy scribes who later became the priests and rabbis.

It is extraordinary stuff and a real eye-opener to examine in detail early church history and the history of the book called the bible itself.

[Andrew49]

I'm an irregular mass goer (my wife wants me to go on occasion & to maintain domestic harmony I oblige).
I heard an astonishing homily at one of these & I'm glad I was in attendance to witness it.
The priest said that many purported abuse victims were fabricating their allegations to attain a status of respectability amongst their peers & in the wider community.

It would be naive in the extreme to think that there was no instance of fabricated allegations, but there have been a huge number of truthful allegations & I would imagine that actual incidence of clerical abuse that was unreported significantly exceeds the number of fabricated allegations.

I find mass very strange.
One of the first things we do is pray to god for our sins.
But god made us flawed.
Isn't praying to god for our sins akin to buying a rotten fish & then apologising to the fish monger when you get sick?
If god is perfect why does he make flawed product?
We shouldn’t be praying to god for forgiveness for our sins.
If any logic was being utilised god would be cursed & damned for our sins.
Perhaps Waterford glass would still be a thriving enterprise if the business model was based on only making & selling flawed product to customers who then apologised & continued to pay weekly instalments to the vendor.

It wouldn't work in the real world.
That sort of mania could only thrive where widespread generational lunacy is allowed to run rampant.

One religious order (the Rosminians) revealed that they had more abusers in their ranks than were reported by victims/survivors.

Another religious order (the CBs) were denying the abuses throughout the operation of the Child Abuse Commission, claiming fabrication and collusion by survivors. Then, Lo and Behold, a series of letters written in the 1950s, were discovered in a Senator's files confirming abuses, naming abusers and many of the abuses that were committed on children. In one letter its stated that Br. V should be hanged for what he'd done. The letters blew the CBs case to kingdom come. Remember too that the CBs fought long and hard to protect the names of their members - even members who had pleaded guilty in courts of law.

Another religious order offered an apology to some survivors for some abuses, then withdrew the apology, re-wrote the apology to such an extent that it was difficult to ascertain who they were apologising to and for what they were apologising for. They justified the existence of their particular Industrial schools, saying they housed children who came from diseased. lice-ridden homes; that the children had physically abusive parents who maltreated and starved them. Then, Lo and Behold, documents were discovered in the Dept. of Education describing the conditions of the children in one of their Industrial Schools. These documents described the children as lice-ridden, bruised, battered and starving. So maltreated were the children that two nuns - TWO NUNS - were sacked by the Dept!!!

Another religious order set its face against ALL abuse claims - claiming that, while the institution itself was an old dilapidated building, the children were well looked after and treated very well. LO and fcuking BEHOLD a series of OFFICIAL inspection reports came to light stating that the farm animals were better looked after than the children. Another series of official documents revealed the disquiet of official visitors over the whipping of naked children every night outside the dormitories.

So there WAS fabrication of testimony in this saga - and from the above it's obvious that this fabrication was OVERWHELMINGLY by the religious orders - indeed I know of only one case of fabricated testimony by an alleged survivor.

From the Annual Report of the Redress Board 2011 - Of the 14,935 applications received by the Redress Board, 8 have been referred to the Garda Siochána under section 7(6) of the Residential Institutions Redress Act 2002. Investigations have been concluded in 4 matters and one such investigation has lead to a criminal conviction. In a number of other cases the Board has rejected an application in whole or in part on the grounds that it is not satisfied as to the truth of the allegations of abuse made by an applicant.

- - - - - - - - - -

The Gardai have NOT being alerted - AFAIK - as to the fraudulent claims and denials of ANY of the religious orders!

[bernadette]

One religious order (the Rosminians) revealed that they had more abusers in their ranks than were reported by victims/survivors.

Another religious order (the CBs) were denying the abuses throughout the operation of the Child Abuse Commission, claiming fabrication and collusion by survivors. Then, Lo and Behold, a series of letters written in the 1950s, were discovered in a Senator's files confirming abuses, naming abusers and many of the abuses that were committed on children. In one letter its stated that Br. V should be hanged for what he'd done. The letters blew the CBs case to kingdom come. Remember too that the CBs fought long and hard to protect the names of their members - even members who had pleaded guilty in courts of law.

Another religious order offered an apology to some survivors for some abuses, then withdrew the apology, re-wrote the apology to such an extent that it was difficult to ascertain who they were apologising to and for what they were apologising for. They justified the existence of their particular Industrial schools, saying they housed children who came from diseased. lice-ridden homes; that the children had physically abusive parents who maltreated and starved them. Then, Lo and Behold, documents were discovered in the Dept. of Education describing the conditions of the children in one of their Industrial Schools. These documents described the children as lice-ridden, bruised, battered and starving. So maltreated were the children that two nuns - TWO NUNS - were sacked by the Dept!!!

