Fall of the Catholic Church

Juran

The beginning of the fall of the Catholic Church in Ireland (via @IrishTimes) https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/the-beginning-of-the-fall-of-the-catholic-church-in-ireland-1.4871562

Its hard to believe the power they had over the state up to very recent years. NMH lands is still a debate, but I'm glad people can chose to follow religion (if they wish).

ancapailldorcha

It'd be nice if you could have given some summary and opinion of the article instead of just pasting it here.

I don't know what he was expecting. The Church historically has been crucial for developing things like Irish identity, education and hopsital but in the past few decades all we've seen from them is pontificating and child abuse on an industrial scale.

Personally, I think that the sooner we're done with religion as a species, the better.

growleaves

The fall of the Catholic Church in Ireland as a social system with political power.

But Irish people were becoming atheists in the 1960s and it was ultimately that, and not this or that scandal, that did it for Christianity in Ireland imo.

Otherwise people could have joined other Christian churches, set up a new Christian church from scratch or demanded a cleansing/reformation of the CC from the clergy.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119026923#Comment_119026923

I think it's extremely likely that if someone was prone to becoming an atheist, the atrocities perpetuated by the church would have served as a catalyst.

Montage of Feck

While most of southern Europe had overtly political conservative regimes, such as Franco is Spain, we just had a conservative regime that was veiled behind pious alter rail licking.

Manach

The bien-pensants have been perdicting the downfall of Catholic/Catholicism for centuries but we are still here. I can understand those horrifed the Churches handling of abuse cases which should have been better handled, however when it almost always devolves into the superficial virtue signalling as it rarely extends to the states/other institutions handing of the much more prevalent historical aspects of it both in Ireland in other Western countries, as this does not suit their agenda of anti-religiousity. The Church provided and still provides a sense community and coherent world view, as opposed to the nihilistic cultural marxist that both elevates the individual vice and leads to a system where the all encompassing state has taken over policing of a whatever changing current ideological fads.

That there are now radio adverts promoting hotlines to report wrong-think sums up the moral vacuum that is post-Catholic Ireland.

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119026931#Comment_119026931

Sure. But my point is that robotic social conformity is not a good reason to be a Christian. Nor is it a good reason to be an atheist and political liberal.

People should read the Gospel of John and decide for themselves what to believe rather than claiming that their thoughts and actions are a second-hand reaction to corrupt institutions and leaders that they have no control over.

Dyr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058244816/fall-of-the-catholic-church

The rise of the church of our lady of Dublin 4

They're nearly as bad as the previous lot

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119027007#Comment_119027007

I never advocated for robotic social conformity.

There are several million things one could read with arguably more value than a gospel. The Church's ideology did nothing to stop the mass sexual abuse so it's already of dubious worth from that perspective.

The sanitised John gospel is unlikely to be a good representation of the Church's ideology.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119026923#Comment_119026923

Great point. It was the growing atheism made the exposure of the scandal possible not the other way round.

As for this new bishop he seems to have very little self awareness as to why the Ivory tower is crumbling in his little sob story speech

Ginger83

Religion and land, the two main causes of war and all things evil.

The sooner it's gone the better. It is nothing other than a way used to control people.

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119027018#Comment_119027018

"The sanitised John gospel is unlikely to be a good representation of the Church's ideology."

???

I'm not advocating for "the Church's ideology".

The Gospel of John is a short memoir of someone who knew Jesus Christ and recounts his actions, things he said and what happened to him. Its a starting point for anyone who is open to becoming a Christian (which doesn't include you, I guess).

A person's beliefs shouldn't hinge on the actions of some other person or people (a bishop in Galway or whatever) who they can't control. That's the point I'm making.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119026999#Comment_119026999

"Better handled" is a pretty unique way of describing how the church seemed to follow the exact same strategy of covering up sexual abuse across the globe. This included allowing for priests to continue abusing. The fact you seem to believe that people being angered by the church's role as "virtue signalling" is unsurprising though.

