Ongoing religious scandals

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

But if there's no financial motive, then it's suspect.

I was kinda joking.
But at the same time..... yes the motives of anybody volunteering to take kids to the swimming pool, or on camping trips, should be carefully examined.
IMO the vast majority are parents. They only volunteer in order to secure a place for their own child, and most give it up as soon as their own kid moves on. Those who remain are valuable, due to their experience, but even so they should be got rid of if there is even a sniff of anything dodgy about them.

Seth Brundle

recedite wrote: »

Those who remain are valuable, due to their experience, but even so they should be got rid of if there is even a sniff of anything dodgy about them.

How do you move on a parent because if what you sniff without making an accusation?
Any knowledge of possible dodgy-ness would need to be reported to the authorities surely?

recedite

That particular paedo molested 14 boys over 40 years. I simply do not believe there was no sniff of what he was up to, over all that time. These kind of people are clever. They hide their trail, they manipulate the witnesses/victims, and they cultivate people of authority within the organisation they are involved with, people who can protect them.

Parents hear the rumours, then the next thing their kid is sitting the Leaving Cert and life has moved on. A new batch of innocents arrives every year, both the kids and their parents.

Person in charge just approaches the guy and says he has lost confidence in him. Nothing more needs to be said. Volunteers aren't entitled to unfair dismissals procedures. Report to the Garda too, by all means, if there is evidence.

Peregrinus

Well, this is why we have "working with children" cards and similar regimes. But, couple of principles to bear in mind:

1. Volunteers aren't especially suspect. It's not as if paedophiles never enter careers that involve working with children. You are short-changing children if you think a higher level of scrutiny should be applied to volunteers. Why are you not applying a similar level of scrutiny to professionals?

2. Parents aren't exempt from scrutiny. Lots of paedophiles are parents.

3. Working with children card are useful, but only to a limited degree. Everybody qualifies for a working with children card until Something Has Happened. You can't place too much reliance on them.

4. Identifying possible paedophiles is difficult, and can inflict significant injustice on and damage to people who are, in fact, not paedophiles at all. (Would you want this suspicion trailing you around?) I'm not saying we shouldn't do it, but if we rely on it as our principal method of protecting children we will fail children, and inflict injustice on innocent adults. We also need good practice in child-centred activities, and above all we need to raise confident children who know that if they are concerned they can voice their concierns, and their concerns will be taken seriously.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

1. Volunteers aren't especially suspect.... Why are you not applying a similar level of scrutiny to professionals?

I'm just saying that for practical reasons, and the often transient nature of their help, a lesser standard of scrutiny is sometimes applied to volunteers.

4. Identifying possible paedophiles is difficult, and can inflict significant injustice on and damage to people who are, in fact, not paedophiles at all. (Would you want this suspicion trailing you around?)

I've seen it happen, where a volunteer parent referred to somebody else's child as "a little bugger" when what he should have said was "a little brat". The guy was hounded out of the scouts by the little bugger's parents, but he laughs about it now. On balance, some amount of collateral damage is acceptable and inevitable.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

I'm just saying that for practical reasons, and the often transient nature of their help, a lesser standard of scrutiny is sometimes applied to volunteers.

That certainly used to be the case, although I'm not sure that it was for practical reasons, or reasons of transience. I think it had more to do with innocence or obliviousness. And I'm not sure if churches were notably worse in this regard than other agencies.

Either waty, I don't think it's the case nowadays; we are all hypersensitive to this issue. You may remember a thread we had on this very board not so long about started by someone who was dismayed that, in order to volunteer at his child's (Catholic) school, he had to authorise the school to approach the Guards to get clearance for him.

recedite wrote: »

I've seen it happen, where a volunteer parent referred to somebody else's child as "a little bugger" when what he should have said was "a little brat". The guy was hounded out of the scouts by the little bugger's parents, but he laughs about it now. On balance, some amount of collateral damage is acceptable and inevitable.

Well, it's only "acceptable and inevitable" if it in fact achieves something concrete in terms of better protection of children. Which it's not at all clear that it always does.

Absolam

My family are and have been involved in Scouting, to varying degrees over the last three or four generations. Recently my brother, proud to have his son move up from Beavers to Cubs, wanted to attend my nephews very first father and son camp, and was quite shocked when he had to be Garda vetted before being allowed to attend, and even still was not allowed to share a tent with his son; we'd told him all adults are vetted and that's that, but there is perhaps a degree of overkill in that particular situation.

