The Church's Responsibility in Child abuse Cases

peakpilgrim

Hi

In a recent court case ( not mentioning any names ) an individual sued the Education Authority for employing a teacher who abused the person. This case was rejected by the courts.

How is the Church liable for an abusive priest and the Education Authority is not liable for an abusive teacher?

robindch

peakpilgrim wrote: »

This case was rejected by the courts. How is the Church liable for an abusive priest and the Education Authority is not liable for an abusive teacher?

Did you read the court transcripts -- they'll tell you why the case was rejected.

PDN

peakpilgrim wrote: »

Hi

In a recent court case ( not mentioning any names ) an individual sued the Education Authority for employing a teacher who abused the person. This case was rejected by the courts.

How is the Church liable for an abusive priest and the Education Authority is not liable for an abusive teacher?

Did the education authority continue to employ the abuser, and give them continued access to children, after they knew what they were doing? Did the educational authority try to cover up the abuse and shelter the abuser from the legal consequences of their actions?

peakpilgrim

PDN wrote: »

Did the education authority continue to employ the abuser, and give them continued access to children, after they knew what they were doing? Did the educational authority try to cover up the abuse and shelter the abuser from the legal consequences of their actions?

Hi PDN; and how are you today?

As a Catholic, and I am sure that all Catholics feel the same way, the continued abuse of children was disgusting and my heart goes out to the victims.

However; this was carried out by a small number of paedophiles who managed to insinuate themselves into positions of responsibility for children and play the role of a priest. These people should, quite rightly, be in jail.

What is even more disgusting is that some Bishops covered up this abuse and moved the offenders to new parishes where they were able to continue their crimes; there is no doubt about this and these people should, also, be in jail.

The above was never the policy of The Church. These were the actions of a small number of individuals who should be made accountable for their actions.

If I thought, and this is my own opinion, based on the people I know inside The Church, that the cover-up was widespread, then you would never see me inside the doors of an Church again.

PDN

peakpilgrim wrote: »

Hi PDN; and how are you today?

As a Catholic, and I am sure that all Catholics feel the same way, the continued abuse of children was disgusting and my heart goes out to the victims.

However; this was carried out by a small number of paedophiles who managed to insinuate themselves into positions of responsibility for children and play the role of a priest. These people should, quite rightly, be in jail.

What is even more disgusting is that some Bishops covered up this abuse and moved the offenders to new parishes where they were able to continue their crimes; there is no doubt about this and these people should, also, be in jail.

The above was never the policy of The Church. These were the actions of a small number of individuals who should be made accountable for their actions.

If I thought, and this is my own opinion, based on the people I know inside The Church, that the cover-up was widespread, then you would never see me inside the doors of an Church again.

I'm fine thank you. Still on holiday & soaking up the sun.

I think that the higher up the chain a cover-up goes then the more the organisation bears responsibility.

For example, if individual soldiers bully a recruit then they are responsible for their actions. If a sergeant or NCO covers it up then the army bears more responsibility. If a colonel or a general participates in the cover up then the organisation becomes even more responsible. If the army as a whole is aware of a bullying problem but fails to address it then the army as a whole should bear responsibility.

Does that help?

peakpilgrim

PDN wrote: »

I'm fine thank you. Still on holiday & soaking up the sun.

I think that the higher up the chain a cover-up goes then the more the organisation bears responsibility.

For example, if individual soldiers bully a recruit then they are responsible for their actions. If a sergeant or NCO covers it up then the army bears more responsibility. If a colonel or a general participates in the cover up then the organisation becomes even more responsible. If the army as a whole is aware of a bullying problem but fails to address it then the army as a whole should bear responsibility.

Does that help?

Yes; but you are implying that the cover-up goes right to the top.

I do not agree with you ( Surprise! Surprise!)

prinz

peakpilgrim wrote: »

If I thought, and this is my own opinion, based on the people I know inside The Church, that the cover-up was widespread, then you would never see me inside the doors of an Church again.

+1 on this. Terrible as the recent revelations are I truly feel there is a massive degree of sensationalism and tabloid effect on the whole issue in all sections of the media since the Ryan report. Some of the stories that have been presented really imo stretch the bounds of credulity. I was listening to a musician on RTE radio one of the days who is based in America for years, but had been in Artane as a child and he noted that he has no recollection of any sexual abuse whatsoever, while agreeing that physical abuse happened. On the other hand listening to some accounts rape and abuse was a daily occurence.

