Ongoing religious scandals

Peregrinus

Xzavier Loud Steam wrote: »

Not sure if this report is accurate . . .

Well, it is the Daily Mail, not noted for its accuracy or balance generally, and particularly notorious for stuffing up its reports on religious matters, where its right-wing bias is compounded by profound ignorance of the subject matter.

Xzavier Loud Steam wrote: »

According to the article, Franics, during his address at morning Mass at the Vatican:

- suggested the 'Great Accuser' aka the devil, was behind all the recent (abuse) revelations.
- Francis also claimed the accuser (Mr.Devil) 'had it in' for bishops, who are being hounded.

So every criminal should just blame their actions on the wee red man with horns?
Even if many of his priests are possesed (could well be the case) why not actually take some responsibility.

Um. The point about Satan as accuser is that his accusations, while scandalous, are often justified. He accuses you of what you have done, not of what you haven't. So it's unlikely that this is a "the devil made me do it!" defence.

Peregrinus

Odhinn wrote: »

Is 38% a higher percentage than was/is the case here?

Yes, much. Until the last couple of decades, prosecutions of clerics for such offences would have been vanishingly rare in Ireland.

It should be pointed out that we don't know - at least, from the newspaper reports; the full study is not due to be published for another fortnight - how many of the incidents were crimes capable of prosecution. The age of consent in Germany is 14, so many improper, abusive, etc relationships would not be crimes, or not clearly so. So the proportion of prosecutable crimes that were actually prosecuted may be even higher than 38%.

I recall reading before that one of the distinctive features of the sex abuse crisis in the German church was that quite a high proportion of clerics were reported to the police. ("High" relative to the proportion that were reported in other countries, anyway.) But prosecutions were often not mounted and when they were mounted, penalties imposed by the courts were, by contemporary standards, very lenient.

This doesn't seem to have been a special deal for the church; it seems to be the result of a view that was quite widely held in from the 1960s to the 1980s or even 1990s that early sexual experience was basically not harmful to children/young teenagers, and that this was a relatively minor offence. Plus, there was little or no understanding of the compulsive nature of the behaviour. in offenders. In Germany at the time, non-church offenders were treated in much the same way by the police and the courts.

4068ac1elhodqr

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, it is the Daily Mail, not noted for its accuracy or balance generally, and particularly notorious for stuffing up its reports on religious matters, where its right-wing bias is compounded by profound ignorance of the subject matter.

Take your pick. If the world's most read online newspaper isn't good enough for you, or you hold prejudice against it as a source of news.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Um. The point about Satan as accuser is that his accusations, while scandalous, are often justified. He accuses you of what you have done, not of what you haven't. So it's unlikely that this is a "the devil made me do it!" defence.

Gobbledygook. Uncovering and exposing sin where it exists is good work. As long as it's truthful, it is indeed justified.

In cases where it's false then they can too be proven/disproven. Surely all that matters is the search for truth. Only what matters is indeed what you have done. What you haven't done is irrelevant.

Perhaps using the excuse of their arch-enemy, is highly convenient and somewhat a removal of reponsibility.

Reading about what some of the clergy (at all levels) get/got up to, could well indicate it is indeed the devil's direct work at play, through them.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

The point about Satan as accuser is that his accusations, while scandalous, are often justified...

Quite right, which makes this all the more clever, and indeed devious.
My interpretation is that Pope Frank is trying to isolate Vignano; by suggesting he is being manipulated by Satan. But note that Pope Frank has not actually denied anything that Vignano has said.

Satan is working to uncover the sins of bishops so that they will be visible and a cause of scandal, Pope Francis said during his homily at Mass on Tuesday. “This is good to remember, in these times in which it seems that the Great Accuser has been unchained and is attacking bishops. True, we are all sinners, we bishops. He tries to uncover the sins, so they are visible, in order to scandalize the people. The Great Accuser, as he himself says to God in the first chapter of the Book of Job, 'roams the earth looking for someone to accuse'. A bishop’s strength against the Great Accuser is prayer, that of Jesus and his own; and the humility of being chosen and remaining close to the people of God, without seeking an aristocratic life that removes this unction,” the pope said Sept. 11 during his Mass at the chapel of the Vatican's Casa Santa Marta.
“Let us pray, today, for our bishops: for me, for those who are here, and for all the bishops throughout the world.”

source

Bishops are being encouraged to close ranks against the "accuser(s)".
The perpetrators then somehow become the victims, and those who stand against the erstwhile perpetrators must be in league with the devil.