Another religious order set its face against ALL abuse claims - claiming that, while the institution itself was an old dilapidated building, the children were well looked after and treated very well. LO and fcuking BEHOLD a series of OFFICIAL inspection reports came to light stating that the farm animals were better looked after than the children. Another series of official documents revealed the disquiet of official visitors over the whipping of naked children every night outside the dormitories.

So there WAS fabrication of testimony in this saga - and from the above it's obvious that this fabrication was OVERWHELMINGLY by the religious orders - indeed I know of only one case of fabricated testimony by an alleged survivor.

From the Annual Report of the Redress Board 2011 - Of the 14,935 applications received by the Redress Board, 8 have been referred to the Garda Siochána under section 7(6) of the Residential Institutions Redress Act 2002. Investigations have been concluded in 4 matters and one such investigation has lead to a criminal conviction. In a number of other cases the Board has rejected an application in whole or in part on the grounds that it is not satisfied as to the truth of the allegations of abuse made by an applicant.

- - - - - - - - - -

The Gardai have NOT being alerted - AFAIK - as to the fraudulent claims and denials of ANY of the religious orders!

Wicked, wicked people basking in the respect of the community.

What has tended to happen is that anyone caught fabricating an abuse story it has been immediately been used to indicate that all abuse claims were fabricated or greatly exagerated.

The problem for the RCC in Ireland is that there are too many witnesses to the abuse. There was a hierarchy of victims, people like my mother and her sisters whose father visited regularly were treated, on the whole, better than those who had no visitors or known relatives or were in considered to be in some way less worthy.

[fluffybiscuits]

Its such a closed world very few know what actually goes on in the Vatican in many ways it resembles a rogue state.

You're right people do have a spiritual need and its this need that the RCC and all other religions have always exploited. The problem with the RCC has been and still is that its hierarchy are so used to absolute control they seem unable to grasp the fact that that is no longer the case.

That is a good way of putting it ... a rogue state. There are undoubtedly many good people who happen to be catholic and they have a right to believe in what they want. Whatever gets people through life shouldn't bother anyone else.

But here's a strange thought that is very radical but true- apart from a passage where apparently their prophet jesus said to Peter that upon him as a rock that church would be built there is no mention extant in any book of the bible about priests or nuns or bishops or cardinals or monsignors.

It is entirely possible for the whole priest caste of the RCC to be removed and for the catholic faith to be untouched from that point of view and the catholic bible story to be wholely unaffected by that.

Now there is a sobering thought. I've been doing some more reading by experts on the early church and recently read an examination of the bible from a literary investigation point of view and realised that the priest caste and the rabbi caste of judaism came about originally simply because most people were illiterate and with the move from oratory in the marketplace to the quoting from VERY dodgy scrolls and many undoubtedly faked up letters between 'apostles' both judaism and christianity this is where the 'priests'were born out of scribes busy translating from hebrew to greek and into latin and even then on into modern European languages.

It is entirely possible to argue, with great sources and references, that both judaism and christianity are the result in many ways of forged and dishonest texts, dreadful editing, downright lies hoiked into the texts by dodgy scribes who later became the priests and rabbis.

It is extraordinary stuff and a real eye-opener to examine in detail early church history and the history of the book called the bible itself.

Interesting to read that theory how the priest caste and the rabbi caste came about. So many men peddling their wares to the unwary and forcing them to obey. What was probably a well written set of rules for life came through like Chinese whispers and was rewritten so many times that any original semblance of what was there was lost.This was used to control the masses, you are going to hell if you dont obey. Now that as bernadette pointed out, their instruments of control have been blunted to beyond recognition .

One religious order (the Rosminians) revealed that they had more abusers in their ranks than were reported by victims/survivors.

Another religious order (the CBs) were denying the abuses throughout the operation of the Child Abuse Commission, claiming fabrication and collusion by survivors. Then, Lo and Behold, a series of letters written in the 1950s, were discovered in a Senator's files confirming abuses, naming abusers and many of the abuses that were committed on children. In one letter its stated that Br. V should be hanged for what he'd done. The letters blew the CBs case to kingdom come. Remember too that the CBs fought long and hard to protect the names of their members - even members who had pleaded guilty in courts of law.

Another religious order offered an apology to some survivors for some abuses, then withdrew the apology, re-wrote the apology to such an extent that it was difficult to ascertain who they were apologising to and for what they were apologising for. They justified the existence of their particular Industrial schools, saying they housed children who came from diseased. lice-ridden homes; that the children had physically abusive parents who maltreated and starved them. Then, Lo and Behold, documents were discovered in the Dept. of Education describing the conditions of the children in one of their Industrial Schools. These documents described the children as lice-ridden, bruised, battered and starving. So maltreated were the children that two nuns - TWO NUNS - were sacked by the Dept!!!