I asked my own father about this recently, and he is non-religious for 30 - 40 years so I asked if perhaps something in his past may have caused this but, like I posted somewhere else, he went to a Christian Brother school in the early fifties and he recalls clearly there was no sexual or physical abuse perpetrated by the brothers in that school while he was there. Now corporal punishment was widespread in those days so it really stands out. The worst punishment he can recall was not being allowed to do sport after school. It leaves me wonder why would Christian Bros be so callous and evil in one school and benign by normal lay standards in another?

While I am in no way trying to diminish what did happen in many places, and it was disgusting, I am really having difficulty trying to accept some of the testimonies tbh, two prime examples I have read were priests in one boys school allegedly entering small boys in bare knuckle fights against local farmers and gambling on the results/how long it took for a K.O., and another of nuns hosting drink and sex parties, basically running a brothel staffed by the girls in their care.

Edit: Back to original point.... while it is obvious terrible crimes took place and were allowed and even facilitated to continue taking place by more senior clerics I'm struggling to accept that the problem of abuse and cover up was as large as it is being portrayed.

PDN

peakpilgrim wrote: »

Yes; but you are implying that the cover-up goes right to the top.

I do not agree with you ( Surprise! Surprise!)

Actually I haven't implied any such thing.

peakpilgrim

PDN wrote: »

Actually I haven't implied any such thing.

So you are retracting what you said then. That's good.

PDN

peakpilgrim wrote: »

So you are retracting what you said then. That's good.

No, I said that an organisation's responsibility depends on how far up the chain the knowledge and the cover up goes. I certainly don't retract that.

I never offered any opinion as to how far up the chain things went in the Catholic Church, so there's nothing to retract there.

prinz

peakpilgrim wrote: »

So you are retracting what you said then. That's good.

There really was nothing to retract. Double .

peakpilgrim

PDN wrote: »

No, I said that an organisation's responsibility depends on how far up the chain the knowledge and the cover up goes. I certainly don't retract that.

I never offered any opinion as to how far up the chain things went in the Catholic Church, so there's nothing to retract there.

prinz wrote: »

There really was nothing to retract. Double .

OK PDN !

Part of what you said was: '....If the army AS A WHOLE is aware of a bullying problem and fails to redress it then the army AS A WHOLE should bear responsibility...'

Please explain!

PDN

peakpilgrim wrote: »

OK PDN !

Part of what you said was: '....If the army AS A WHOLE is aware of a bullying problem and fails to redress it then the army AS A WHOLE should bear responsibility...'

Please explain!

And part of what I said was "If an individual soldier bullies a recruit". I provided a list of different scenarios to demonstrate how responsibility varies according to how far up the line knowledge and cover-up goes.

As to which of those applies to the Roman Catholic Church - I offered no opinion as to that at all.

peakpilgrim

PDN wrote: »

And part of what I said was "If an individual soldier bullies a recruit". I provided a list of different scenarios to demonstrate how responsibility varies according to how far up the line knowledge and cover-up goes.

As to which of those applies to the Roman Catholic Church - I offered no opinion as to that at all.

Now you're being disingenuous and hiding behind semantics, PDN


One of the things that sickens me about this whole sorry episode is the way that some people are trying to milk the current 'perceived' problems of the Catholic Church to the last.

The Catholic Church will survive this episode and come out stronger for it in the long run

Kind Regards.

Splendour

prinz wrote: »

It leaves me wonder why would Christian Bros be so callous and evil in one school and benign by normal lay standards in another?

They could get away with it in some schools because most of these children had no one to turn to for help.

Splendour

prinz wrote: »

+While I am in no way trying to diminish what did happen in many places, and it was disgusting, I am really having difficulty trying to accept some of the testimonies tbh, two prime examples I have read were priests in one boys school allegedly entering small boys in bare knuckle fights against local farmers and gambling on the results/how long it took for a K.O., and another of nuns hosting drink and sex parties, basically running a brothel staffed by the girls in their care.