Odhinn

More of the usual



"More than half of the Netherlands’ senior clerics were involved in covering up sexual assault of children between 1945 and 2010, a press report claimed on Saturday, further engulfing the Catholic church in a global abuse scandal.


Over the course of 65 years, 20 of 39 Dutch cardinals, bishops and their auxiliaries “covered up sexual abuse, allowing the perpetrators to cause many more victims”, the daily NRC reported."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/16/dutch-catholic-church-accused-of-widespread-cover--up

Cabaal

https://www.broadsheet.ie/2018/09/20/walk-with-peter/

Peter Mulryan is 74.

He lived in the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Co Galway for four and a half years before he was adopted out.

He spoke about his experience both at the home and his adopted home for the first time in 70 years when he spoke on The People’s Debate with Vincent Browne in June 2015.

Last night, he was the subject of a TG4 documentary Fínne, presented by RTɒs Orla O’Donnell.

In it, Peter recounted the abuse he suffered in his adoptive home, his search for his birth mother, finding her in a magdalene laundry and being prevented, by the laundry’s nuns, from taking her out to her own home.

He also recalled falling in love, getting married, having his own children – and seeing his mother smile for the first time while holding one of his children.

Fínne can be watched back here.

Peter’s first request for information from the State about his family is recorded as having been made in 1963.

Fifty-five years later, he’s trying to find out if a sister of his died at the home or was trafficked out of Ireland as a child.

Seth Brundle

Cabaal wrote: »

https://www.broadsheet.ie/2018/09/20/walk-with-peter/

That the state through (IIRC) the HSE still refuses to help adopted people find their parents is a disgrace and assisting the child trafficing that was allowed blight this country.

Odhinn

Resignations, raids by the police - the way of the future hopefully.

Pope Francis has accepted the resignations of two more bishops from Chile, where prosecutors are investigating cases of sexual abuse by members of the clergy.
The civil authorities said last month they were looking into 119 cases relating to the sexual abuse of minors since 1960.

https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2018/0921/995202-pope-chile-catholic-church/

recedite

I doubt the police will find much. I'd say the really incriminating documents have already been moved to The Vatican.

Just google "vatican refuses to release records" and there are too many examples to read.
Maybe some day there will be a mega-raid on their archives, with all documents seized and examined by eurocops. We can but dream...

Hotblack Desiato

The nuns here resorted to a series of mysterious fires...

4068ac1elhodqr

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

The nuns here resorted to a series of mysterious fires...

They seem to create a lot of smoke over in Rome everytime a new pope man is elected, perhaps something similar happens there.

4068ac1elhodqr

German Catholic Church apologises for 'pain' of abuse victims.

Researchers from x3 German universities examined 38,156 personnel files spanning a 70-year period ending in 2014, and found indications of sexual abuse by 1,670 clerics, with more than 3,700 possible victims.

https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2018/0925/997985-germany/

One of the report writers says: "The resulting numbers (in the report) are the tip of an iceberg whose actual size we cannot assess,".

robindch

On a trip to Estonia, Pope Frank - the leader of a church which claims that morality is eternal and immutable - says it’s unfair to apply contemporary moral standards to the RCC's history of cover-up since everyone used to cover up the crime in the past.

https://apnews.com/151bb74f03cb4c1dbf759f198d828417

Odhinn

"Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Washington DC archbishop Donald Wuerl, who has been criticised for his handling of sexual abuse cases.
Cardinal Wuerl had offered to resign when he reached 75 in 2015, but the Pope did not take up the resignation.
Cardinal Wuerl was recently criticised in a report on sexual abuse cases when he was bishop of Pittsburgh and admitted to lapses in judgement."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C11MzbEcHlw&start_radio=1&list=RDC11MzbEcHlw

recedite

Pope Frank thanks Wuerl for his sacrifice...
https://www.apnews.com/12c2c76474a44ae7b4c91bf73bb1742d

He paid a very high price for this unity and our mission is to take care that the people not only remain united, but become witnesses of the Gospel ‘That they may all be one. ...’” “I recognize in your request the heart of the shepherd who, by widening his vision to recognize a greater good that can benefit the whole body prioritizes actions that support, stimulate and make the unity and mission of the church grow above every kind of sterile division sown by the father of lies who, trying to hurt the shepherd, wants nothing more than that the sheep be dispersed.”