Hearkening back to my own days as a cub & scout I remember that our camp 'medic', who had been my own fathers scout master back in the day was the only person on a camp who had a tent to himself, and his tent had two sprung camp beds in it; one for himself and one permanently made up with a teddy bear in it, for any boy who might feel ill, lonely, homesick, or out of sorts to either sleep in or sit and talk in until he felt better. If you're not already screaming with outrage read that description again; such an arrangement would be utterly unthinkable in this day and age. Yet this man was a kind, caring, genuine individual who dedicated a portion of his life to caring for others, and in a lifetime of Scouting lived every word of his Promise and Law.

So times have certainly changed, and there is no doubt that we should provide the greatest degree of security we can to our kids. But... I'm quite certain I wouldn't support a system that would remove such an individual on the basis that "Person in charge just approaches the guy and says he has lost confidence in him".

recedite

Your anecdote shows that something has been lost, and to some extent the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater.

But at the same time, I find it hard to envision that confidence would be lost in such a person. Unless of course, spurious allegations were made against him. In that case I think the precautionary principle must apply, even it it meant some injustice against the man.

Absolam

recedite wrote: »

Your anecdote shows that something has been lost, and to some extent the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater. But at the same time, I find it hard to envision that confidence would be lost in such a person. Unless of course, spurious allegations were made against him. In that case I think the precautionary principle must apply, even it it meant some injustice against the man.

Whereas I think a robust process should be in place which both protects children from abuse and carers from the consequences of spurious allegations. To err on the side of caution is still to err.

recedite

I agree. And if its one person's word against another, you have a tricky situation.
Going back to that chap who has been jailed for 13 years for raping and molesting 14 boys over 40 years. You can't jail a person for 13 years without a serious amount of evidence and a robust process to make sure he is guilty.

However my preferred solution would have been to ask him to leave early on, maybe after rumours or allegations surfaced about him involving separate incidents.

I find it hard to believe all that went on for 40 years without the Dean(s) of St Patricks hearing something about it.
If that had happened, some boys might have been spared. On the other hand he might still be on the loose now.
Or, on the (third) hand he might have fallen in with some inner city prostitution ring and got himself killed by gangsters. Who knows.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

. . . However my preferred solution would have been to ask him to leave early on, maybe after rumours or allegations surfaced about him involving separate incidents.

Have you learned nothing from what has come to light in the past few years? For a long time, your preferred solution was nearly everybody’s preferred solution. Mr. X seems a bit creepy? Hanging around the changing rooms for longer than seems entirely healthy? A bit too popular with the boys? We’ll, um, ease him out, encourage him to move on, not renew his contract. Whatever.

That works (to some extent) to protect the children at this school/scout troop/youth club/sports team/parish/congregation, but as a method for protecting children generally it’s a disaster. All it does is to expose some other bunch of kids to whatever risk you have identified. In truth, it has little to do with protecting kids and rather more to do with protecting the reputation of the school/scout troop/parish etc that eases the guy out. Following this method is a large part of why the Catholic church now finds itself where it is.

recedite wrote: »

I find it hard to believe all that went on for 40 years without the Dean(s) of St Patricks hearing something about it.

Well, maybe. Or maybe not. I don’t hink we can convict the Dean and Chapter on the basis of what you find hard to believe.

recedite wrote: »

If that had happened, some boys might have been spared. On the other hand he might still be on the loose now.

Well, no offence, but we have plenty of examples of your preferred solution producing the latter result.

In fairness, there’s a real problem here. What do you do if you are uncomfortable about Mr. X, but you don’t have anything like the evidence that might be required to charge him, and you’re also aware that your discomfort could be groundless? You can’t do nothing. On the other hand, you can’t ruin Mr. X’s reputation, destroy his career, possibly poison his marriage on the basis of your discomfort.

