Cloynes Report, Christianity, etc etc

Surion

Ok, I'm posting here as something of an 'act of contrition'. I'm in no way a 'believer' but I occasionally dip into the religious threads to view the discussions etc. Gives me my own moral compass.

This evening i read in the christianity forum, very little reference to todays report concerning abuses in the area, and so I posted in their 'prayers' and 'thanks givings' sections, respective requests for all those people who suffered in the above report (and many more, I know). Today, from an atheistic perspective it's hard to disagree with Mao's comments that "religion is poison". Surely this gives credence to the dangers of organised religion, and especially with any forms of authority invested in it. The adage, that it be better that ten guilty be freed to avoid 1 innocent wrongly convicted could be turned on its head here so that not even one should suffer at it's hands?

I don't believe in religion nor deity, but today, being Irish and from a standard Christian upbringing, I'm sickened to hear what others beliefs have led to. Even non Christians and/or atheists should be animated by all this if not for sake of 'humanity' itself??

Surion

AhSureTisGrand

Surion wrote: »

Ok, I'm posting here as something of an 'act of contrition'. I'm in no way a 'believer' but I occasionally dip into the religious threads to view the discussions etc. Gives me my own moral compass.

Ooh this could be like the thread where the guy said he believed in ghosts

Pompey Magnus

I can't claim to be an expert on the subject but is there any justification in claiming that it was specifically the Christian beliefs of those responsible which led to this? From how I see the whole affair it seems like those abusing the children used the structures in place with the Church to put themselves in positions where they could abuse whilst the hierarchy were power hungry men who, no matter what organisation they would have found themselves in, religious or secular, would have defended their position by any means possible, the fact that in this case it was a religious organisation is more or less incidental.

Given the recent revelations concerning Rupert Murdock's empire it seems to me further proof that the quote from Mao was unneccessarily specific and could simply have been put as "power is poison".

Turtwig

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

Given the recent revelations concerning Rupert Murdock's empire it seems to me further proof that the quote from Mao was unneccessarily specific and could simply have been put as "power is poison".

Aye but there's a much more succinct one for that :

"Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Yeah I agree I don't see what this has to do with Christian Beliefs.

Pompey Magnus

Malty_T wrote: »

Yeah I agree I don't see what this has to do with Christian Beliefs.

When I think of this scandal I can't help but think about those parasites in nature which infect animals such as mice, the bacteria are capable of altering their host's behaviour in ways which are completely detrimental to the host but beneficial to the bacteria. In the case of a mouse, the bacteria removes it's aversion to cat pheremones making it more likely to be killed and eaten by the cat. This benefits the bacteria by allowing it to be spread in cat droppings.

I can't help but compare the Catholic Church to the mouse and both the child abusers and the complicit hierarchy to bacteria which have infected the Church, altering it's behaviour in ways which benefits themselves but to the overall detriment of the Church.

Dawkins talks about organised religion being a mind virus but I don't know if he mentioned if it can be a two way street, I think in the case of the cover up of child abuse we have seen that the tables can be turned and organised religion can be and was infected by the twisted minds of certain people.

Dades

Surion wrote: »

I don't believe in religion nor deity, but today, being Irish and from a standard Christian upbringing, I'm sickened to hear what others beliefs have led to. Even non Christians and/or atheists should be animated by all this if not for sake of 'humanity' itself??

"Belief" hasn't let to this - just the hypocrisy of preaching morality on one hand and completely failing to practice it on the other.

That, and the catholic church's attitude of doing anything to defend it's own organisation and reputation at any cost.

philologos

^^ I don't believe the abuses had anything to do with Christian tenets. They were in complete violation of them. The institution should be heavily criticised. As for whether or not Biblical claims concerning God or Jesus are true, that's a wholly different question. The gross abuses should sicken any rational mind. There should be zero tolerance for excuse making, what we need is acceptance and responsibility. Two things that have been sorely lacking in the institution in question and the State.