Still, there is no denying that this is "one up" for The Great Accuser (AKA The Father of Lies, or in more lifelike terminology; Vignano and the conservative wing of the RCC.)
In the short term, it takes the pressure off Pope Frank himself, which is his main concern.

4068ac1elhodqr

recedite wrote: »

If Nazir Afzal's hypothesis is correct, and if he is going to suggest that one religious/ethnic group is more nocturnal than another (which assertion itself is questionable) then where are all the Chinese rape gangs? If any group habitually works antisocial hours its the Chinese.

Agree, this is extremely lazy attempt by those to choose to 'deliberately excuse' their behaviour, blaming it all on the work environment of 'mini-cab' drivers of the world, please...

Anyone can see from the pictures above there ain't no Chinese men in the profile pictures, in fact I've never ever seen a Chinese lad drunk or even doing anything slightly anti-social here, there, elsewhere or when in the asia-pacific.

robindch

Catholic Church faces federal inquiry into sex abuse

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/18/us/church-sex-abuse-investigation-pennsylvania.html

New York Times wrote:

The Justice Department has opened an investigation into Roman Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania accused of covering up sex abuse for decades, a significant escalation in scrutiny of the church.

The inquiry is believed to be the first statewide investigation by the federal government of the church’s sex abuse problems. And it comes two months after the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office released an explosive grand jury report charging that bishops and other church leaders had covered up the abuse of more than 1,000 people over a period of more than 70 years.

Seven of the eight dioceses in the state, Philadelphia, Erie, Harrisburg, Scranton, Pittsburgh, Greensburg and Allentown all said they had received federal grand jury subpoenas from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania requesting documents. The eighth, Altoona-Johnstown, did not respond to a request for comment.

“This subpoena is no surprise considering the horrific misconduct detailed in the statewide grand jury report,” said the Diocese of Greensburg in a statement. “Survivors, parishioners and the public want to see proof that every diocese has taken sweeping, decisive and impactful action to make children safer."

...

Hotblack Desiato

I've long thought that if anywhere was really going to stick it to the Catholic Church, it'd be America. The abuse payouts over there are a serious drain on the worldwide church's finances, and if the authorities pursue them vigorously it could bankrupt the entire shooting match.

And it's oh so richly deserved.

Meanwhile our politicians still bow and scrape and will shortly be handing over a brand spanking new maternity hospital to a catholic ethos organisation.

Hotblack Desiato

Xzavier Loud Steam wrote: »

Anyone can see from the pictures above there ain't no Chinese men in the profile pictures, in fact I've never ever seen a Chinese lad drunk or even doing anything slightly anti-social here, there, elsewhere or when in the asia-pacific.

The Chinese are a great bunch of lads.

Hotblack Desiato

Pope Francis' visit served only to increase the pain of many victims of clerical sex abuse.

Clerical abuse complaints surged ahead of papal visit in summer

The Catholic Church in Dublin received five new clerical abuse complaints in July compared to nine in all of last year, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has said.

In the lead-up to the visit by Pope Francis and the World Meeting of Families in Dublin last August he said there was much focus on abuse which had resulted in more people coming forward with complaints.

“The dark days have not vanished for survivors. We were reminded with a jolt this summer how much those who were abused are still hurting. With the discussions around the papal visit, many people with whom we had been in contact years ago got in touch with us again,” he said.

“The wounds of the past had been reopened and they were asking for support, assistance and also reassurance that we still viewed their complaints with the same seriousness as we did when we first heard them,” he said.

“We had five new complaints alone in July about abuse by already-known Dublin diocesan priests, as compared with nine for all of 2017. The size of the march at the Parnell Square Garden of Remembrance shows just how much anger and how much hurt still remain,” he added.

Archbishop Martin was speaking over the weekend in a keynote address at the church’s 2018 National Child Safeguarding conference in Kilkenny.

“We have made progress but there is no room for complacency. Apologising can be painful but it can also be comfortable and easy. We can say sorry and feel self-satisfied that all is forgiven and forgotten,” he said.

‘Lack of awareness’

He recalled how he became Archbishop of Dublin 14 years ago. “I came back to Ireland after living abroad for 30 years. I came at a moment in which the crisis of the sexual abuse by priests and abuse of children in church-run institutions was at its height.”