That’s why I think a strategy for protecting children which relies excessively on identifying and diverting offenders or potential offenders is not going to be good enough. We simply can’t assume that we will reliably identify offenders and potential offenders. We’ll fail repeatedly, both by not spotting offenders (which may well have happened in the St. Patrick’s case; why not?) and by wrongly identifying people as suspect when in fact they are not. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be screening to identify people who pose a risk to children; I’m just saying that we should accept that our screening will be fairly inaccurate, throwing up many false positives and false negatives, and in justice both to children and to those who work with them we have to recognise that. Good childcare practice has to be designed on the assumption that we won’t reliably identify every person who poses a risk to children.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

Following this method is a large part of why the Catholic church now finds itself where it is.

Well no, the RCC policy was ignore the first few complaints. But as the evidence built up, swear the victims and any witnesses to secrecy. Then facilitate a move by the paedophile to somewhere else where he could start again in the same job, doing the same thing, in a fresh community where nobody knew him.

Rinse and Repeat the policy ad nauseum.

In fairness, that is quite different.

Peregrinus

It's not that different in its effects. Your own policy would also "facilitate a move to somewhere else", wouldn't it? You've got rid of the guy; now he's someone else's problem. But he's still as big a problem as he ever was; he's just preying on other kids so, hey, you don't have to worry about it.

recedite

We are talking about a situation where there is insufficient evidence for the Gardai to act.

One policy involves airing the allegations and dismissing the suspect as a precautionary measure. The suspect may or may not be guilty of anything. If guilty, they have a chance to change their ways. It will be harder for them to get into the same position again, because they won't have a good reference.

The other policy involves covering up the allegations. Instead of dismissing the subject, they are facilitated in their move and they are installed in a similar position elsewhere. Effectively they arrive in the new location with a good clean reference. They are facilitated by the policymakers to immediately resume the same kind of behaviours.

Absolam

I think in a situation where there is insufficient evidence for Gardai to act it's probably fair to say that means there is insufficient evidence for anyone to act. Justly, at least.

Zynks

Absolam wrote: »

Whereas I think a robust process should be in place which both protects children from abuse and carers from the consequences of spurious allegations. To err on the side of caution is still to err.

Any 'errs', if unavoidable, must always protect the most vulnerable first.

Absolam wrote: »

I think in a situation where there is insufficient evidence for Gardai to act it's probably fair to say that means there is insufficient evidence for anyone to act. Justly, at least.

I disagree. The burden of proof to jail someone is very different from what is required to fire someone, and so it should be.

Absolam

Zynks wrote: »

Any 'errs', if unavoidable, must always protect the most vulnerable first.

Nobody mentioned doing things that are unavoidable though; recedite was talking about choosing to act against individuals on the basis of suspicion, which is assuredly not unavoidable.

Zynks wrote: »

I disagree. The burden of proof to jail someone is very different from what is required to fire someone, and so it should be.

Well Gardai don't jail people; that's Courts. The level of evidence required for Gardai to act is less than that they would be required to present to a Court in order to secure a conviction against someone, and, I would argue, also less than would be required in order to (fairly) fire someone.

Cabaal

Rwanda genocide: Catholic church sorry for role of priests and nuns in killings.
"The Catholic church in Rwanda apologised on Sunday for the church’s role in the 1994 genocide, saying it regretted the actions of those who participated in the massacres.

The statement acknowledged that church members planned, aided and carried out the genocide, in which more than 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by Hutu extremists.

In the years since the genocide – which was sparked by a contentious plane crash that killed the president, Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu – the local church had resisted efforts by the government and groups of survivors to acknowledge the church’s complicity in mass murder, saying those church officials who committed crimes acted individually.

Many of the victims died at the hands of priests, clergymen and nuns, according to some accounts by survivors, and the Rwandan government said many died in the churches where they sought refuge."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/21/rwanda-genocide-catholic-church-sorry-for-role-of-priests-and-nuns-in-killings

It regretted?
Oh, well thats ok then, move on people. nothing to see here

robindch

Cabaal wrote: »

It regretted?

No sign of an original document on what seems to be the relevant website:

http://eglisecatholiquerwanda.org/fr/

An admission of 'regret' seems a little weak in the context - given the RCC's usual very public concern for human life, one would have thought that they could have risen to "condemnation" to describe the death of something between half a million and a million people.

legspin

robindch wrote: »

No sign of an original document on what seems to be the relevant website:

http://eglisecatholiquerwanda.org/fr/

An admission of 'regret' seems a little weak in the context - given the RCC's usual very public concern for human life, one would have thought that they could have risen to "condemnation" to describe the death of something between half a million and a million people.

