(Merged) RC Child Abuse Issues/Comments

Seaneh

So what you are saying is that the catholic church should allow the state to use its buildings rent free from now on? that's a bit silly if you ask me. they won the land and buildings, the state can either buy them or rent them, but why should the catholic church (or any 3rd party) provide, rent free, buildings that the government should be providing themselves, for educational or any other reasons?

Also, yes the church should pay their dues, but the way your are suggesting is not going to work.

randylonghorn

Seaneh wrote: »

So what you are saying is that the catholic church should allow the state to use its buildings rent free from now on?

No, not from now on in perpetuity, until they have covered the money which in my opinion, and in the opinion of many, they morally owe.

Or hand some of the buildings over, at a fair and mutually agreed valuation, in lieu of cash.

Seaneh wrote: »

they won the land and buildings, the state can either buy them or rent them, but why should the catholic church (or any 3rd party) provide, rent free, buildings that the government should be providing themselves, for educational or any other reasons?

I think you've missed the point of the thread.

Many people in this country, including myself, believe that the church should be coughing up at least the 25% of the bill arising out of the Residential Institutions Redress Board, the Tribunal and associated legal costs which was originally agreed.

Our former Taoiseach is arguing that they do not have the money.

I agree that they would be hard-pressed to come up with that much in cash, but am arguing that an agreement could be put in place to cover that amount by
(a) waiving certain rents etc. which the State is currently paying to the church
(b) selling unused buildings and raising cash that way, or
(c) simply handing these over to the state, the agreed valuation to be subtracted from the bill.

As it is, you and I and everyone else are paying through our taxes for this mess ... as if we or the country can afford that at the moment.

Seaneh

We are paying for it for various reasons, mostly the states fault, and yes the church has a large role in it too. now that you have clarified what you ment, I agree with you.

If the church cant afford to pay in cash their assest should be liquidated untill the bill is met, so yeah, start with buildings currently in use by educational services and transfer them to DoE ownership (all the primery/secondary schools run/owned by the church into DoE/trustie-boards) and then move on to places like the old campus in maynooth.

this makes sense, i thought you just ment "take their land and milk them dry".

randylonghorn

Seaneh wrote: »

this makes sense, i thought you just ment "take their land and milk them dry".

No, that's why I said:

ow, I'm not suggesting that the State doesn't have a responsibility too ... of course it does. But if the original agreement was, as we're been told, that the church would fork out approx. 25% of the bill, then that should have been applied to the final bill, not to the estimated bill.

As a matter of justice and of morality, the church should step forward at this stage with some kind of offer.

I'm not a thief!!

Seaneh wrote: »

If the church cant afford to pay in cash their assest should be liquidated untill the bill is met, so yeah, start with buildings currently in use by educational services and transfer them to DoE ownership (all the primery/secondary schools run/owned by the church into DoE/trustie-boards) and then move on to places like the old campus in maynooth.

Tbh, it would be far easier to start from the other end, for a number of reasons ...

(1) scale

(2) many of the larger institutions e.g. Maynooth, hospitals, colleges and secondary schools are owned by the church centrally or by the relevant orders.

Primary school ownership is a more complicated issue ... while vested as a matter of legal convenience in the diocese, in most cases it is the poeple of the relevant parish who have coughed up their shillings (in the day) or their euros or whatever and fundraised and paid for them, and they feel that they own their parish school. While many people would be happy to see control transfer from the church to the state, many others would feel that their schools were simply being taken from them and given back to them by the State, and that nothing would have been achieved ... and many more traditionally Catholic parishioners would simply feel that their schools had been stolen from them by the State.

No, I would suggest starting with the big valuable properties in the centre of cities or such as Maynooth, which are either already in use by the State and being paid for through the nose, or which could easily be used by the State.

Anyway ... enough solving the problems of the world for one night!

Bduffman

Why should the church pay only 25%??