Fyi, I can point to people of all ages who have somewhat turned on the church as a result of the scandals. That's not everyone virtue signalling...

downtheroad

Good luck lads, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119027091#Comment_119027091

Don't forget he thinks not treating homosexuals as evil and women as 2nd class property are "ideological fads"

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119027107#Comment_119027107

Its 2022 and these lads are still openly discriminating against women and homosexuals. Any other organisation would be admonished over this.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119027091#Comment_119027091

It's the standard "Any criticism of the Church is virtue signallaing" defence, ie nothing.

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119027120#Comment_119027120

Admonishment is pointless since everyone understands that Christian doctrine can't be altered to make it "gay-friendly". Therefore it can only be tolerated or persecuted, so its tolerated.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119027124#Comment_119027124

It seems like multiple buzz words to imply it is just some leftist agenda against the church. Woke is gonna be exclaimed shortly.

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119027137#Comment_119027137

Well not for much longer reading than article. A slow persecution by people choosing to move away from the organisation.

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119027155#Comment_119027155

You can control people's actions but not their thoughts. I don't know what coercing people to simulate openness to things that are against their deepest beliefs is meant to achieve.

XsApollo

That organisation still hasn’t changed, just because in Ireland they have been pushed back against and had to change their ways, they still behave the same in other countries. The Philipines for example.

Bunch of animals, that organisation is, don’t ever forget what they did.

Also don’t ever be fooled that they have changed.

if they had their way they would still be shaming and making people suffer.

good riddance, the sooner it is gone the better.

Ceramic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119026979#Comment_119026979

I think in some ways we had a continuation of Late Victorian and Edwardian British social conservatism that added a layer of an extremely conservative interpretation of Catholicism that wrapped itself around nationalism in a totally inappropriate way.

Many of the institutions that grew up around education and health are basically just a failure to reform 19th century concepts of Poor Law systems - we effectively were running privately operated Workhouses just rebadged as Magdalene Laundries and industrial schools well into the 20th century.

The state seemed to have largely turned a blind eye and stepped aside, almost voluntarily confining itself to areas that the church didn’t dominate. It didn’t touch primary and secondary education and health etc other than to expand its funding of it essentially through 19th century structures that remained unreformed.

It was a mess and I think in many ways we are only seeing Ireland begin to move through the kinds of reforms that were seen elsewhere in Northern Europe, in Britain and in the more developed of the former British colonies like Canada and Australia decades sooner than they happened here.

It often feels a bit like Ireland froze in the 1920s and didn’t have any of the post war reforms that were seen in Britain and elsewhere really until the 1970s and beyond.

The boat just wasn’t rocked and the church held and was allowed to grow and concentrate a totally inappropriate amount of power, in a political climate that was extremely weak and usually focused on other issues and an economy that didn’t really have much resources to take projects on.

I also think the church very much exploited a class divide that’s essentially Victorian too. The establishment experience of church institutions was very much through fee paying schools and private hospitals. They never had to depend on the church operated services in the same way. There was a huge swathe of suburbia that only ever saw lovely nuns and priests. It was the working class people and anyone who fell outside the norms (notably women who got pregnant outside marriage) who experienced the brutality of those institutions directly.

The result of that I think was an establishment that didn’t see the problems or chose to look away. In a lot of cases as they just didn’t experience the then first hand or had ways to side step them, but or the extreme cases saw them as “good enough for them” and there was an obsession with respectability.

Effectively I think Ireland was lost in some kind of Catholic Dickensian weirdness for far too long and the factors behind that are numerous. They include the church’s ambitions to control, but they also include a weak political system that never took the bull by the horns and was easily manipulated and kept in line.

We’re largely past it now but I think there’s a risk of a nostalgia being generated by some about bygone eras that were just awful in reality.

donaghs

Lots of hypocrites coming out of the woodwork now:

"“It was seismic. The Bishop Casey affair! The beginning of the end of trust in mitred men. Eamonn Casey’s big, blustering personality had seemed endearingly chummy to many people,” said former president, Mary McAleese this week."

I'm fairly sure McAleese was a staunch Catholic in 1992, and beyond. Its only in the last few years she's the Catholic who doesn't like the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church isn't the only religion/institution in Ireland. I think we need to analyse what we don't like about it, and prevent that from happening in other areas of life again. now, and in the future.

Not allowing "sacred cows" to be above investigation. e.g. successful swimming coaches.