Reminds me of this

"You had to admire the way perfectly innocent words were mugged, ravished, stripped of all true meaning and decency, and then sent to walk the gutter for Reacher Gilt, although “synergistically” had probably been a whore from the start. The Grand Trunk’s problems were clearly the result of some mysterious spasm in the universe and had nothing to do with greed, arrogance, and willful stupidity. Oh, the Grand Trunk management had made mistakes – oops, “well-intentioned judgements which, with the benefit of hindsight, might regrettably have been, in some respects, in error” – but these had mostly occurred, it appeared, while correcting “fundamental systemic errors” committed by the previous management. No one was sorry for anything, because no living creature had done anything wrong; bad things had happened by spontaneous generation in some weird, chilly, geometrical otherworld, and “were to be regretted” (another bastard phrase that’d sell itself to any weasel in a tight corner)."
PTerry, Going Postal

expectationlost

some correspondence on the assets the church is handing over for the indeminity scheme http://www.oireachtas.ie/parliament/media/committees/pac/correspondence/2016meetings/meeting19-14122016/PAC32-R-217-B---Dept-of-Edn-Transferring-Properties.pdf 75% of the budilngs identified handed over, 48m of course they got a great limited cost deal from the gov and I wonder what the expected price of these buildings was when they signed the deal.

Cabaal

Sort of a scandal :pac::pac::pac:

People upset about mass cards

"David Murphy sells mass cards for €4 each. He splits the money with a priest in India who signs them all and ‘remembers’ the beneficiaries in a mass."

http://www.rte.ie/cspodcasts/media.mp3?c1=2&c2=16951747&ns_site=test&ns_type=clickin&rte_vs_ct=aud&rte_vs_sc=pod&rte_mt_sec=radio&rte_vs_sn=radio1&rte_mt_pub_dt=2016-12-20&rte_mt_prg_name=test-liveline&title=Mass%20Cards&c7=http%3A%2F%2Fpodcast.rasset.ie%2Fpodcasts%2Faudio%2F2016%2F1220%2F20161220_rteradio1-liveline-masscards_c21107124_21107128_232_.mp3&r=http%3A%2F%2Fpodcast.rasset.ie%2Fpodcasts%2Faudio%2F2016%2F1220%2F20161220_rteradio1-liveline-masscards_c21107124_21107128_232_.mp3

Hotblack Desiato

Believe it or not there's a specific Irish law against fake mass cards :pac:
but what's not "legit" about these ones? Do priests in India have a poorer celestial broadband connection to the cosmic server, or something? A higher ping time, perhaps?

robindch

Cabaal wrote: »

"David Murphy sells mass cards for €4 each. He splits the money with a priest in India who signs them all and ‘remembers’ the beneficiaries in a mass."

One assumes that David Murphy's friend, Fr Joseph Mangelata of South India, is unrelated to a "Fr Joseph Nzelu" of Kitui in Kenya, who, seven years ago, was also involved with the signing of mass cards for the Irish market:

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.ie/2009/10/pre-signed-mass-cards-on-sale-against.html

Hotblack Desiato

Riot against fake superstition, demand real superstition!

recedite

Fake mass cards are interesting from a human psychology point of view. I reckon mass cards are a kind of displacement activity. We can't bring back a dead person, but there is some comfort attached to the superstition of paying money to have the persons name read out in mass, thereby smoothing their journey to a successful and pleasing afterlife. If the name is not actually read out, that's a swindle. And a swindle causes discomfort. And even more discomfort when it draws our attention to the fact that the "genuine" activity had no more effect than the fake activity.

Its equivalent to Solomon the Wise Crow (as featured in the wiki link) above finding his water bath dry, but going through the motions of drinking water anyway. The "drinking" activity is pointless either way, but fake drinking is on a whole new level of pointlessness.

Everyone has their own tolerance level for fakeness. There are TV adds now for a Paddy Power casino phone app, featuring a virtual roulette wheel which you can lose real money on. Personally I wouldn't go to a casino to put money on a real roulette wheel. But losing money to a fake roulette wheel, on your own phone, in your own living room, seems a whole new level of stupidity. And yet there must be people out there who are willing to do it.

Seth Brundle

An Italian priest is being investigated for allegedly organising orgies in his rectory and pimping out up to 15 lovers.

