Oileán na Marbh

Dionysus

Has anybody read this in this morning's Irish Times?

It was very poignantly written, but it highlights yet another aspect of the unchristian nature of what passed as the principal Christian church in Ireland. Oileán na Marbh is an island off Donegal where a mind-numbing 500 babies are buried. These babies were refused a Christian burial and their parents denied the respect and consideration which their very real suffering deserved. There is a soul-destroying 1200 additional known burial sites for stillborn and unbaptised babies across Ireland. The savagery, abject coldness and sheer inhumanity of the way these parents were treated by a supposedly compassionate and loving Church is staggering.

---

Oileán na Marbh

OILEÁN NA Marbh in Co Donegal tells us much about ourselves and about a society that allowed religion to dictate in the intimate sphere, that suppressed rather than enhanced, that categorised levels of spiritual worthiness and sniffed at those outside the orthodox strait-jacket. Times past, no doubt, but the remnants still linger in the failure of some churchmen to fully take on board the sexual cruelties that were visited on many vulnerable children.

Few will feel proud of a theology that demanded stillborn and unbaptised babies should be laid to rest outside of consecrated ground. Even the coldest heart will feel for women around Ireland who were enjoined to grieve silently as their babies were taken away at night for burial beside a cemetery wall, or for the disconsolate father who had to walk across to Oileán na Marbh at low tide to lay his child to rest.

Séamus Peter Boyle, a founding campaigner to have a plaque erected in honour of the island’s dead, expressed it poignantly. They had all watched the mothers and fathers on the beaches and the pier over the years, some going to the island alone and “we knew but it was never really spoken about”. The 200 people who gathered on this rocky Carrickfinn island last week were there to speak about it, and to honour the 500 babies interred on the island between the Great Famine and 1912 and the immeasurable suffering of their parents. They were there not only on behalf of the island’s dead, but also in a sense for those buried in more than 1,200 known burial sites around the country. They were there to demonstrate that, as Mr Boyle said, “things have changed”.

There is now more sensitivity in how we deal with death generally. Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin has been responding to issues raised by parents about the Angels areas. A Little Lifetime Foundation has continued to comfort, inform and support many couples who have endured stillbirth and neonatal deaths. The Irish Hospice Foundation, through the Forum on End of Life, its Hospice Friendly Hospitals Programme and the Final Journeys project, has brought a professional and compassionate focus to end-of-life issues. The funeral business is tailoring its sometimes costly services to meet changing needs, among them the increasing desire for non-religious funerals, cremation, and a reduction in removals. The regulation of this sector is vital and could be organised at little cost. Like the Oileán na Marbh commemoration, it would enhance the Irish way of doing death.

---

Saila

dionysus wrote:

stillborn babies

longshanks

<SNIP>

Ghandee

<SNIP>
If you think thats funny, you have a sick fücking mind.

Magic Beans

Everything the Catholic Church touches is tainted. They display no Christianity or humanity. I cannot see what purpose they serve.

hondasam

<SNIP>
I assume you find that funny but really it's just nasty, ignorant and insensitive.

Poor Uncle Tom

Dionysus wrote: »

Oileán na Marbh is an island off Donegal where a mind-numbing 500 babies are buried. These babies were refused a Christian burial and their parents denied the respect and consideration which their very real suffering deserved.

How many thousand end up in the buckets of back street clinics every year?

Son Of A Vidic

Magic Beans wrote: »

Everything the Catholic Church touches is tainted. They display no Christianity or humanity. I cannot see what purpose they serve.

Certainly not the man who's message they claim to represent.

wild_cat

Poor Uncle Tom wrote: »

How many thousand end up in the buckets of back street clinics every year?

There's a big difference between wanted full term babies and unwanted zygotes.

Depending on your belief system anyway.

I Heart Internet

There's something unsettling about how easily and completely "the church" (however you want to define it) is given 100% of the blame for these things that happened in all our shared past.

I agree they had a lot of power they could have used to change these situations - but if what many commentators are right and that the church was society and society was the church....isn't it just a little bit slippery of all of us to say that only the fellas wearing the collars were responsible for this. Anyway - where did the fellas in collars come from except out of our own families?