Surion

All very cogent and well put points, thanks for the consideration. On first reading, challenge *some* of my views and give me alternate approach to this subject, in particular Pompey Magnus. Im not totally sympathetic to all the points - but must admit I feel in synch with the last comments of the cannon lawyer on last nights Prime Time (RTE1), that 'vengeance is called out for'.

Divine intervention declares my contrition complete, it would appear. As my posts requesting prayers for those concerned in subject matter, et al, have disappeared.

In genuine curiosity (but slightly rhetorically) I wonder how how you are able to maintain a dispassionate approach, and why I can't find such a thing, despite my non-belief in religion or ghosts.

Thanks for your responses on this though!

Sur

Penn

The abusers didn't commit these acts because of their faith or religion, but they used their faith and religion to their advantages to commit these acts. They used their positions of trust and their moral authority as priests to help commit these acts.

Abusers will always abuse, whether they are priests or average Joe Soaps. It's the cover-up that damns the church. The complete failure of those bishops to do what is morally right, and instead protect their friends and their organisation.

philologos

Surion wrote: »

In genuine curiosity (but slightly rhetorically) I wonder how how you are able to maintain a dispassionate approach, and why I can't find such a thing, despite my non-belief in religion or ghosts.

What do you find dispassionate?

bleg

Expel the Papal Nuncio.

axer

bleg wrote: »

Expel the Papal Nuncio.

Instead the government will come out and say that they had frank and open discussion and they will work towards fixing everything.

The problems that are highlighted by this report happened as recent as 2 years ago. THERE ARE NO MORE EXCUSES! ffs! This is not a different era, those covering up knew well what they were doing. The RCC have proven yet again they are incapable of dealing with this. They should be banned from being anywhere near children until they can prove they are responsible enough.

Everyone that covered up abuse should be prosecuted no matter how much it costs.

antiskeptic

philologos wrote: »

As for whether or not Biblical claims concerning God or Jesus are true, that's a wholly different question. The gross abuses should sicken any rational mind.

Why? By random mutation + survival of the fittest alone is a rational doctrine. And it easily accomodates such abuse. Although it easily accomodate the sickening too.

Happyman42

If the Pope or other high ranking Vatican official visits this jurisdiction then he must be brought in for questioning and charged if the crime of collusion or cover-up is found to have occurred. If we don't, any notion of a secular and fair society is bullsh1t.

philologos

antiskeptic: I think it would have been more conducive to their survival if they actually clamped down on this stuff and told the authorities from the get go. Now they are so deep in it that they can't do anything about it other than to ride the wave of criticism in the hope that it will peter out.

robindch

philologos wrote: »

I don't believe the abuses had anything to do with Christian tenets.

I think they do. If the christians who implemented the cover-up had not believed their organization was the sole representative of the creator of the universe on this earth, then they may not have gone to such great lengths to cover up the abuse. However, they did believe that and they made the reasonable (in the context) decision to hide the abuse, lest the public lose trust in the organization, and thereby abandon it and lose their chance to stay alive after they die/go to heaven/etc.

As you said yourself about the propagation of your religion, if their core beliefs are true, then this course of action is quite rational. In fact, it's arguable that it's necessary for the longer-term good of humanity.

philologos

robindch: What kind of sick people would think that God would have wanted them to cover child abuse up? Indeed, Christianity encourages accountability and obedience to authorities (Romans 13). The RCC failed to be accountable and obedient to the State authorities, and the State turned a blind eye to it anyway.

In the light of Christian belief accountability to the State would have almost certainly made the RCC look to be responsible and willing to act tough clergy who abused. It would have turned out much better had that been the outcome. As I've said already if any other church / religious group tried this in the State there would be no special treatment and that's the way we should expect the law to be. One law, one people. Not multiple laws for different people.

robindch

philologos wrote: »

robindch: What kind of sick people would think that God would have wanted them to cover child abuse up?