Some said “that I came with specific instructions to address and resolve the question. There is nothing farther from the truth. There was an surprising lack of real awareness in Rome of the extent of the problem and little understanding of the nature and the extent of the challenge and especially that many of the roots of the abuse crisis were to be found within the lived culture of the Irish church and, as we now know, more clearly worldwide,” he said.

In Ireland then, there was an atmosphere “of crisis management in dealing with accusations”. This moved to “a sense of pastoral concern”. He felt it important to remember some of those who helped bring that about. “I think of Maureen Lynott and Ian Elliot, and in Dublin of Phil Garland who was chosen to lead our first Child Protection Office by Cardinal Connell, ” he said.

‘Harsh realities’

At the time “victims and survivors were rightly angry and determined to bring the harsh realities into the public eye”. They “were determined and courageous, assisted often by a pioneering group of journalists. I think of the late Mary Rafferty. The media played and still play a key role in the challenge of the protection of children in the Catholic Church.

“Survivors like Marie Collins and the late Christine Buckley, to name just two, were determined and uncompromisingly forthright and often they were looked on in internal church culture as being ‘difficult’. All I can say is: thank God they were so,” he said.

He felt the lead-up to the World Meeting of Families in Dublin last August “was disheartening, given the reports from abroad such as the Pennsylvania Grand Jury, the Australian Royal Commission and others as well as the revisiting in the media of many of the traumas of our own past, the Magdalene Laundries, Mother and Baby Homes as well as clerical child abuse.”

But it was important to remember “that we are not, despite how we may often be tempted to think, back where we were 20 years ago. Things have moved on, progress has been made,” he said.

It would be nice if that 'progress' included the religious orders paying the compensation they owe to victims and the state.

recedite

Teacher gets suspended sentence for sex assault at Dublin mosque

Not a lot of info there about what Irish teaching qualification he had, or why he is even in this country.
Maybe he is a refugee. Is Bangladesh at war these days?

The guy has one certificate to say he is mentally ill, and another to say he isn't, so he can use whichever one seems most advantageous at any given time.
It seems his "hands slipped" while he was practicing the Islamic ritual of Wudu (not to be confused with either woo or voodoo)
Seems legit, sure it could have happened to Mohammad himself (it probably did, quite often).

As for the victim..

She had nightmares about her teacher coming to take her away and was afraid to go to school for a time after the assault.

Not sure if this is an Irish state funded school, but I would assume so.


Recedite, The All-Noble One

TomSweeney

^^ from looking at this thread and the humour thread, don't think this will get quite the outrage and condemnation that a molesting priest would get.

seamus

I'm not sure what your point is. A (presumably) muslim teacher has been jailed for sexually assaulting a child?

What's the religious angle?

recedite

Wudu.

seamus

recedite wrote: »

Wudu.

Is that some kind of obscure acronym?

ancapailldorcha

seamus wrote: »

Is that some kind of obscure acronym?

I think it's an attempt at being clever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wudu

Wuḍūʾ (Arabic: الوضوء‎ al-wuḍūʼ [wʊˈdˤuːʔ]) is the Islamic procedure for washing parts of the body, a type of ritual purification, or ablution. Wudu involves washing the hands, mouth, nostrils, arms, head and feet with water and is an important part of ritual purity in Islam. What activities require wuḍūʾ, what rituals constitute it and what breaks or invalidates it are governed by fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence)[1] and specifically its rules concerning hygiene.

TomSweeney

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I think it's an attempt at being clever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wudu

Defends it
:rolleyes:

seamus

Defends what?

Neither of you have made any point whatsoever. I don't get what recedite's odd response is supposed to mean, even with acd's clarification.

What's the religious angle here?

Odhinn

seamus wrote: »

Defends what?

Neither of you have made any point whatsoever. I don't get what recedite's odd response is supposed to mean, even with acd's clarification.

What's the religious angle here?

scary scary scary Muslims!!!! scary scary scary

recedite

seamus wrote: »

Is that some kind of obscure acronym?

Its clearly mentioned in my original post. So its obvious that you didn't even fully read through the post.
Yet you still felt obliged to attack me while jumping to the defence of the guy mentioned in it, or at least wanting it censored out of the debate. An interesting response.