Willie O'Dea & Michael Noonan and Bishop of Limerick

watchingthepols

With all the tough talk (well deserved) in the Dail today about Catholic Church sex abuse, its easy to forget how our politicians walked around genuflecting to them until very recently.

Remember two years ago when the Bishop of Limerick was under pressure to resign?

Willie O'Dea's contribution was along the lines of

"Speaking on RTE's The Week in Politics last night, Minister Willie O'Dea said be believes Dr Murray, whom he knows personally, will make the "appropriate decision."

However, when asked on national radio this morning whether he believed the Bishop should go, Minister O'Dea replied: "Not really."

Typical O'Dea speak.


And Michael Noonan wasn't any better & he showed the same lack of balls

"Deputy Noonan described the contents of the Murphy report as "absolutely appalling", but again did not feel it would appropriate to give his own view on whether the bishop should resign."


Those Ball less wonders O'Dea & Noonan were shamed by the honesty of the McCloskey family.

"The family of a man who alleged abuse and who died tragically in 2006, following a meeting with representatives of Limerick's Catholic diocese, have called for Bishop Murray's resignation.

Peter McCloskey, 37, was found dead on April 1, 2006, two days after mediation talks with diocesan representatives.

The late Mr McCloskey alleged he had been abused in 1980/81 by Fr Denis Daly, a priest ordained for Sydney who served in Limerick from 1978 until his death aged 61 in 1987.

His father Aidan said of his deceased son's experience that "a criminal would have been treated better by the bishop. "

http://www.limerickleader.ie/news/local/o_dea_quot_i_didn_t_say_the_bishop_should_resign_quot_1_2190723

goingpostal

It will take much more than Kenny's words in the Dail yesterday, to ensure that these horrific crimes perpetrated by the RC Church against children stop and are prevented from happening in the future.

Liam Byrne

Well whatever about the other two, you hardly expected O'Dea to do the right thing ?

He'll only accuse people of crimes when they're not involved; but when they are involved he'll cover his own ass (no pun intended) and spout vague, non-commital rubbish.

Kess73

goingpostal wrote: »

It will take much more than Kenny's words in the Dail yesterday, to ensure that these horrific crimes perpetrated by the RC Church against children stop and are prevented from happening in the future.

Very true. But at least it was a step in the right direction. Never has a high ranked politician in this country, let alone the leader of the country, spoken out so strongly against the Vatican and the horrific crimes committed against children in this country.

goingpostal

Kess73 wrote: »

Very true. But at least it was a step in the right direction. Never has a high ranked politician in this country, let alone the leader of the country, spoken out so strongly against the Vatican and the horrific crimes committed against children in this country.

I agree with you. It is definitely a step in the right direction. When I first heard about Kenny's speech to the Dail, my antipathy towards Enda and FG led me to think "So what, nice words but they are only words". However, thinking about it more afterwards, I can't remember the elected head of any nation, which has a large catholic population, attacking the Church's institutional cover-up of child-rape so forcefully. It is also easy to forget how utterly craven and beholden to Rome most of Kenny's predecessors as Taoiseach have been. I really hope it marks a turning point in the relationship between the Irish State and the Vatican. However, I have come to see many parallels between the Vatican and that other Italian organised crime syndicate, La Cosa Nostra. The Vatican has had a lot longer to accumulate its temporal power. Speeches in national parliaments, no matter how good, are easy for them to bat away and ignore. The speech will have to be followed with actions that hits the Vatican where it hurts, if it is not ultimately to ring hollow.

Kess73

goingpostal wrote: »

I agree with you. It is definitely a step in the right direction. When I first heard about Kenny's speech to the Dail, my antipathy towards Enda and FG led me to think "So what, nice words but they are only words". However, thinking about it more afterwards, I can't remember the elected head of any nation, which has a large catholic population, attacking the Church's institutional cover-up of child-rape so forcefully. It is also easy to forget how utterly craven and beholden to Rome most of Kenny's predecessors as Taoiseach have been. I really hope it marks a turning point in the relationship between the Irish State and the Vatican. However, I have come to see many parallels between the Vatican and that other Italian organised crime syndicate, La Cosa Nostra. The Vatican has had a lot longer to accumulate its temporal power. Speeches in national parliaments, no matter how good, are easy for them to bat away and ignore. The speech will have to be followed with actions that hits the Vatican where it hurts, if it is not ultimately to ring hollow.