Another religious order set its face against ALL abuse claims - claiming that, while the institution itself was an old dilapidated building, the children were well looked after and treated very well. LO and fcuking BEHOLD a series of OFFICIAL inspection reports came to light stating that the farm animals were better looked after than the children. Another series of official documents revealed the disquiet of official visitors over the whipping of naked children every night outside the dormitories.

So there WAS fabrication of testimony in this saga - and from the above it's obvious that this fabrication was OVERWHELMINGLY by the religious orders - indeed I know of only one case of fabricated testimony by an alleged survivor.

From the Annual Report of the Redress Board 2011 - Of the 14,935 applications received by the Redress Board, 8 have been referred to the Garda Siochána under section 7(6) of the Residential Institutions Redress Act 2002. Investigations have been concluded in 4 matters and one such investigation has lead to a criminal conviction. In a number of other cases the Board has rejected an application in whole or in part on the grounds that it is not satisfied as to the truth of the allegations of abuse made by an applicant.

- - - - - - - - - -

The Gardai have NOT being alerted - AFAIK - as to the fraudulent claims and denials of ANY of the religious orders!

When I read that part highlighted I was shocked. Horrible things to have happen to young people...

[fluffybiscuits]

http://www.thejournal.ie/pope-vatile...04335-Jun2012/

Oh it was human weakness that did it, oh right.....

[WhistleblowerIRL]

This is probably off-topic, but as I was paging through last weekend's FT I came across this item in the Style section:

Scents and sensitivities

The Pope's perfumer has Catholic tastes. By Bethan Cole

Have you ever wondered what omnipotent religious figures smell like? Probably not. Let's try it this way instead: ever wondered what it would take to smell like an omnipotent spiritual leader?

For those whose answer is "yes", the answer has finally arrived, because Pope Benedict XVI has commissioned a bespoke perfume for himself.

Created by Silvana Casoli, a boutique perfumer based in the city of Reggio Emilia in the North of Italy, who has also fashioned bespoke blends for Madonna, Sting, and King Juan Carlos of Spain, the fragrance contains notes of lime tree, verbena and grass.... [this is not a typo, this is the actual text, JS]

http://www.ilprofumoshop.com

How sensitive of the Pope to care for his fragrance at a time when millions of his followers can barely afford to eat. Charming.

[bernadette]

This is probably off-topic, but as I was paging through last weekend's FT I came across this item in the Style section:



How sensitive of the Pope to care for his fragrance at a time when millions of his followers can barely afford to eat. Charming.

Sure isn't it nice to know the pope worries about his scent. Some of us think the entire mafia of them have stunk to high heaven for years.

[Monetpenny]

the fragrance contains notes of lime tree, verbena and grass....

Surely more appropriate ingredients would be the stench of fear, the essence of hypocrisy & bull manure.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

the fragrance contains notes of lime tree, verbena and grass....

Surely more appropriate ingredients would be the stench of fear, the essence of hypocrisy & bull manure.

Very good There is probably a decent doctoral thesis somewhere in the symbology and use of all human senses to contribute to the sense of awe of an authority structure- kings and their long throne rooms and frescoed ceilings where the supplicant has to approach down what seems an eternally long room stared at by courtiers to reach the throne...

Incense was always strange I thought and quite eastern in its origins I would have thought where the corrupt sect is concerned.

I have been reading early/ancient history around the origins of judaism, led there by continued reading on how christianity came about as a breakaway sect so the line leads back to some nine centuries BC.

Strange questions occur when you analyse the sociology of these cults as if they were occurences on another planet.

The most immediate thing to occur to me is that x-tianity certainly and judaism were pretty much offshoots of a combination of earlier superstitions and the advent if literacy and the appearance and importance of the scribe in human affairs.

The scribes were the forerunners of what are now known as 'priests' and a rare bunch of chancers they were back in the days when they were busy making up x-tianity and judaism.

Basically, a vast amount proportion of humanity over two thousand (or three and a half thousand years where judaism is concerned), have been well and truly had by the earliest scribes looking to make a living.

The interesting irony here is that it is only in the last one hundred and fifty years that literary scholarship, discoveries of contemporary writings to the supposed 'gospellers' hidden for millenia in the dry conditions of the middle east have come to light at Nag Hammadi and other sites that we have the information, translation skills, technical know how in carbon dating which is now within a margin of error of only one hundred hears over two thousand that gives us the tools to decipher, detect and track back through ancient literature and discover the huge amount of derivative nonsense that comprises what only fifty years ago was described as the 'word of god'.

It bloody isn't. It is the word of a bunch of chancers on the make- a profession as dodgy as Irish politicians and deliberately and with malice aforethought interested in setting themselves up as fed intermediaries between the illiterate masses and 'god'.

It is no surprise that priesthoods and religious orders are no strangers to the convenient lie- their whole raison d'etre is based on such a lie. And it is a whopper.