Sick to the teeth of media coverage of child abuse scandals

musings

I, for one am completely fed up of listening to the media rattling on about child abuse in the Catholic church. Yes, it is terrible that some priests abused chldren and that it was covered up. I am sickened as much by people harming children as much as any one, however most of what we are hearing is just rehashed ranting about sex scandals that we heard about during the 90's.

I really feel for the people who chose to go into the religious life as priests, nuns, missionaries etc. with the sole intention of making the world a better place, only for them to be mocked and made the butt of jokes by our hilarious comedians.

I personally have never met any members of the clergy who've ever been anything less than model citizens let alone child abusers, but according to the media, such people are the minority rather than the majority.

Put yourself in the shoes of a local priest, who has to head down tonight to a family whos child has been killed in an accident but he turns on the radio and theres the media tellin him what a disgrace he and his institution is.... why would you bother?

Hagar

I'm sick of hearing about it too. There is an immediate solution available. Give the abusers and their accomplices over to the Gardaí and save your church. Other than that, it's not going away, ever.

davef1000

I'm also sick of hearing about an organisation that covered up hundreds of cases of sexual abuse of children, and protected the abusers from punishment at the hands of the law.

musings

69 wrote: »

I'm sick of hearing about it too. There is an immediate solution available. Give the abusers and their accomplices over to the Gardaí and save your church. Other than that, it's not going away, ever.

Who gives who over to the Gardai? It not as if they have to be extradited or something. I mean if someone has been abused by someone, then that person complains to the Gardai themselves or someone does it for them and the law deals with them accordingly be they builder, doctor, teacher or priest.

Yes, in the past the Church knew of abusers and didn't act in a responsible way in tipping off the gardai, however they have apologised for it, resolved never to do it again, some bishops have resigned over it and there is no evidence to suggest that they are covering up anything today.

what more can they do?

Hagar

Tell the truth, there's something about doing that in the Commandments.

PapaRatzinger

musings wrote: »

I, for one am completely fed up of listening to the media rattling on about child abuse in the Catholic church. Yes, it is terrible that some priests abused chldren and that it was covered up. I am sickened as much by people harming children as much as any one, however most of what we are hearing is just rehashed ranting about sex scandals that we heard about during the 90's.

I really feel for the people who chose to go into the religious life as priests, nuns, missionaries etc. with the sole intention of making the world a better place, only for them to be mocked and made the butt of jokes by our hilarious comedians.

I personally have never met any members of the clergy who've ever been anything less than model citizens let alone child abusers, but according to the media, such people are the minority rather than the majority.

Put yourself in the shoes of a local priest, who has to head down tonight to a family whos child has been killed in an accident but he turns on the radio and theres the media tellin him what a disgrace he and his institution is.... why would you bother?

Don't worry. Remain steadfast. Read blogs like Damian Thompson's. Read magazines like the Brandsma Review and the New Oxford Review.

The holier-than-thou liberal media have plenty of skeletons in their own cupboard, that they skilfully ignore, whilst casting stone after stone at the holy catholic church.

The Church has been through terrible times in her 2000 year history. A few pervert priests have done untold damage, but the Church will survive. Listen to the words of the Bishop of Down: go to Mass and show your public support for the Church.

Today is a glorious day: Easter Sunday. After the long Lent that has gone by, we must all seek renewal.

davef1000

They've apologised for it, so it's all Ok now. Right so, nothing more to see here, move along, everybody.

rovert

musings wrote: »

I, for one am completely fed up of listening to the media rattling on about child abuse in the Catholic church. Yes, it is terrible that some priests abused chldren and that it was covered up. I am sickened as much by people harming children as much as any one, however most of what we are hearing is just rehashed ranting about sex scandals that we heard about during the 90's.

Thats a very unChristain attitude if you dont mind me saying.