If any organisation (other than a religious one) acted the way the RCC did, do you think we would readily accept our tax money being used in this way? Does anyone think it is acceptable that the victims of this abuse should see their own hard-earned tax money being used to bail out the very organisation that abused them?

If they don't pay the full amount, all church lands should be confiscated & sold when the market allows. I'll bet the money would be found from somewhere if that threat was used.

Nodin

Bduffman wrote: »

Why should the church pay only 25%??

Well, so far they've only paid about 10% or less...Anyhoo....

As far as I know, because the state sent the children there, the majority responsibility is legally 'on' the state. I don't know the legal argumentation or principles behind that, but thats the way it seems to be. In Canada it was ruled 30/70 (30 being the Church) when the compensation for the scandal in Quebec was being decided.

Ideally there should be a ruling to divide culpability (as I'm not sure it was submitted to proper adjudication), and an audit taken of the Religous Orders involved. If they truly are cash strapped, it should be made a matter of public record.

TheInquisitor

randylonghorn wrote: »

True enough, perhaps, but there are ways round this.

Just to take one example, the State (through the NUI) hands over a substantial sum of money every year to the church (St. Patrick's, Maynooth) for the use of certain buildings on the South (old) Campus of NUI Maynooth.

If that was waived, it would represent a substantial saving on state expenditure in these tough times. Or, indeed, some of it could be used to develop the University.

There are other examples of where the church and the religious orders are in receipt of substantial revenues from buildings (including from the State coffers). There are also many church-owned buildings which are under-used or not used at all, many of them in prime urban locations in Dublin or around the country. See where I'm going with this?

Now, I'm not suggesting that the State doesn't have a responsibility too ... of course it does. But if the original agreement was, as we're been told, that the church would fork out approx. 25% of the bill, then that should have been applied to the final bill, not to the estimated bill.

As a matter of justice and of morality, the church should step forward at this stage with some kind of offer.

It was only 10%, the biggest heist in the history of the state. It's ironic how priests etc abused children and those children now working and paying taxes are in a roundabout way paying for their own compensation. Tax the churches takings i say! We can't afford to be paying their bills of E1 billion +

partyguinness

IS that what they told him?:rolleyes:

Yeah next time the bank look for their monthly instalment, I'll use this excuse.

Another example of a politician in the pockets of the Church...it is pathetic. Bertie Ahern

His area is Drumcondra...what have we got there? All Hallows, St Patricks, the Bishops Palace all within walking distance. Its basically the nerve centre of the Catholic Chuch in Dublin.

Bertie shows his true colours.

PDN

I can certainly see the point of view that the State is more responsible since education is a function that, in a Twentieth Century democracy, most people believed belonged to governments. The fact that the State effectively chose to contract many services out to a service provider does not absolve the State from the responsibility for ensuring that the service provider was fit to do such a task and was fulfilling its duties properly.

How would we feel if this situation involved a non-religious service provider? For example, let's imagine that the government contracted a private company to run a prison - and then that company violated inmates' human rights. Would anyone be arguing that the Government bear no responsibility for what happened?

(PS. As a non-Catholic I have no dog in this hunt.)

partyguinness

To be fair, I dont think anyone feels that the State bears no responsibility:-

1. They funded the schools via grants;
2. The Social Workers and teachers;
3. The Courts who sentenced the children there.
4. The Gardai and medical and legal professions who stayed silent.

There was a whole raft of public bodies who colluded in this scandal. The general outrage is that the Church capped their own liability and a Gov who allowed this i.e. Michael Woods who is looking more pathetic by the day.

PDN

partyguinness wrote: »

To be fair, I dont think anyone feels that the State bears no responsibility:-

This person certainly appears to.

Bduffman wrote:

Why should the church pay only 25%??

If any organisation (other than a religious one) acted the way the RCC did, do you think we would readily accept our tax money being used in this way? Does anyone think it is acceptable that the victims of this abuse should see their own hard-earned tax money being used to bail out the very organisation that abused them?