It was a sick society - and it didn't stop at the church.

Amhran Nua

There's a load of these graveyards scattered all over the country I think, there's certainly one in Moycullen in Galway, although nobody likes to talk about it much. Nasty business.

As usual, my response is to seize church properties and assets in the state as penalty for their grievous and ongoing crimes against the people and children of Ireland.

Zebra3

And still the zombies line up to have their kids put into this organisation and to get married in it...... :rolleyes:

wild_cat

I Heart Internet wrote: »

There's something unsettling about how easily and completely "the church" (however you want to define it) is given 100% of the blame for these things that happened in all our shared past.

I agree they had a lot of power they could have used to change these situations - but if what many commentators are right and that the church was society and society was the church....isn't it just a little bit slippery of all of us to say that only the fellas wearing the collars were responsible for this. Anyway - where did the fellas in collars come from except out of our own families?

It was a sick society - and it didn't stop at the church.

It was but no man of god could have been wrong back then....

I presume when your child went into the priest hood it was seen as a direct calling from god.

So I presume what "god" channelled through these people went as law and no one was going to question that.

wild_cat

Amhran Nua wrote: »

There's a load of these graveyards scattered all over the country I think, there's certainly one in Moycullen in Galway, although nobody likes to talk about it much. Nasty business.

My grand aunt buried twins in a very old family grave in a disused grave yard. They had to do it in the middle of the night.

I'd say that happened quite a lot and due to everything being so closed years ago I doubt whole families know they have siblings or relatives randomly buried in family graves.

I Heart Internet

wild_cat wrote: »

It was but no man of god could have been wrong back then....

I presume when your child went into the priest hood it was seen as a direct calling from god.

So I presume what "god" channelled through these people went as law and no one was going to question that.

But then isn't it all (I mean Irish society at that time...many of us weren't born then) of our faults for buying into that attitude. Were judges unaware of the brutal nature of some places they were sending kids to? Did the doctors who patched up kids from orphanages who had "fallen down stairs" really believe it after the first hundred times?

I guess what I'm saying is.....the type of church that many despise now didn't take over this country by force. They were handed it on a plate and asked to do our dirty work.

Amhran Nua

I Heart Internet wrote: »

But then isn't it all (I mean Irish society at that time...many of us weren't born then) of our faults

No, it's not. The idea originated with the church and was perpetuated by the church. It's the fault of the church. The people digging the graves weren't bishops but the guards at Auschwitz weren't generals either. They didn't do what they did because they were German, they did it because someone told them to.

I Heart Internet wrote: »

I guess what I'm saying is.....the type of church that many despise now didn't take over this country by force. They were handed it on a plate and asked to do our dirty work.

The church swooped in on a post colonial state after a particularly brutal few centuries of occupation by a country who viewed the inhabitants as little better than vermin. Ireland was worn to a frazzle, battered and exhausted. So along come the holy joes and say, hey ignore all that other stuff we did to legitimise your indiginity, we'll just buy up a load of this while its cheap, insert ourselves into state services while they are reeling, and yoink, we can play this place like a violin from hell, and we'd know about that.

As for being asked to do our dirty work, have you one iota of evidence to support your accusation about the treatment of stillborn children in pre-Christian Ireland?

ItsAWindUp

An absolute travesty, these women who's babies died before babtism were treated disgracefully, and I should know, my gran was one. Wasn't even allowed to keep the body, it was buried in an unmarked location.

Dyr

We should dig up the remains of a few bishops and catapult them into the sea.

Just for the craic

Insect Overlord

I'd read about that island earlier this year. A fascinating piece of social history, but very, very sad to think too much about it.

The Scientician

I Heart Internet wrote: »

Were judges unaware of the brutal nature of some places they were sending kids to? Did the doctors who patched up kids from orphanages who had "fallen down stairs" really believe it after the first hundred times?

I imagine some judges were just ignorant, others may have felt that the brutal treatment would do the kids some good. Poverty was considered unseemly, sinful by many in our society, for a long, long time. Times have changed immensely with regard to the treatment of children (thanks be to fúck).