Edit: Back to original point.... while it is obvious terrible crimes took place and were allowed and even facilitated to continue taking place by more senior clerics I'm struggling to accept that the problem of abuse and cover up was as large as it is being portrayed.

It is comments like this that the victims of abuse have been fighting against for years.
In the Glencree Reconciliation Centre in Wicklow there is a plaque remembering the life of one young boy. This child fell down in the snow while out walking (possibly from hunger and exhaustion) and was left there. He froze to death in the snow. Far fetched? Unfortunately there is no need for the abused to make up stories as there's enough reality stories .
Much as we hate to admit it, this stuff really happened and imo the church should accept it and do whatever the victims of abuse need to make them feel vindicated.

BTW, the then Pope may not have known about the abuse but the current one does and in my mind he is too slow to react to this. And don't give me any bull about him having to digest it and write some Papal paper on it. At times like this he should throw all rhetoric out the window and just talk from the heart about it. A slow reaction shows lack of concern.

peakpilgrim

Splendour wrote: »

It is comments like this that the victims of abuse have been fighting against for years.
In the Glencree Reconciliation Centre in Wicklow there is a plaque remembering the life of one young boy. This child fell down in the snow while out walking (possibly from hunger and exhaustion) and was left there. He froze to death in the snow. Far fetched? Unfortunately there is no need for the abused to make up stories as there's enough reality stories .
Much as we hate to admit it, this stuff really happened and imo the church should accept it and do whatever the victims of abuse need to make them feel vindicated.

BTW, the then Pope may not have known about the abuse but the current one does and in my mind he is too slow to react to this. And don't give me any bull about him having to digest it and write some Papal paper on it. At times like this he should throw all rhetoric out the window and just talk from the heart about it. A slow reaction shows lack of concern.

I agree; The Church should accept what happened and help with whatever the victims need to feel vindicated.

But: The Church, as a whole, is not responsible for the actions of a few criminals. The Pope has a huge flock of Christians to attend to among his many tasks.

prinz

Splendour wrote: »

It is comments like this that the victims of abuse have been fighting against for years.

Like I said I have nothing against the victims. But I am also open to the possibility that what some of the red tops have been printing is pure fiction. But it all adds to the anti-clerical frenzy such as all organisations involved should be expelled from the country/wound up/members of the religious bodies involved should be removed from schools etc. Don't know about you, but the two best teachers I ever had were Dominicans. Would hate to think that they'd be forced out of teaching because of this.

prinz

Splendour wrote: »

Far fetched? Unfortunately there is no need for the abused to make up stories as there's enough reality stories .

So how do you reconcile two different views on what was going on in Artane Industrial School, from two boys who were incarcerated at the same time? When one says sexual abuse and rape was common and widespread, and another says it wasn't......

PDN

peakpilgrim wrote: »

Now you're being disingenuous and hiding behind semantics, PDN


One of the things that sickens me about this whole sorry episode is the way that some people are trying to milk the current 'perceived' problems of the Catholic Church to the last.

The Catholic Church will survive this episode and come out stronger for it in the long run

Kind Regards.

No, I'm simply stating what I said and what I didn't say. Unfortunately you seem to imagine stuff in your own head that reads things between the lines that aren't there. If you want to address something that I post about then that's fine, such discussions are what the board is all about, but I'm getting rather tired of you making personal remarks that based on your own imagination and nothing to do with anything I've said. Can you please stop it?

Splendour

peakpilgrim wrote: »

But: The Church, as a whole, is not responsible for the actions of a few criminals. The Pope has a huge flock of Christians to attend to among his many tasks.

Agreed, but given that this was a world wide pandemic it has affected every Catholic in some form or shape and therefore I think the Pope's lack of response is adding to the problem.

Splendour

prinz wrote: »

So how do you reconcile two different views on what was going on in Artane Industrial School, from two boys who were incarcerated at the same time? When one says sexual abuse and rape was common and widespread, and another says it wasn't......

I cannot reconcile the two nor do I have to. As I said before some children were more vulnerable than others. Maybe they didn't pick on the kids who had outside contact.