Don't tolerate intolerance to women and gay people, e.g. mainstream Islam (Clonskeagh, etc) goes far beyond the Catholic Church in this regard.

Don't allow one organization/doctrine have a commanding position to preach their views to everyone else, and refuse to engage in debate, effectively denouncing anyone who disagrees with them as heretics or sinners.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119027185#Comment_119027185

I fully believe they would do it all again in Ireland given the chance.

I don't trust the motives of any religious organizations

HazeDoll

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119026999#Comment_119026999

"... but we are still here."

Things that hang around long after you have tried to get rid of them:

Herpes.

Japanese knotweed.

Unpleasant neighbours.

Catholics.

Posters here have condemned an organisation that oppressed and abused on a global scale while claiming to be a moral authority. You accuse these posters of 'virtue signalling.' Surely you can see why that is ridiculous. I know that people of a theological bent are adept at the sort of cognitive backflips that would scramble the rest of us for life, but you can surely see the hypocrisy in your statement.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119027023#Comment_119027023

It was the growing atheism made the exposure of the scandal possible not the other way round

Rubbish. Many of the key people in discovering and reporting the scandals were Catholics, and probably still are. There is a difference between belief and the adherence to dogma. Social conditioning was the cause of the ignoring of the Church offenses, and that affected Atheists in Ireland, just as much as anyone else... considering the widespread established effect that the Catholic Church had on Irish society. It should be remembered that there were Catholic priests and nuns who went against their own orders to attest to those abuses existing.

There is this revisionism being applied when it comes to the abuses and scandals where the whole religion is being painted as knowing, responsible, and guilty of hiding what was happening. And yet, the truth is that many Catholics, both normal people, and lay people, stood up against the abuses, and helped those abuses come to the attention of the general population. But nah.. it's popular to paint everyone of the religion as being responsible... much simpler that way, than acknowledge the true weaknesses of society, and the actual behaviours of humans in general. Just think of all those people who weren't part of the Church, but who enabled those abuses to continue.. you really going to claim that Atheists weren't part of that mess?

It was the decline in the effect of social conditioning, greater access to education, and the ability to widen your knowledge of the international world that allowed Irish people to question the status quo. Social revolution had come to Ireland, whether it was the questioning of women's rights, the right to sexual liberation, or whatever. The old order was being questioned.. and it wasn't coming from Atheists. It was coming from people of all backgrounds.

You're seeking to elevate Atheists into some kind of glorious position, but the Church has long been a refuge for deviants of all kinds, including Atheists. It's easy to mouth the platitudes and go through the motions, pretending belief in Christianity (or any religion) without your personal beliefs being discovered. After all, many of the worst acts by humans have been performed by Atheists.. just as they have been done by people in the name of religion.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119027255#Comment_119027255

Who were these key catholics reporting the scandal. Are we talking catholics or baptised people ?

Because practically everyone in Ireland was "catholic" and no one is denying there are terrible people who are atheists.

It's you who is trying to paint the "good German" myth as if it was the church itself led the change.

downtheroad

Anyone who supports an organisation whose members sexually abused children and put babies into a septic tank needs to have a good hard look at themselves.

This organisation is long past its sell by date in Ireland, and recent referendums on divorce, same sex marriage and abortion have proved that. As do the dwindling numbers attending their service.

Ceramic

There’s a large element of Stockholm Syndrome. A lot of people invested a lot of trust in organisations that they’re now finding to be completely dysfunctional and even downright malevolent.

It’s also a reason I think we need to ensure that more or our public social infrastructure is actually public and not just relying on things like church halls and church schools. All that stuff just gives a private organisation an ability to subtly exclude and dominate and makes people feel like outsiders in their own country.

donaghs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119027260#Comment_119027260

Lots of organizations have members who abused children, and covered it up. Look at child abuse scandals in UK council childrens home, uk football coaches/scouts, irish swimming, Scouting everywhere, Danish government children homes (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49320260).

• Should the same approach be taken to them? just shut them down?

I'm not religious, but I don't have many issues with the modern Catholic Church. I think there are unique aspects of Catholicism which need reform (celibacy, role of women, attitude to gays) but thats their business - the modern catholic church seems remarkably liberal compared with born-again Christianity or mainstream islam.