In my lifetime it has gone from being acceptable for a non-parent to batter a kid, to socially unacceptable for a parent to administer all but the most symbolic corporal punishment to their kids.

I Heart Internet

Amhran Nua wrote: »

No, it's not. The idea originated with the church and was perpetuated by the church. It's the fault of the church. The people digging the graves weren't bishops but the guards at Auschwitz weren't generals either. They didn't do what they did because they were German, they did it because someone told them to.

So the "just following orders" defence is fine? Covers everything? Everyone can wash their hands of it - it was all the bishops/generals fault.

Amhran Nua wrote: »

we'll just buy up a load of this while its cheap, insert ourselves into state services while they are reeling, and yoink, we can play this place like a violin from hell, and we'd know about that.

The RCC was delivering "state services" in Ireland long before 1921 and long before they were "state services". I don't doubt they muscled into prime position after independence (or I would say were invited in with trumpets blaring by a state desperate for credibility) but the vast health and education infrastucture developed by the RCC before independence did serve real people and was far from all bad.

Amhran Nua wrote: »

As for being asked to do our dirty work, have you one iota of evidence to support your accusation about the treatment of stillborn children in pre-Christian Ireland?

I used dirty work refering to the provision of (ridiculously inadequate) care for kids taken off parents (by the state).
I have no evidence at all of how pre-Christian Ireland treated stillborn babies. I have no doubt in some ways they may have been more humane than we are even now. But are you saying pre-Christian ireland was a better, safer, all-round-lovelier place to raise a child than 20th century Ireland? Really?

steddyeddy

Dionysus wrote: »

Has anybody read this in this morning's Irish Times?

It was very poignantly written, but it highlights yet another aspect of the unchristian nature of what passed as the principal Christian church in Ireland. Oileán na Marbh is an island off Donegal where a mind-numbing 500 babies are buried. These babies were refused a Christian burial and their parents denied the respect and consideration which their very real suffering deserved. There is a soul-destroying 1200 additional known burial sites for stillborn and unbaptised babies across Ireland. The savagery, abject coldness and sheer inhumanity of the way these parents were treated by a supposedly compassionate and loving Church is staggering.

---

Oileán na Marbh

OILEÁN NA Marbh in Co Donegal tells us much about ourselves and about a society that allowed religion to dictate in the intimate sphere, that suppressed rather than enhanced, that categorised levels of spiritual worthiness and sniffed at those outside the orthodox strait-jacket. Times past, no doubt, but the remnants still linger in the failure of some churchmen to fully take on board the sexual cruelties that were visited on many vulnerable children.

Few will feel proud of a theology that demanded stillborn and unbaptised babies should be laid to rest outside of consecrated ground. Even the coldest heart will feel for women around Ireland who were enjoined to grieve silently as their babies were taken away at night for burial beside a cemetery wall, or for the disconsolate father who had to walk across to Oileán na Marbh at low tide to lay his child to rest.

Séamus Peter Boyle, a founding campaigner to have a plaque erected in honour of the island’s dead, expressed it poignantly. They had all watched the mothers and fathers on the beaches and the pier over the years, some going to the island alone and “we knew but it was never really spoken about”. The 200 people who gathered on this rocky Carrickfinn island last week were there to speak about it, and to honour the 500 babies interred on the island between the Great Famine and 1912 and the immeasurable suffering of their parents. They were there not only on behalf of the island’s dead, but also in a sense for those buried in more than 1,200 known burial sites around the country. They were there to demonstrate that, as Mr Boyle said, “things have changed”.

There is now more sensitivity in how we deal with death generally. Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin has been responding to issues raised by parents about the Angels areas. A Little Lifetime Foundation has continued to comfort, inform and support many couples who have endured stillbirth and neonatal deaths. The Irish Hospice Foundation, through the Forum on End of Life, its Hospice Friendly Hospitals Programme and the Final Journeys project, has brought a professional and compassionate focus to end-of-life issues. The funeral business is tailoring its sometimes costly services to meet changing needs, among them the increasing desire for non-religious funerals, cremation, and a reduction in removals. The regulation of this sector is vital and could be organised at little cost. Like the Oileán na Marbh commemoration, it would enhance the Irish way of doing death.