The same kind of people who think that their organization and its mission is more important than the rights of children.

philologos wrote: »

Indeed, Christianity encourages accountability and obedience to authorities (Romans 13).

That's quite a relatively protestant interpretation of the relationship between the individual and the state. However, as PDN has said quite openly (and I've no doubt most religious people will agree anyway), where the individual religious believer believes that their perceived religious duty is more important than state law, the individual believer will generally stick to the religious duty. And that's what's happened in this case.

The problem is that the religious hierarchy believed, and no doubt still believes, that it's more important than the state. And in that, I don't think it's any different from most individual religious believers.

pH

philologos wrote: »

^^ I don't believe the abuses had anything to do with Christian tenets. They were in complete violation of them.

The word "Strawman" is thrown around a lot, mostly in error, but this is one for sure. Nobody is arguing that Christianity itself is a call to abuse children, we all agree that "It's OK (or even encouraged) to have sexual encounters with children" is NOT a central tenet of Christianity. So you arguing against that position is pointless.

What people (such as yourself) do argue is that in some real sense, being a Christian and living your life as a Christian does make people behave better towards their fellow humans.

So we have 2 parts to this.

Firstly the abusers themselves were priests, absolutely steeped in Christian tradition and learning, and preaching this to others. Now I know "We're all weak sinners etc." but them being at the "top end" of Christian understanding didn't seem to curtail their actions at all.

Now I guess you could argue that maybe others didn't abuse kids because of their beliefs - but the stats just don't seem to back this up.

Anyway, this was all reasonably secretive, many of these men may have hated themselves for doing it and been guilt-ridden and you can make whatever argument you like about Christianity not magically turning people into saints but being a set of morals to aim for, however ...

The cover-up is another situation entirely. This was discussed, this was out in the open (well within the Catholic hierarchy), this wasn't some wretched sinners in their darkest hours coming to terms with demons haunting them to abuse altar boys, this was the cynical and systematic refusal to deal with real abuse.

Many argue this was done to protect the Catholic church itself (which they considered somehow to be a "greater good"), however I don't agree, these men could have been buried (figuratively) in places in the Church with no access to children, in fact you could argue that the last thing you'd do if you wanted to protect the church's image would be to move a priest to another parish. The fact is, to all intents and purposes it appears as if they just didn't care.

So all this (for me anyway) leaves in tatters an claim that Christian Beliefs in any real or meaningful way make people behave better towards their fellow man. So what are you left with? ... "Well my Christian Beliefs ..." maybe?

philologos

Taking what is most pertinent from your post:

pH wrote: »

What people (such as yourself) do argue is that in some real sense, being a Christian and living your life as a Christian does make people behave better towards their fellow humans.

I don't argue that any given Christian is of necessity better than any given atheist. I do believe that believing and trusting fully in the Gospel can help people live more in accordance with what is right and true in God's sight. Yes. As to whether or not people actually did that in this case. The answer is obviously no as far as I see it as if people did this would have never arisen.

pH wrote: »

Now I guess you could argue that maybe others didn't abuse kids because of their beliefs - but the stats just don't seem to back this up.

None of them did. The "stats" don't tell us anything. The fact of the matter is that what is believed by Christians Biblically doesn't encourage this type of behaviour. To claim that their beliefs motivated child abuse is absolutely ridiculous given the rate of sexual abuse outside of the RCC. Rather it just seems that many used their power in the community which arguably they never should have had to do grievous acts.

I have no interest in defending the RCC in this because they are patently wrong. What I will do is separate Christian principles from what actually occurred because that's the rational thing to do.

philologos

robindch wrote: »

The same kind of people who think that their organization and its mission is more important than the rights of children.That's quite a relatively protestant interpretation of the relationship between the individual and the state.