If they don't pay the full amount, all church lands should be confiscated & sold when the market allows. I'll bet the money would be found from somewhere if that threat was used.

prinz

wolfsbane wrote: »

But it cannot apply to the RCC as a church - it has had 1500+ years to repent, and has refused. ....... Christ does not give more than a generation to repent.

Aren't you contradicting yourself? Unless Christ is still judging generations on the OT average life expectancy scale Horrible things have been done in the name of pretty much every mainstream denomination. What you are advocating is constant recurring reformation until eventually there are no churches left, or more like

The One True Church....The Western Branch of American Reform Presbylutheranism - Rev. Timothy Lovejoy

A Primal Nut

Galvasean wrote: »

That's one thing I always wondered. If the Pope is meant to be teaching the word of Jesus why does he wear all that gold? It's not particularly humble.

Haha, and the Catholics criticise Scientology as a money-making scam for people at the top. Pure hypocrisy.

dvpower

PDN wrote: »

How would we feel if this situation involved a non-religious service provider? For example, let's imagine that the government contracted a private company to run a prison - and then that company violated inmates' human rights. Would anyone be arguing that the Government bear no responsibility for what happened?

The private company would lose its license to operate prisons and the state would never pass its prisoners to that company again.

On the matter of money? I would have thought a 50/50 split. The religious organisations should also refund all capitations recieved by them from the state for cases where the redress board has made a payment - they clearly didn't provide the service they were contracted for.

PDN

dvpower wrote: »

The private company would lose its license to operate prisons and the state would never pass its prisoners to that company again.

I would be happy with that in the Catholic Church's case. No more Catholic schools and no more Magdalene laundries..

Bduffman

PDN wrote: »

This person certainly appears to.

Just to be clear on this. I never said the state has no responsibility. But based on the proportion of money that is being paid, it looks like it is taking responsibility for 90% of it. Grossly exaggerated I think.

And as for your example of a state funded private prison. You can be damn sure the state would be partly responsible. But that company would also be prosecuted for abuses even if it bankrupted them - & no one would have any sympathy.
I can't see why it would be any different for a religious organisation.
Don't forget - if the state has to pay it means we all have to pay. That means innocent people & even the abused themselves.

PDN

Bduffman wrote: »

Just to be clear on this. I never said the state has no responsibility. But based on the proportion of money that is being paid, it looks like it is taking responsibility for 90% of it. Grossly exaggerated I think.

Ah, my apologies, where I come from "the full amount" means 100%. I had thought that was what you meant.

Don't forget - if the state has to pay it means we all have to pay. That means innocent people & even the abused themselves.

Well, in fairness that applies to anything that the State pays doesn't it? However, I don't follow your logic at all. Are you saying that the State shouldn't pay compensation for any wrong ever done to a citizen since, by definition, the citizen who has been wronged is one of the taxpayers who funds such compensation?

sorella

Of the Child Abuse issues
I was making a rare visit to boards to try to rehome a dog and dropped in here.

This is a flying visit; we just are so fully occupied picking up the pieces now; an honour to do it, but one we wish were not needed.

So whatever is said hereafter here, will not be seen now.

I keep a weblog up also

http://www.xanga.com/anchoressnun

As a non-Irish autocephalous Order of Nuns, with a presence in Ireland, we are deeply shocked. To tears.

Part of my own work over the last while has been to research these issues; and now we are receiving so many emails and calls and seeing so many, who are are deeply shocked as we are....

For a review of the issues, see
http://www.clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/

from within the Irish RC Church.

And for the global view, see..
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/AbuseTracker/
swamis, rabbis, clerics from every church.

What has happened here is beyond dreadful.

Some we speak to say how they had a wonderful education from the Christian Brothers ( known in Australia as the Christian Buggers) and that they did great things for Ireland. As one of the articles on clerical whispers describes so well, all the time they were running these excellent day schools, the underbelly of corruption was going on simultaneously.