---

I find it hard to find an instance where the catholic church has been anything but cold and uncaring towards the people of Ireland.

steddyeddy

ItsAWindUp wrote: »

An absolute travesty, these women who's babies died before babtism were treated disgracefully, and I should know, my gran was one. Wasn't even allowed to keep the body, it was buried in an unmarked location.

My uncle was buried in a paupers grave (he died at 5) the catholic church wouldnt afford him a decent burial without money. I think their an example of a negative force in this country and frankly the onus is on them to prove otherwise.

steddyeddy

I Heart Internet wrote: »

So the "just following orders" defence is fine? Covers everything? Everyone can wash their hands of it - it was all the bishops/generals fault.




The RCC was delivering "state services" in Ireland long before 1921 and long before they were "state services". I don't doubt they muscled into prime position after independence (or I would say were invited in with trumpets blaring by a state desperate for credibility) but the vast health and education infrastucture developed by the RCC before independence did serve real people and was far from all bad.



I used dirty work refering to the provision of (ridiculously inadequate) care for kids taken off parents (by the state).
I have no evidence at all of how pre-Christian Ireland treated stillborn babies. I have no doubt in some ways they may have been more humane than we are even now. But are you saying pre-Christian ireland was a better, safer, all-round-lovelier place to raise a child than 20th century Ireland? Really?

The celts had divorce, women were afforded more rights and they didnt have this catholic guilt that a lot of people have now. They were far more advanced socially than the typical catholic.

knird evol

I Heart Internet...... reference your source that medics or doctors were called to industrial schools to tend kids being raped and beaten.

steddyeddy

knird evol wrote: »

I Heart Internet...... reference your source that medics or doctors were called to industrial schools to tend kids being raped and beaten.

Chrisitne Buckley stated that it was the case, she also said inspectors who called to the school knew what was going on.

mikemac

Limbo existed for centuries

Then suddenly they declared it didn't exist
Strange

steddyeddy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv6DUajEkEY

This lady is my hero by any criteria she is a saint and someone I would look to for courage and someone who could describe the nature of the catholic church in ireland. Here shes describes her trips to the hospital were she wasnt beleived about the beatings.

prinz

What do the hospitals do today with the remains of miscarried or stillbirth? Medical waste isn't it?

Logical Fallacy

Dionysus wrote: »

The savagery, abject coldness and sheer inhumanity of the way these parents were treated by a supposedly compassionate and loving Church is staggering.

In 1912 the Church wasn't running with the image of compassion and love they attempt today...they were just the Church, they represented God and we will all evil sinners on the way to hell. They were right and had the power, we were wrong and cowed by them.

Not disagreeing with your sentiment at all...just pointing out that Church have long embraced cruelty and have inflicted suffering on people for centuries.

This new touchy feely Church is a recent thing, and they even got that wrong.

Amhran Nua

I Heart Internet wrote: »

So the "just following orders" defence is fine? Covers everything? Everyone can wash their hands of it - it was all the bishops/generals fault.

The whole body of actions resulting from the teachings of the Catholic church are the responsibility of the Catholic church. Would people have buried stillborn babes in unmarked graves if it were not for the teachings of the church? So yes, the church is wholly responsible.

I Heart Internet wrote: »

The RCC was delivering "state services" in Ireland long before 1921 and long before they were "state services". I don't doubt they muscled into prime position after independence (or I would say were invited in with trumpets blaring by a state desperate for credibility) but the vast health and education infrastucture developed by the RCC before independence did serve real people and was far from all bad.

The hypocrisy of the church in strongarming its way into an important position in a fragile young state after centuries of condemning those who fought for the freedom of that state, (such as the wretched Cardinal Logue, who said the government could not be faulted for punishing - executing - the 1916 leaders) is quite typical of the theocratic doublespeak representatives of the church come out with.

I Heart Internet wrote: »

I used dirty work refering to the provision of (ridiculously inadequate) care for kids taken off parents (by the state).