I think there is a fair few people here who don’t want deal with the ramifications of their church's actions. Feeling that it would be more convenient to go back to the 1960s mentality of silence is golden on this issue.

davef1000

PapaRatzinger wrote: »

The holier-than-thou liberal media have plenty of skeletons in their own cupboard, that they skilfully ignore, whilst casting stone after stone at the holy catholic church.

What skeletons? Where in this so-called 'holier-than-thou liberal media' is the decades of institutional abuse and rape of children by people who presume to tell the country how to behave?

drkpower

PapaRatzinger wrote: »

The holier-than-thou liberal media have plenty of skeletons in their own cupboard, that they skilfully ignore, whilst casting stone after stone at the holy catholic church.

Amazing that when repentence and contrition are called for, the Christian response is to try and deflect the blame elsewhere.:rolleyes:

DingosAteMyBaby

I know im just so fed up of how people are trying to make such a big deal about it right?! You'd swear hundreds of peoples lives have ruined by someone who abused their trusted position and commited disgusting acts on children.. At least the Pope has done everything in his power to help the victims and help them gt some justice against their abusers:rolleyes:


some people.............:mad:

punchdrunk

the church in this country is dead in the water,that's a fact

I'd love to see a genuine survey of under 30's who attend mass weekly
I'd be astonished if even 30% attend

of friends who do attend mass it's always strangely enough just before they get married or have a child who needs to be baptised so they can go to a catholic school,complete hypocrisy from both sides

in 20-30 years this Draconian Church will be all but gone,and they've nobody to blame but themselves

anyone taking bets on another reformation taking place?

yup didn't think so...

musings

rovert wrote: »

Thats a very unChristain attitude if you dont mind me saying.

I think there is a fair few people here who don’t want deal with the ramifications of their church's actions. Feeling that it would be more convenient to go back to the 1960s mentality of silence is golden on this issue.

I'm not condoning anything, but it is essentially the same cases we were hearing about ten years ago and feel that whats done is done and it is horrible but nobody can change the past. all anyone can do is apologise and genuinely change their ways.....which is what they are doing.

And I for one will give them a chance to show that they have changed their ways, if they don't then the shouldn't be given time of day.

rovert

musings wrote: »

I'm not condoning anything, but it is essentially the same cases we were hearing about ten years ago and feel that whats done is done and it is horrible but nobody can change the past. all anyone can do is apologise and genuinely change their ways.....which is what they are doing.

And I for one will give them a chance to show that they have changed their ways, if they don't then the shouldn't be given time of day.

Thats fine but as you can see your original post came across very poorly. Really dont think the Church will ever change an "organisational" level.

Fanny Cradock

To clarify: I have no allegance to the RCC, and I feel absolutely no compunction in saying that there has clearly been some mightily sameful obfuscation and obstruction of truth and justice by certian men in power (and it is only fair to say that - to their credit - many RCs feel the same). However, I happened to be watching a news report today on the BBC and I was struck by some of the odd (and somewhat inflammatory) language that was used. While not wanting to deflect attention away from the criminals, it did get me wondering if there may be some truth to the claims. Its obviously too close to events, but it would be interesting to read some sort of meta-analysis of the reporting by the major media sources.

Fanny Cradock

BTW, this thread is about media coverage of child abuse scandals, anything that isn't directly related to this - for instance, speculation about the future of the church - will be deleted from now on. We already have a massive thread on the abuse scandals that can better accommodate more general views. So please post your opinions there and keep this discussion on track.

cypharius

musings wrote: »

I, for one am completely fed up of listening to the media rattling on about child abuse in the Catholic church. Yes, it is terrible that some priests abused chldren and that it was covered up. I am sickened as much by people harming children as much as any one, however most of what we are hearing is just rehashed ranting about sex scandals that we heard about during the 90's.

I really feel for the people who chose to go into the religious life as priests, nuns, missionaries etc. with the sole intention of making the world a better place, only for them to be mocked and made the butt of jokes by our hilarious comedians.