Yep it is the fact that he was so outspoken in terms of what he said, and the fact he is the leader of the government in a country where past leaders have kept very quiet over what was happening.

I think, as you also do, that the strong words need to be followed by strong actions. But I am willing to give Kenny the benefit of the doubt for a few years on those actions as the law in this country can be very slow at the best of times.

If in two or three years we see a number of the abusers getting locked up and treated like the life destroying scum they are, then Kenny will have been the man who headed the first government of this country to make a real stand against the Vatican and against the evil element that hids behind the name of the Catholic church in Ireland.

I also strongly feel that any man or woman who knew about abuse that was happening on their watch and being done by people working for them, but who turned a blind eye to it should be vilified and hit with the full force of the law based on anything they can be charged with.

If a person is a sexual predator, serial abuser or whatever tag they get, then the fact the stand up on an altar and preach to people should not stop them from being treated like any other sicko that abuses other people.

I see that Donal Murray out and about every now and then and whilst I would not be abusive to the man, I just look at him the same way a person would look at the sole of their shoe after they stood in dogsh1t.

I also would not refer to him by any of the titles which he was allowed to keep as in my mind there is no way a man who had incidents of abuse reported to him, abuse that was being committed by a sexual predator with a priest collar, and who decided to do nothing at all, and not even follow up on it, deserves to keep his fancy title and have people treating him like he is an injured party. Children were abused on his watch. He was told about this abuse and looked the other way when it was happening in his time in Dublin and then it came to light that complaints of abuse to children were not looked into during his time in Limerick. By not acting in any way, his inaction protected the abusers and allowed more children to have their lives ruined imho.

Inaction by people of power is what allows the scum to abuse over and over, and it protects the scum from the law.

goingpostal

^^^
That is an accurate and succinct description of what I think is the second, and in some ways more horrifying, part of the child-rape scandal. The first part is the horrific crimes perpetrated by thousands of serially-offending priests against countless children. The second part is the reaction of the entire so-called hierarchy to this scandal, from the priests and nuns who were colleagues to the rapist priests all the way up to the Pope, whether it be Karol Wojtyla or Josef Ratzinger. Anyone who knew of children being harmed, and who kept silent and didn't do their utmost to bring the perpetrator to justice and protect other children from becoming future victims, bears a huge amount of guilt on their shoulders. At almost every turn and at almost every opportunity, they put the "reputation" of their organisation above and before the safety of children and the right to justice for the children who had been grievously harmed. Anyone who went to the church seeking justice was met with denial, offers of hush-money in exchange for their perpetual silence, threats, slander and defamation of the victim. Rarely, if ever, were they treated with the respect and dignity they deserved. It really was a case of insult being added to injury, the original harm being compounded. The treatment of Peter McCloskey when he sought justice and recognition for his suffering, which was cited in the OP, has been repeated in every parish, in every country in the world where the church has a substantial following.

It seems pretty obvious to me that these preachers in their silly costumes don't believe their own dogma. They obviously don't meditate on the meaning of Matthew 18:6 too much. If these so-called holy men truly believed in the existence of eternal punishment, they wouldn't act as callously as they do.

I read a book last year, called Losing My Religion by William Lobdell. It is written by a major newspapers' religion correspondent who covered a lot of the child abuse scandals in the USA over the last decade, and how it effected his catholic faith. At one point he used a very good analogy to describe the whole scandal. If I was walking through a zoo, and as I was walking through the big cats section, a man-eating tiger jumped through the open door of his cage and mauled me, who should I blame more, the tiger for mauling me or the zoo-keeper who left his cage unlocked?