I'm quite sure some of those children would have rather taken their chances anywhere else than in the loving arms of the church.

I Heart Internet wrote: »

I have no evidence at all of how pre-Christian Ireland treated stillborn babies. I have no doubt in some ways they may have been more humane than we are even now. But are you saying pre-Christian ireland was a better, safer, all-round-lovelier place to raise a child than 20th century Ireland? Really?

It would certainly have been better had the church kept its grubby hands away from Ireland.

Since there aren't any time machines however, we'll have to settle for throwing them out on their ears today.

I Heart Internet

knird evol wrote: »

I Heart Internet...... reference your source that medics or doctors were called to industrial schools to tend kids being raped and beaten.

From the Ryan Report:

See Volume III Chapters 6 and 8 as well as Volume IV Chapter 3 for a more wideranging discussion on the society's attitude to the schools.

http://www.childabusecommission.ie

6.37Witnesses reported being assessed and treated for normal childhood accidental injuries and illnesses as well as physical injuries resulting from assault while resident in the Schools. Medical inspections, on-site infirmaries, immunisation and dental treatment were reported by many witnesses, as indicated in the following table:
Table 17: Types of Healthcare Reported – Male Industrial and Reformatory Schools
Healthcare Number of reports Infirmary available 228 Nurse available 185 Doctor attendance 115 Hospital attendance 106 Dental care 65 Immunisation 53 Medical inspection 29 Source: Confidential Committee of CICA, 2009


Evil stuff went on..carried out by criminal, evil people and covered up by others. I don't think it's shocking to say that some professionals (ie people with some bit of influence) including gardai, judges, doctors and politicians knew about it. A number (as can be seen in the Ryan Report) were moved to try and changes things, others were not it seems.

I Heart Internet

prinz wrote: »

What do the hospitals do today with the remains of miscarried or stillbirth? Medical waste isn't it?

I don't think that's true at all. In Ireland at least. I'm sure it's now handled quite sensitively by all concerned.

I do know of a couple (from ireland) who returned to ireland from another EU state to give birth to their (very early, very sick) baby because if it had been done (the induction) in the country they lived in the body would have been catagorised as "for disposal" (because it was too few weeks) rather than given back to them for burial.

I Heart Internet

Amhran Nua wrote: »

I'm quite sure some of those children would have rather taken their chances anywhere else than in the loving arms of the church.

I have no doubt that's true, and many would have got on better, but as I keep saying - society decided that they should be locked up in these institutions. Priests weren't going around the country with butterfly nets catching children. They were sent and delivered to these institutions.

Amhran Nua

I Heart Internet wrote: »

I have no doubt that's true, and many would have got on better, but as I keep saying - society decided that they should be locked up in these institutions. Priests weren't going around the country with butterfly nets catching children. They were sent and delivered to these institutions.

Of course church apologists are happy to spread around the blame as far as possible, since they make the culpability of the church less by doing so.

Why, we the Irish taxpayers are even now forking over our tax euros to cover compensation claims against priests as far away as the USA. Spreading the blame has a quantifiable dollar value it seems.

Let's look for a bit at the attitude of the church towards those Irish men and women who fought for the freedom of the Republic for a moment, shall we? Prior to the formation of the Irish state, the church roundly condemned all those who raised arms against the empire, declaring the fires of hell were not hot enough for them, a comment which one rebel ironically pointed out was accusing god of having failed to create perfection.

And yet after the formation of the Republic, the church moved in with full pomp and ceremony, wedging itself as strongly as it could into state apparatus, which it the leveraged to rape children, as it has in many other countries, as it is to this very day in places like the Philippines.

But this is a curious thing - since the church claims to speak with the immutable word of god, why did the word or opinion of god change after the church saw an opportunity to gain power in Ireland?

Is it possible that the church doesn't speak for anyone's god, but simply exists as a self perpetuating organisation whose only goal is its own continuation and enrichment with a flimsy fig leaf of religious verbosity?

I would say so. I think any right minded person would say so. And the time is long due for everyone to recognise this truth and act on it.

prinz

I Heart Internet wrote: »

I don't think that's true at all. In Ireland at least. I'm sure it's now handled quite sensitively by all concerned..