I personally have never met any members of the clergy who've ever been anything less than model citizens let alone child abusers, but according to the media, such people are the minority rather than the majority.

Put yourself in the shoes of a local priest, who has to head down tonight to a family whos child has been killed in an accident but he turns on the radio and theres the media tellin him what a disgrace he and his institution is.... why would you bother?

To be fair, they broadcast the angelus(And yes, I know it's spelt wrong) every day at 6, do you shouldn't accuse them of being anti-church. But more importantly, people want to get this issue delt with once and for all, people are interested in this, and so the media has a responsability to talk about this issue.

michael999999

any member of the church that abused kids or covered it up or indeed members of the public that now support them are sons of the devil.trying to deflect the blame on to the media is once again trying to blame someone else,just like they blamed the victims years ago.

Fanny Cradock

I've moved the off topic posts to the mega thread. From here on in any off topic post gets deleted.

mojesius

The media will cover this story as long as it's newsworthy and it is very much newsworthy at the moment as it affects the mass populace, not only of Ireland but across the Catholic world. As long as allegations keep coming out about the top brass in the RCC, they'll investigate them. Don't forget, news organisations spend huge amounts of time and money deciding what they can and cannot legally say. And the media are known to be inflammatory about everything, this is how they operate as a business e.g. the AIDS epidemic being dubbed as the 'gay plague' in the 1980s. The only difference here is the context.

jill_valentine

musings wrote: »

I'm not condoning anything, but it is essentially the same cases we were hearing about ten years ago and feel that whats done is done and it is horrible but nobody can change the past.

There seems to be an idea within the church that all the outrage that's going on now is just a reaction to some old little cluster of cases.

It's not. Those cases are a big part of it obviously, but a significant part of the anger that's directed at the church now is a reaction to their ongoing attitude to dealing with people's valid concerns about the system that permitted those things to happen. The current pope's less-than-convincing attempts to distance himself from his own policies, for instance, or the continued insistence that there were "only a few" bad apples who quietly gave everybody a bad name, or the idea that the victims should just "get over it."

There is a lot of media coverage, but it's not simply a rehashing of the same little pool of outrageous, isolated cases. As mojesius said, it'll stay in the news so long as it's newsworthy - so long as people want to hear about it, so long as it's worth telling them about it.

Agent J

The Church is fuellling a lot of the media coverage itself

Comparing the critisims of the pope to anti semitism?
Calling accusations gossip?

What planet are these people living on? The media is going to leap all over this.
I would have expected the RCC to have better press relations then this.

What also fuels its the drip, drip, drip of cases coming out. Cardinal Brady gets hung by his own words only spoken a few months ago.

The whole Brady thing could have been killed as a story within days.

Scandal comes out
Brady says sorry and resigns
Vatican says sorry and accepts resignation.

The fuel dissappears from the media specualtion.

What the RCC could do to finally put its hands up and admit it has f**ked up royally. Not try and put it down to an Irish problem, or A German problem, or a US problem with which the Vatican is a 3rd party.

Come out with its hands up and actively turn over ALL its files to the local civil authorities. Every time a new scandal is revealed(Which it will be) the only statement should be an apology and begging for forgiveness. There should be no attempt to try and defend their actions.
Turn the other cheek...

PapaRatzinger

Agent J wrote: »

The Church is fuellling a lot of the media coverage itself

Comparing the critisims of the pope to anti semitism?
Calling accusations gossip?

What planet are these people living on? The media is going to leap all over this.
I would have expected the RCC to have better press relations then this.

What also fuels its the drip, drip, drip of cases coming out. Cardinal Brady gets hung by his own words only spoken a few months ago.

The whole Brady thing could have been killed as a story within days.

Scandal comes out
Brady says sorry and resigns
Vatican says sorry and accepts resignation.

The fuel dissappears from the media specualtion.