Hidden from view. Filthy and depraved. While the money and praise rolled in.
( and, by the way, an order is responsible for its members; and in these cases, the orders knew fine well what had gone on and was going on. And it is not in the past. A priest n Dublin was made to stand down two weeks ago and today one in Cloyne)

Such was the evil.

And there are no excuses; it was deliberate, chosen, planned. By many but not all Orders.

None of this has anything to do with Jesus of course.

Which is why just now we are not attending mass; we say our own. There is no way to trust anyone here just now.

There is no sense of 'obligation" to priests and bishops who are not keeping their own vows; as they are not.

Rules have no meaning unless based in truth and integrity.

Nor has any of this anything to do with Christianity.

It does nto mean that Catholicism or Anglicanism ( and the Church of Ireland institutions have much to answer for also) is bad or wrong.

Or that Christianity is other than it is.
A real, strong living Source of all that is good and pure and holy.

But that many make evil choices.

Their choice; their loss; our pain.

Ask google for Canadian holocaust; there all the main churches conspired to cary out genocide, murdering many thousands of First Nation and Inuit children.

We work there among survivors and victims.

Those actions had nothing to do with Jesus either.

Yes, the nest here needs to be cleaned out once for all; and many are saying this now.

We need a pure Church.

Because Jesus is pure.

God is doing this; in ten years,such is the death rate now among Irish priests and brothers and sisters, there will be none left; I have the statistics on file. And He is not renewing orders or the priesthood.

Not in Ireland certainly. We are bursting at the seams however,

IF the Lord Jesus Christ is the centre of your faith and life, then it matters not where you hang your hat.

IF He is not? Then nothing matters anyways.

It is so very simple; we need to bring Jesus and His love back into every life and every Church.

Theology is man-made and irrelevant. The way Jesus asks us to live iswhat matters.

Because rules are inflicted from outside and not from the knowledge of the Living Lord Jesus in every heart, corruption can easily enter.

This is what has gone wrong; there is an empty legalism in the Church. Some of the threads here are so empty of Jesus. Full of legalism.

There are no excuses for what has been done here; the apologies are vain and empty words now.

But so many still love their Church; and they have a need for it, and for people who know Jesus and who pray with them, as we do now.

And that is fine too. We have that freedom.

Whose faith is not in an institution or a set or rules, not in intellectual vanity, not in dogma or doctrine, but in Jesus. Who is Lord.

He said, "Peace I give you, My peace I leave you.. Not as the world give I to you."

Wishing you peace and blessings this night and always; remembering and knowing that Jesus alone is in control

Not man. Or anything evil.

anchoresscj at yahoo dot com

seanybiker

fair play to ya for working with people who have suffered but I dont think its right to be bragging about one or being better than the other.

Bduffman

PDN wrote: »

Ah, my apologies, where I come from "the full amount" means 100%. I had thought that was what you meant.

Yes - 100% of the compensation should be paid by the RCC. But I do accept that the state is partly responsible. I just don't believe that us the taxpayers should pay. A government should certainly pay through the ballot box - & this governement was the one that did the deal. Unfortunately we can't vote out a government from the 1950s.

PDN wrote: »

Well, in fairness that applies to anything that the State pays doesn't it? However, I don't follow your logic at all. Are you saying that the State shouldn't pay compensation for any wrong ever done to a citizen since, by definition, the citizen who has been wronged is one of the taxpayers who funds such compensation?

I believe the perpetrators of the crime should pay - in this case the RCC. Don't tell me you have no problem paying for the sins of the RCC - do you?

O'Coonassa

"We need a pure Church."

Jesus came to bring the Kingdom not a Church but as the people who profess him don't even follow his teachings what hope is there of that?

PDN

Bduffman wrote: »

I believe the perpetrators of the crime should pay - in this case the RCC. Don't tell me you have no problem paying for the sins of the RCC - do you?

I find it much more objectionable that my taxes help fund the continuing Roman Catholic educational system.