Pretty sure it is. A foetus has to reach a certain weight and age before even the stillbirth can be officially recognised in Ireland. Before that it's a non-entity. It is handled sensitively - counselling etc being on hand in the hospital bit AFAIK you have to go through a long and official process, form-filling etc to keep the remains. Otherwise the hospital takes care of cremation.

smash

prinz wrote: »

What do the hospitals do today with the remains of miscarried or stillbirth? Medical waste isn't it?

A miscarriage and a stillbirth is very different. A miscarriage is usually early in the pregnancy and would be unrecognisable. A stillbirth is usually a developed baby carried full term. Hardly medical waste by any means.

prinz

smash wrote: »

A miscarriage and a stillbirth is very different. A miscarriage is usually early in the pregnancy and would be unrecognisable. A stillbirth is usually a developed baby carried full term. Hardly medical waste by any means.

For a recognised stillbirth to be registered the pregnancy has to have gone 24 weeks and the foetus weight at least 500g, so no it doesn't have to be full term. Anything before that is deemed a miscarriage, even if only by a few days.

smash

prinz wrote: »

For a recognised stillbirth to be registered the pregnancy has to have gone 24 weeks and the foetus weight at least 500g, so no it doesn't have to be full term. Anything before that is deemed a miscarriage, even if only by a few days.

Shall I reiterate what I said?

"A stillbirth is usually a developed baby carried full term"

prinz

smash wrote: »

Shall I reiterate what I said?
"A stillbirth is usually a developed baby carried full term"

Great, so a miscarriage is usually at the beginning and a stillbirth is usually at the end. What bearing does that have on anything that went before?

Blisterman

I'm not defending the Catholic Church here, but I think a lot of people are looking at this based on modern day morals and ideals.

In the 19th century infant mortality was so high, that more women would have lost a child at some point than not. Out of necessity, parents emotionally distanced themselves from their infant children, so they weren't really considered "people" so to say, until they reached an older age.

Of course it's shocking, but I bet if you compared Ireland to other countries at the time, it wouldn't be that different a situation.

smash

prinz wrote: »

Great, so a miscarriage is usually at the beginning and a stillbirth is usually at the end. What bearing does that have on anything that went before?

What exactly are you talking about prinz? A stillbirth is a baby that is born dead, a miscarriage is not.

A stillbirth is in no way medical waste. A miscarriage is, because it usually requires a D&C to remove it.

anyway, this is all OT.

Neyite

smash wrote: »

A miscarriage is, because it usually requires a D&C to remove it.

Not quite. A D&C is only required when tissue remains after a certain timeframe, or in the event of a missed miscarriage (where there is no bleeding but scan shows no growth) and is removed to prevent infection. Women who miscarry monitor their HCG hormone by way of continious pregnancy tests. Once the test shows a negative, then no tissue remains.

As far as I know, women are given drugs now that assists in clearing the tissue before D&C is suggested

prinz

Blisterman wrote: »

Of course it's shocking, but I bet if you compared Ireland to other countries at the time, it wouldn't be that different a situation.

Indeed. Nothing out of the ordinary or restricted to Catholics unfortunately.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-11571783

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/21/unmarked-graves-children-protestant-home-dublin

A related concern was the issue of disposal of stillborn children.30 Before stillbirth registration, stillborn babies could be buried without the production to the gravedigger of any forms of medical certificate or declaration statutorily required in Scotland.31 The Scottish Board of Health advised that there was no legal obligation on doctors to certify a child stillborn in either Scotland or England, and that it was not the general practice among doctors to do so. They added that it ‘frequently happen[ed] that bodies of still-born children [were] buried in places other than cemeteries or Burial Grounds’

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2808697/

the purple tin

Who came up with the catholic church's policies in Ireland?
Did Irish bishops and cardinals make the rules for Irish catholics or did everything have to come straight from the Pope/Vatican?

I Heart Internet

Amhran Nua wrote: »

Of course church apologists are happy to spread around the blame as far as possible, since they make the culpability of the church less by doing so.