It's a fundamentally Christian one that's been with us since the beginning.

robindch wrote: »

However, as PDN has said quite openly (and I've no doubt most religious people will agree anyway), where the individual religious believer believes that their perceived religious duty is more important than state law, the individual believer will generally stick to the religious duty. And that's what's happened in this case.

I presume you are talking about China here? - I do believe that if freedom of religion is denied that one should still acknowledge and worship God as the Apostles did.

God is the ultimate authority, but the State has been put in place by God. So yeah, you're right, but child abuse is wrong according to God as well as according to man as far as I see it. Covering up crime rather than being honest about it is also wrong according to God and according to man.

robindch wrote: »

The problem is that the religious hierarchy believed, and no doubt still believes, that it's more important than the state. And in that, I don't think it's any different from most individual religious believers.

Even if it did, it is not more important than the God they claim to believe in.

axer

philologos wrote: »

The fact of the matter is that what is believed by Christians Biblically doesn't encourage this type of behaviour. To claim that their beliefs motivated child abuse is absolutely ridiculous given the rate of sexual abuse outside of the RCC.

I dont think the point is that their beliefs motivated child abuse - their beliefs facilitated child abuse.

philologos

axer wrote: »

I dont think the point is that their beliefs motivated child abuse - their beliefs facilitated child abuse.

Christian beliefs don't facilitate child abuse in the slightest. Their power, wealth and the institution did. That's why I condemn the latter not the former. That's simply logical.

Penn

philologos wrote: »

Christian beliefs don't facilitate child abuse in the slightest. Their power, wealth and the institution did. That's why I condemn the latter not the former. That's simply logical.

I agree. It was the Religious Organisation... not the Religion. It was the Priests and Bishops, who were more concerned with protecting their organisation than victims and potential victims.

Happyman42

pH wrote: »

The word "Strawman" is thrown around a lot, mostly in error, but this is one for sure. Nobody is arguing that Christianity itself is a call to abuse children, we all agree that "It's OK (or even encouraged) to have sexual encounters with children" is NOT a central tenet of Christianity. So you arguing against that position is pointless.

While it may not have been a 'tenet' of Christianity, Christianity has historically had a fairly ambiguous attitude to abuse. You only have to take a walk through the Vatican museums to see the thousands of statues and paintings of naked young boys that were acquired by successive popes, 'artistic porn'.
The aspiration to be moral was never quite reached by any pope, including this one.
It is that ambiguity that allows so called 'good' people here to turn a blind eye to what was going on.
Where are the 'good' people of the Irish Catholic church? Why are 'good' priests climbing into pulpits? Shouldn't they be with their flock in the body of the church until the hierarchy respond appropriately. Shouldn't their protest and revolt against this succession of crime be a little more loud and strident?

philologos

^^ Christianity != RCC
RCC is a subset of Christianity. Some not all.

IRISHREDSTAR

The Catholic Church has very weird beliefs in regard to sex; in fact for a celibate cult they are obsessed with sex. Celibacy is abnormal and celibacy combined with the churches nasty views in regard to sex is why the church is full of scumbag paedophiles. The church not only attracts paedophiles it creates them. But this abuse is not just about the church’s dysfunctional sex belief, if it was it could have been fixed long ago. A lot of the church’s abuse against innocent little children was extreme physical and mental abuse from none pedo priests and brothers and nuns. The church has a much bigger problem than sex. The church’s problem is class - the church is really about politics not god. The children abused by the church were and are overwhelming from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. The church provided a very different school experience to children from Blackrock that it did ballyfermot and still does.

Happyman42

philologos wrote: »

^^ Christianity != RCC
RCC is a subset of Christianity. Some not all.

and??

pH

Barrington wrote: »

I agree. It was the Religious Organisation... not the Religion. It was the Priests and Bishops, who were more concerned with protecting their organisation than victims and potential victims.

Can you explain your thinking here, because I genuinely don't see it.