What the RCC could do to finally put its hands up and admit it has f**ked up royally. Not try and put it down to an Irish problem, or A German problem, or a US problem with which the Vatican is a 3rd party.

Come out with its hands up and actively turn over ALL its files to the local civil authorities. Every time a new scandal is revealed(Which it will be) the only statement should be an apology and begging for forgiveness. There should be no attempt to try and defend their actions.
Turn the other cheek...

You're a by-product of media spin. You gossip away about stuff you've picked up on in the mainstream media, but you have no specifics. You just regurgitate the mantra you've been fed.

The Pope is probably sick to thet teeth of the dishonest and relentless spin put on every utterence he or one of his bishops make. He didn't even mention the abuse today on this, Easter Sunday. Fair play to him too for sticking it to them. His energies are far better utilised at ensuring the behind-the-scenes work continues, not pandering to the liberal media.

If you want information, go to the vatican press office website or look at the vatican channel on youtube. If you prefer to keep you head in the sand and read only the Sindo/Times/AP/New York Times, then so be it. You're entitled to live in ignorance in this free society of ours.

Handsome Bob

I'm afraid that you better get used to it OP because this is the kind of story that makes the job of journalists dead easy. It's the kind of story that will get you early retirement while being financially secure. It's the kind of story that will make the careers of some journalists. It's the kind of story that doesn't really have an end in sight, so it will make the job of an editor who has to fill space absolutely handy for a very long time.

This is the nature of the media, they will cling onto a story for dear life for as long as possible. What's worse is that your church is playing right into the hands of the media by not adequately approaching the issue. If you want the coverage to end then you should look no further than those in power in the RCC, only they can speed up this intense media coverage by taking the relevant action.

Agent J

A perfect example of the Church attitude taking attack as the best form of defence.

Don't address any of the points, Don't admit anything. Just attack the other side and accuse them of spin and gossip. If that fails then claim it was another time and a different set of rules.Keep throwing up strawmen but no matter what never ever take responability.

The Church isnt a victim in this and as long as it keep trying to portray itself in that light the media will feast on it. You are feeding the frenzy with each denial and attempt to redirect the situation.

rovert

PapaRatzinger wrote: »

If you want information, go to the vatican press office website or look at the vatican channel on youtube. If you prefer to keep you head in the sand and read only the Sindo/Times/AP/New York Times, then so be it. You're entitled to live in ignorance in this free society of ours.

You cant be serious

(I know you arent)

krudler

The Pope is probably sick to thet teeth of the dishonest and relentless spin put on every utterence he or one of his bishops make. He didn't even mention the abuse today on this, Easter Sunday. Fair play to him too for sticking it to them. His energies are far better utilised at ensuring the behind-the-scenes work continues, not pandering to the liberal media.

The thousands of victims of abuse are probably sick to the back teeth of these raping murdering scumbags being helped by their own organisation instead of being dealt justice

lynski

musings wrote: »

I'm not condoning anything, but it is essentially the same cases we were hearing about ten years ago and feel that whats done is done and it is horrible but nobody can change the past. all anyone can do is apologise and genuinely change their ways.....which is what they are doing.

And I for one will give them a chance to show that they have changed their ways, if they don't then the shouldn't be given time of day.

here is the problem they have NOT been punished or atoned for the crimes we have been hearing about over and over again. they have not allowed their records to be examined by the gardai. the reason you are so bothered by those pesky abuse survivors, you poor thing, is because you still give money and support to the criminals who allowed the abuse to be perpetrated in the first place. the abuse survivors are using the media to make sure that the church no longer gets away with it.
I for one do not believe for one minute that they have changed their ways and i think if a bishop got a fresh complaint today i have no reason to believe they would not do the same criminal cover-ups again. the difference being that they would have to be more careful the evil media does not hear about it then they had to before

PDN

OK, since people can't keep this on topic we'll lock it.

There's already a mega thread on clerical child abuse for those who wish to post on the subject.