Catholic Father Andrea Contin, a parish priest in the northern city of Padua in Veneto, is under police investigation on suspicion of living off immoral earnings and psychological violence.

A variety of sex toys and videos, purportedly showing orgies taking place on the San Lazzaro church premises, have been seized after complaints from three female parishioners.

The 48-year-old also allegedly concealed pornographic home videos in covers bearing the names of various popes.

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/catholic-priest-accused-of-organising-orgies-in-rectory-and-pimping-out-15-women-35337295.html

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

Fake mass cards are interesting from a human psychology point of view. I reckon mass cards are a kind of displacement activity. We can't bring back a dead person, but there is some comfort attached to the superstition of paying money to have the persons name read out in mass, thereby smoothing their journey to a successful and pleasing afterlife. If the name is not actually read out, that's a swindle. And a swindle causes discomfort. And even more discomfort when it draws our attention to the fact that the "genuine" activity had no more effect than the fake activity . . . .

Buying a mass card doesn't normally result in having anyone's name read out at any particular mass. If you want that, you have to arrange it directly with the priest who will celebrate the mass, and you arrange it for a particular mass.

Most people who buy mass cards do so not for anyone that they themselves are mourning, but to give to someone who is mourning. They frequently don't know the dead person well, or at all; the satisfaction they get from buying and presenting the mass card is not smoothing anybody's journey to a successful and pleasing afterlife; it's providing comfort to a friend or neighbour by expressing solidarity with their loss and grief.

As you point out, whether you or I or anyone else attaches any substantial value to the celebration of mass for the donor's intentions is irrelevant here. If you accept a donation in return for arranging the celebration of mass for someone's intentions, you need to arrange the celebration of mass for their intentions, and if you dishonestly fail to do that, that's fraudulent. And it's no defence to a fraud charge in those circumstances to say that the celebration of the mass would have been pointless or meaningless.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

Buying a mass card doesn't normally result in having anyone's name read out at any particular mass....
If you accept a donation in return for arranging the celebration of mass for someone's intentions, you need to arrange the celebration of mass for their intentions, and if you dishonestly fail to do that, that's fraudulent. And it's no defence to a fraud charge in those circumstances to say that the celebration of the mass would have been pointless or meaningless.

I admit I don't really understand what the phrase "arranging the celebration of mass for someone's intentions" means, but I think most people understand it to mean that a personalised prayer will be issued for the named individual. Or at least that was the original concept.

Peregrinus wrote: »

the mass card is not smoothing anybody's journey to a successful and pleasing afterlife; it's providing comfort to a friend or neighbour by expressing solidarity with their loss and grief.

You can buy a card called a "sympathy card" which expresses all that, but without the payment for a personalised prayer.

But I agree if you are paying for a prayer, you should get a prayer, regardless of whether it actually smooths anyone's journey into the afterlife.
That's why I say its a whole new level of swindle when you pay for a fake item, but get nothing at all.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

I admit I don't really understand what the phrase "arranging the celebration of mass for someone's intentions" means, but I think most people understand it to mean that a personalised prayer will be issued for the named individual. Or at least that was the original concept.

Nope. It wasn’t, and still isn’t, the concept.

You can arrange to have a particular mass celebrated for a particular intention, which will be stated at the mass. This is commonly done for, e.g., anniversary masses, month’s minds (and of course funeral masses, wedding masses, etc.). You generally do this by calling into the sacristy/parish office and organising a particular date and time.

But if you just buy a mass card, the deal is that mass will be celebrated for the donor’s intentions. The priest who signs the mass card will not necessarily be the one who celebrates the mass - he can pass the commission (and the offering) on to another priest, and this is commonly done. (In fact, it’s systematically done, as a way of supporting priests in mission areas.) No particular time or date is specified, and there’s no expectation that the donor will attend the mass. The donor’s intention will not be publicly stated and indeed may not be specifically known to the celebrant.

recedite wrote: »

But I agree if you are paying for a prayer, you should get a prayer, regardless of whether it actually smooths anyone's journey into the afterlife.
That's why I say its a whole new level of swindle when you pay for a fake item, but get nothing at all.

It’s not a “fake item”. The mass really is said for the donor’s intentions. Your view may be that this has no value or meaning, but your belief on this subject does not turn a real celebration/service/ritual into a fake one.