If this is what the problem was, i.e. that the church wanted to protect the organisation rather than see justice for victims (which would have publicly humiliated the church) they could still have moved these priests to monasteries or parochial homes, retreats or shelters, the catholic church has worldwide reach, surely places away from children and far away from where the abuse happened could have been found.

Instead, in many cases, they seem to swept the abuse under the carpet and moved the offender to an identical position in another parish. This behaviour doesn't seem to be in keeping with a desire to protect the church, it seems more like they really didn't see it as a problem, they didn't really care and they protected their own above all others.

and??

Well his Christianity is obviously different*





* for different read "better"

philologos

pH: The beliefs if they were truly held to would have encouraged them to hand over abusers to authorities and to tell the truth.

robindch

philologos wrote: »

I presume you are talking about China here? - I do believe that if freedom of religion is denied that one should still acknowledge and worship God as the Apostles did.

Yes, and "freedom of religion" means what people want it to mean -- like that Chaplin lady with her complaint about wearing a cross around her neck.

philologos wrote: »

God is the ultimate authority, but the State has been put in place by God. So yeah, you're right, but child abuse is wrong according to God as well as according to man as far as I see it. Covering up crime rather than being honest about it is also wrong according to God and according to man.

There are so many mistakes in that paragraph that I'd take all day to respond to each one. The state is set up by humans, not some deity; the christian deity has never condemned child abuse (in fact, it encourages violence on children in the OT); "covering up a crime" is not a crime if the original crime violated one's religious beliefs; see previous post.

What you're not getting from this is that religion frequently licenses people to think and do what they want regardless of state law. This is what's happened with the Vatican.

robindch

philologos wrote: »

pH: The beliefs if they were truly held to would have encouraged them to hand over abusers to authorities and to tell the truth.

No true scotsman.

That's a lousy argument.

pH

philologos wrote: »

pH: The beliefs if they were truly held to would have encouraged them to hand over abusers to authorities and to tell the truth.

So can I take from that that you're saying that "For most of the 60s, 70s and 80s a lot of the Hierarchy of the Irish catholic church weren't Christians"?

I mean someone doesn't truly hold central beliefs of Christianity you can hardly call them a Christian can you?

philologos

robindch wrote: »

No true scotsman.

That's a lousy argument.

I've shown rather clearly that Christian belief (based on the Biblical text) encourages accountability to the State. They failed to do that, therefore I can conclude that they failed to keep to the beliefs they claim to have held to.

Happyman42

philologos wrote: »

pH: The beliefs if they were truly held to would have encouraged them to hand over abusers to authorities and to tell the truth.

.....and should have compelled (the much vaunted) 'good' Irish lay people and clergy to have acted long ago.
At this stage, you can not call; attending mass, contributing to the upkeep of a corrupt institution, as the actions of 'good' people.
As you say the RCC is but a subset of christianity. Our 'good' Catholics need to grasp that fact.

dvpower

pH wrote: »

So can I take from that that you're saying that "For most of the 60s, 70s and 80s a lot of the Hierarchy of the Irish catholic church weren't Christians"?

I mean someone doesn't truly hold central beliefs of Christianity you can hardly call them a Christian can you?

So the Pope isn't a Catholic? :eek:

pH

dvpower wrote: »

So the Pope isn't a Catholic? :eek:

Pope's still a Catholic, we're trying to figure out if he's a Christian!

IRISHREDSTAR

If they were honest they would replace their cross with the swastika

robindch

philologos wrote: »

I've shown rather clearly that Christian belief (based on the Biblical text) encourages accountability to the State.

Yes, and you've already agreed (wrt China) that state law can be ignored if it conflict with religious belief.

You've just demonstrated the same contradiction yourself.

QED.

philologos

We're discussing as to whether or not Christianity encourages and facilitates child abuse. There is no real textual evidence to back that up. There is textual evidence to suggest that Christianity discourages it. That's what I'm going on.

Unless you're comparing the right to believe, worship and pray to God to child abuse?

pH

philologos wrote: »

We're discussing as to whether or not Christianity encourages and facilitates child abuse.