I have no problem at all with the fact that my taxes go towards compensating the victims of child abuse. I choose to live in a country that has historically abdicated its responsibility to educate its children and so I accept that my taxes go towards righting that wrong. I would willingly pay much higher taxes to fund a proper State-run secular educational system.

dvpower

Bduffman wrote: »

Yes - 100% of the compensation should be paid by the RCC. But I do accept that the state is partly responsible. I just don't believe that us the taxpayers should pay. A government should certainly pay through the ballot box - & this governement was the one that did the deal. Unfortunately we can't vote out a government from the 1950s.

If the state holds some responsibility, then it must follow that the state should pay some compensation and this compensation must come from the exchequer, funded by taxpayers. Where else?

Bduffman wrote:

I believe the perpetrators of the crime should pay - in this case the RCC. Don't tell me you have no problem paying for the sins of the RCC - do you?

If you think that the state through the taxpayers shouldn't have to pay, then why the RCC through its members? If the Church has to stump up more cash, then this will need to come from somewhere (sale of land and property, diverted from charitable programmes, collected from parishoners, ...).

One thing is for certain, the money isn't going to come directly from the pockets of perpetrators. That would be justice, but justice isn't on offer; only compensation.

tricky D

Nodin wrote: »

Well, so far they've only paid about 10% or less...Anyhoo....

So far they have actually paid nothing

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0525/abuse.html

In an interview with The Irish Times, Dr Diarmuid Martin described as 'stunning' their failure, seven years on, to have paid the agreed €128m contribution.

He said legal difficulties were really a poor excuse for not having done this.

If the RC had any integrity, it would pay most of the compensation and open all their books on the whole disgrace for the Gardai, but that won't happen.

robindch

tricky D wrote: »

So far they have actually paid nothing

Not true. Martin was referring to the religious congregations not having paid everything (which certainly is scandalous).

AFAIR, the €128m was made up of €30m in cash (completed, I believe), €30m in "services" provided by members of the religious congregations (don't know its completion status), and the remainder made up by transfer of property owned by the congregations (mostly unsellable schools, and the transfer has certainly not been completed).

The CC's internal accounts would certainly make fascinating reading.

tricky D

Thanks for the clarification. Sounded to me like that was the implication which would fit with the persistent stonewalling.

wolfsbane

O'Coonassa wrote: »

"We need a pure Church."

Jesus came to bring the Kingdom not a Church but as the people who profess him don't even follow his teachings what hope is there of that?

The Church (the real one) is the essence of His Kingdom. Christ is the Christians' King, as well as Prophet and Priest. All of history is directed to the completion of the Church and its glorification with Christ in heaven.

True Christians follow Christ and strive to be like Him. They do not do it perfectly, but they will do it until Christ perfects them in heaven.

False and apostate churches reveal their real nature by their actions. They are characterised by corruption.

O'Coonassa

wolfsbane wrote: »

True Christians follow Christ and strive to be like Him.

Agreed 100%. But there are so few of that sort wolfsbane it's like he never came at all.

wolfsbane

prinz wrote: »

Aren't you contradicting yourself? Unless Christ is still judging generations on the OT average life expectancy scale Horrible things have been done in the name of pretty much every mainstream denomination. What you are advocating is constant recurring reformation until eventually there are no churches left, or more like

Every church that fails to repent in its generation is rejected by Christ. They may (usually do) continue to exist and profess to be His, but they are not.

So, yes, I'm talking about a continuing reformation. If a church departs from Christ, He calls His people out of it and they meet elsewhere. The Church continues, even if individual local churches fall.

Any local church or denomination that professes to be the one true church is lying. None of them has an unbroken line of faithful churches going back to the apostolic age. Christ has kept His Church, but it is not found exclusively in any one denomination.

dvpower

phonebox wrote: »

So by your logic then a person who views child porn isn't the same as the abuser.

Absolutely. Viewing child porn is a serious crime, but not as serious as raping a child. Nothing wrong with that logic, imho.