Why, we the Irish taxpayers are even now forking over our tax euros to cover compensation claims against priests as far away as the USA. Spreading the blame has a quantifiable dollar value it seems.

Or maybe it's right to actually investigate and root out all the answers to all the questions so we can make sure none of this can ever happen again. Maybe people want all the answers? Not just the convenient ones. As a fan of history you would surely want the record to show (as I believe it does in the various reports) the full, awful truth.

Amhran Nua wrote: »

But this is a curious thing - since the church claims to speak with the immutable word of god, why did the word or opinion of god change after the church saw an opportunity to gain power in Ireland?

Is it possible that the church doesn't speak for anyone's god, but simply exists as a self perpetuating organisation whose only goal is its own continuation and enrichment with a flimsy fig leaf of religious verbosity?

I would say so. I think any right minded person would say so. And the time is long due for everyone to recognise this truth and act on it.

Hold the presses. This just in: "Church Really a Political Entity".

Those people living under a rock since c.300 AD will be shocked at your discovery.

Amhran Nua

I Heart Internet wrote: »

Or maybe it's right to actually investigate and root out all the answers to all the questions so we can make sure none of this can ever happen again. Maybe people want all the answers? Not just the convenient ones. As a fan of history you would surely want the record to show (as I believe it does in the various reports) the full, awful truth.

Oh sure, there's blame to go around. But lets not forget it was the hypocritical child molester protecting organisation that set up the environment to make it happen.

Here's how these conversations usually go.

You tell me that it was the fault of the Irish state, and I tell you that it was the fault of the church.

You tell me that all Irish society was sick and to blame, I tell you that it was the church's influence that made it sick.

You tell me that there's something endemically wrong with Irish society and people and the church isn't to blame, I ask you whether or not you are insinuating that Irish people have a natural prediliction towards child molestation. You say not in as many words and I link to studies showing that the prevalence of paedophilia in Ireland is among the lowest in the world, which is also supported by the obvious fact that the church is getting sued for molesting children in many other countries. You hit the report button as a last resort.

I Heart Internet wrote: »

Hold the presses. This just in: "Church Really a Political Entity".

Those people living under a rock since c.300 AD will be shocked at your discovery.

Excellent, I'm glad you've abandoned the pretense of the church as holding a shred of spiritual or moral authority. Can we tax its takings and regulate it as a private limited company already? Don't worry about masses and rituals, we can get tech support from Dell to say those, they have as much religious authority as any priest of the Catholic church. Lord knows they're used to reading the answers out of a book.

Wolfe Tone

Let me get this straight, the babies weren't baptized so they couldn't get buried in a catholic graveyard, is this what this is about?

I Heart Internet

Amhran Nua wrote: »

You tell me that it was the fault of the Irish state, and I tell you that it was the fault of the church.

You tell me that all Irish society was sick and to blame, I tell you that it was the church's influence that made it sick.

You tell me that there's something endemically wrong with Irish society and people and the church isn't to blame, I ask you whether or not you are insinuating that Irish people have a natural prediliction towards child molestation. You say not in as many words and I link to studies showing that the prevalence of paedophilia in Ireland is among the lowest in the world, which is also supported by the obvious fact that the church is getting sued for molesting children in many other countries. You hit the report button as a last resort.

No. At no time did I ever say the church wasn't to blame. I just said others were too. You seem to hold the absolute position that no one outside the institutional chuch is to blame for the abuse of kids

Amhran Nua wrote: »

Excellent, I'm glad you've abandoned the pretense of the church as holding a shred of spiritual or moral authority.

I never offered that view. What makes you think i did?

Amhran Nua

I Heart Internet wrote: »

No. At no time did I ever say the church wasn't to blame. I just said others were too. You seem to hold the absolute position that no one outside the institutional chuch is to blame for the abuse of kids

Certainly the source of the problems can be found within the institutional church.

I Heart Internet wrote: »

I never offered that view. What makes you think i did?

So you'd be happy enough with taxing church income and assets as a private limited company?

prinz

Amhran Nua wrote: »

So you'd be happy enough with taxing church income and assets as a private limited company?

:pac: Good one.