No, you'd LIKE us to be discussing that, because the answer is probably a reasonably simple "no".

We're actually discussing whether we could reasonably expect Christians (based on their beliefs) not to engage in systematic and long term child abuse and then cover it up.

Your answer so far seems to be yes we should expect them not to, therefore they're not Christians.

robindch

philologos wrote: »

Unless you're comparing the right to believe, worship and pray to God to child abuse?

You're still not getting it.

Look, it's quite simple really.

The christians at the top of the catholic church thought that the could ignore the law because they believed that their religious beliefs were more important than the law.

You think that chinese christians can ignore the law because you think that their religious beliefs are more important than the law.

Your beliefs -- while being about different things, and different degrees of seriousness -- are the same.

I can't really make it any simpler than that.

philologos

The Chinese Christians are ignoring the law because they feel that the worship of God is more important than not doing this.

The RCC abuse has nothing to do with belief whatsoever. It has to do with people, greed, power and so on. There is nothing Christian about it.

Knasher

robindch wrote: »

You think that chinese christians can ignore the law because you think that their religious beliefs are more important than the law.

I would argue that Chinese law restricting religion is in violation of the universal declaration of human rights, which China ratified, and that the UDHR takes presidence over any countries law.

IRISHREDSTAR

The Chinese will change the law soon as the church's brainwashing would support the new right wing China.

Skrynesaver

philologos wrote: »

The Chinese Christians are ignoring the law because they feel that the worship of God is more important than not doing this.

The RCC abuse has nothing to do with belief whatsoever. It has to do with people, greed, power and so on. There is nothing Christian about it.

Still not getting it, you believe that obedience to laws that would endanger souls in China is optional for a christian, yes?

So, if the hierarchy of the rcc decide that embarrassment to the church may foster un-belief in their flock, surely they, by the same logic, are obliged to do all in their power to protect holy mother church, rather than see those souls lost to god, no?

philologos

Skrynesaver wrote: »

Still not getting it, you believe that obedience to laws that would endanger souls in China is optional for a christian, yes?

They're not optional. They aren't to be followed if you are a Christian. They would rather be imprisoned. The State is to be followed in so far as they do not revoke God's authority.

Skrynesaver wrote: »

So, if the hierarchy of the rcc decide that embarrassment to the church may foster un-belief in their flock, surely they, by the same logic, are obliged to do all in their power to protect holy mother church, no?

They might decide to do this. Unfortunately for them Christianity demands accountability and honesty. It doesn't encourage hiding from wrongdoing. As I've said already if they really wanted to protect the church the logical option would have been to bring the truth to the Gardaí and have them prosecuted.

Skrynesaver

Anyway, it seems Mr. Gilmore is going to have a chat with the papal nonce in his role as MoFA. I wonder if the whole "you don't have to obey the states law where to do so might embarrass the church" line that Rome peddled to bishop McGee will be brought up and if so will the embassy to Rome remain, after all we do need to make cut-backs

Omentum

I think that anyone that supports a church which covered up and facilatated the rape of children, really need to question who God is. And if he really existed, where was he when the altar boys needed him.

If you want to know god, maybe get out of the church?

axer

Was listening to the radio on the way over to the shop at lunch just there (RTE I think) and there was a Fr. PJ Madden (Association of Catholic Priests) who said that if a priest came to him tomorrow and told him in confession that he has sexually abused a child then he while he would urge the priest to go to the relevant authorities he would not go and tell them himself as his religion is above the law.

Nothing has changed in that f'ucked up organisation.

Penn

robindch wrote: »

You're still not getting it.

Look, it's quite simple really.

The christians at the top of the catholic church thought that the could ignore the law because they believed that their religious beliefs were more important than the law.

Again, I don't think they believed their religious beliefs were more important than the law, moreso I think they believed that their religious organisation was more important than the law, and the victims of this abuse.