When I was a kid my parents took in two brothers from Artane every summer for a few weeks and at that time my parents weren't aware of any abuse going on in Artane or any of the schools. My mother only last week commented on little things the boys said which she now realise might reflect that indeed they were abused. One of the boys was eating a cake during tea one day and he said to his brother 'imagine what you'd have to do for Brother (insert name here) to get one of these cakes. We dread to think what he was referring to.

robindch

prinz wrote: »

+1 on this. Terrible as the recent revelations are I truly feel there is a massive degree of sensationalism and tabloid effect on the whole issue in all sections of the media since the Ryan report.

Given that abuse was concealed or ignored for well over a century by state and church alike, I'd imagine that the average outrage over that time is probably not excessive.

prinz wrote: »

I'm struggling to accept that the problem of abuse and cover up was as large as it is being portrayed.

Why don't you download and read the Ryan report and judge for yourself?

The five volumes of PDF's are available for you to download from here:

http://www.childabusecommission.com/rpt/pdfs/

peakpilgrim

PDN wrote: »

No, I'm simply stating what I said and what I didn't say. Unfortunately you seem to imagine stuff in your own head that reads things between the lines that aren't there. If you want to address something that I post about then that's fine, such discussions are what the board is all about, but I'm getting rather tired of you making personal remarks that based on your own imagination and nothing to do with anything I've said. Can you please stop it?

OK

I'm not going to get into a bun fight with you PDN; the subject is a little too important for that; lets leave it to others reading this Forum to decipher what you said and didn't say in your 'parable'.

peakpilgrim

Splendour wrote: »

Agreed, but given that this was a world wide pandemic it has affected every Catholic in some form or shape and therefore I think the Pope's lack of response is adding to the problem.

As a Catholic I am extremely angry about what has happened and I understand why the victims would be extremely angry.

I can understand why, some of them, would never go to Church again.

But if you ask me , as a member of The Church, do I feel in anyway responsible, or do the overwhelming number of priests and Bishops feel responsible, then the answer is no.

I stick to my original argument: these crimes, and cover-ups, were carried out by a small number of criminals; they, alone, are responsible for their actions.

Was the administration of The Church badly organised? Most certainly.

The Church should do whatever it can for the victims, rectify the administration of The Church so that it never happens again and move on.

Ashlinggnilsia

In relation to your question as to why the church was held responisble and the school/state was not.....(not sure if this is the same case you are referring to)

Recently while in college we were asked to study a case in which a child had been abused and that person then sued the state.....the easiest way of explaining it is that the state/school was not held liable for the actions of the teacher because the teacher was not employed by them.

At the time schools were run by the church but were given the support if required, from the state.... The state was obliged to provide for free primary education etc (Article 42 of The Constitution of Ireland).... The church owned the school premised and people disliked the idea of state run schools. The state paid the wages of the teacher but the hiring and firing of teachers was done by the manager of the school (usually a clergyman) . The person in question in the case i studied did not sue the church (manager was deceased...would be pointless to sue people acting on his behalf now who would no nothing of the incidents) you cant exactly sue the state if your not going to sue the church!! State was not informed of any such incident in this particular case....

Though it is an unfortunate incident and one cannot help but feel that a person who has been through such an ordeal deserves to win a case, legally the laws could not allow the person in this case to win. The state was not responsible for the actions of the teacher so the state cannot pay for the actions of the teacher


Not sure if I have explained myself well or if this is the same case but I did my best hope that helps!

prinz

robindch wrote: »

Given that abuse was concealed or ignored for well over a century by state and church alike, I'd imagine that the average outrage over that time is probably not excessive.Why don't you download and read the Ryan report and judge for yourself?

The five volumes of PDF's are available for you to download from here:

http://www.childabusecommission.com/rpt/pdfs/

I have read large amounts of the Ryan Report. What's your point? What I have seen in a lot of newspapers...... I see no mention of in the Ryan Report, which brings me back to the possibility of exaggeration, fabrication and rabble rousing which for a number of weeks went on, particularly in the tabloids ( as usual ) with many 'unnamed sources' say x, y and z happened...........

As I read the parts of the report I did, it brought tears to my eyes. Anger and shame. Not shame in Christianity, but shame in humanity and anger that many people in this country had knowledge of, and involvement in what was going on, outside of the religious.

Legitimate outrage, perfectly normal. I am myself. Knee jerk reactions to tar everyone with the same brush and whipping up a frenzy of public opinion with unsubstantiated rubbish - eh no thanks.