The Ferns Report; where do we go from here

Asiaprod

I think we can all agree for once on something; the Ferns Report is pretty damning.
I am interested to hear board member`s views on the issue, and in particular, how RCs practitioners view the findings and what they want to see happen in their church as a result.

I also feel that in light of the report, the Church`s stance on homosexuals and gay liaisons is as shallow as a puddle after a light rain.
What exactly is the Church`s problem with homosexuals, since it does not seem to have to great a problem with Sodomy, despite the fact that it is both a criminal offense and is against the laws of the catholic faith. According to the report, both the Vatican, and the Pope, were aware of these issues. I wonder what the legal position in relation to the Pope is and should the Pope have to account for the actions of his church. This last part is probably a mute point since luckily enough for the church the Pope in question has passed on.

My apologies if this post offends or upsets anyone, it is not meant to be taken personally, but as a topic of general discussion that may in some small way help to shape or influence the RC Church for all those who do believe in it. IMO, the Catholic church wields way to much power and influence already. Although I do not believe in this church, it highly-influence the world I live in and I find this even more unacceptable than I did in light of the report.

Saruman

The problem with homosexuals might simply be this. The catholic church seems to be all about procreation.. go forth and multiply. No condoms.. have as many kids as possible... You cant do that if you are gay so....

anyway probably get a slating for that comment but it seems possible to me.

As for the clergy.. well it seems there are a lot of EVIL and by that term i mean Spawn of Satan type EVIL priests out there leading people astray. How can anyone trust any priest these days when so many are absolute EVIL. I capitalise evil because its a Christian term and what the priests preach against seems to be exactly what a lot of them seem to do. Sure its a minority but.. well point is there is something very wrong with the whole catholic system. Now that The sith emperor is in charge it will not change very fast.

AndyWarhol

Asiaprod wrote:

What exactly is the Church`s problem with homosexuals, since it does not seem to have to great a problem with Sodomy,

Since when did the the RC authority condone sodomy?

bus77

Saruman wrote:

The problem with homosexuals might simply be this. The catholic church seems to be all about procreation.. go forth and multiply. No condoms.. have as many kids as possible... You cant do that if you are gay so....

I agree. I think there's another reason though, I think they want to activly encourage gay men into the priesthood because of that. Thats good considering that gay men are not useually prone to attacking kids.

arctic lemur

The Catholic Church thinks homsexuality is not representatve of the ideal concept of family, pro-creation also has a part to play. as long as one does not act on their homosexual tendancies then they see no problem.

Manach

Whilst the report is damning about the abuses that went on in Ferns, and should be a call to strenghten child-protection laws, it now seems sections of the media are using this a weapon to attack the Church in general.
The Church does not automatically know how to seperate the wheat from the chaff. There are sinners within the Church and they sometimes get into positions of authority without being caught. The system can be and must be improved but I am not allowing those who mis-used the Church's teaching to alienate me from it.

OfflerCrocGod

AndyWarhol wrote:

Since when did the the RC authority condone sodomy?

Sodomy seemed to be all right as long as it was done by the RC authority and no one else. It was anyone else doing it they had a problem with.

Manach wrote:

Whilst the report is damning about the abuses that went on in Ferns, and should be a call to strenghten child-protection laws, it now seems sections of the media are using this a weapon to attack the Church in general.
The Church does not automatically know how to seperate the wheat from the chaff. There are sinners within the Church and they sometimes get into positions of authority without being caught. The system can be and must be improved but I am not allowing those who mis-used the Church's teaching to alienate me from it.

Hear Hear! The church must be protected! Look at all the good it has done to children of Ireland! The church is being condemned because it deserves to be condemned.

Manach

Ah thanks OfflerCrocGod for putting your own spin about what you imagined I wrote.

hairyheretic

Manach wrote:

The Church does not automatically know how to seperate the wheat from the chaff. There are sinners within the Church and they sometimes get into positions of authority without being caught.

And what happened when they were caught? Were they expelled from the priesthood, turned over for punishment in a court of law?

Or were they quietly moved elsewhere to continue doing what they had been, and every effort made to cover the whole thing up?

robindch

> sections of the media are using this a weapon
> to attack the Church in general

<splutter>

The Ferns report implies quite clearly that the church hierarchy, as a matter of course, bent over backwards to protect its employees and to protect its self-anointed position as the guardian of the Irish people against something called 'sin'. In both of these, Sean Brady (an Archbishop) accurately said that "the betrayal of trust is horrendous" upon the part of the institution of church which -- let us address the issue directly here -- involved men of various ages raping children, forcing them to provide oral sex and so on.

I fail to see how a portion of the population (this is the second instance I've seen first-hand in 48 hours) can claim that the Irish media can, in any way, be condemned for bringing it to our general attention that the system of laws, and the administration of them, had failed spectacularly, through gross cynicism upon the part of people in many positions of trust.

Lest anybody think that child sex-abuse by priests, together with the revulsion which surrounds it, is a weapon of "sections of the media", take a look at the tragic chronicle maintained by the Kansas-based National Catholic Register which is both catholic-owned and catholic-managed:

http://www.ncrnews.org/abuse/

The sole reason that this sex-abuse lasted so long and ravaged so many people is that those who knew about it cared more about the exalted position of their instution in society than the ideals and people it claimed, falsely, to give a damn about.

Asiaprod

it now seems sections of the media are using this a weapon to attack the Church in general.

You sound offended, did you not expect to see this happen, the media are know for this.

The Church does not automatically know how to separate the wheat from the chaff.

This is of course understood and accepted , but one would have hoped that with a history of 2,000 years they might have made some progress.

There are sinners within the Church and they sometimes get into positions of authority without being caught.

Manach, we are also talking about the Pope who bears responsibility for every priest in his Church. Remember, you don`t actually have to have committed the act yourself to be guilty, you can also be guilty by association. How high do you want to go with your "sometimes get into positions of authority," The only position with higher authority than the Pope is God. If one reads the history of the popes one will find that an alarming number of these "sometime people became popes." Here lies one of the main problems, there is no accountability in the church. And please don`t tell me he is accountable to god, that does NOT cut it with me. I want to see him accountable on this planet where these crimes were committed.

I am not allowing those who miss-used the Church's teaching to alienate me from it

.

Nobody is in favor of you or any law abiding member of your faith being alienated, and I would not respect anyone that would try to do this. You are appreciated for what and who you are, and not seen as a reflection of these outright criminals that we are talking about:) . The only way you could be alienated, is if you let yourself be alienated.

The whole point behind this post is something must be done about these abdominal people who abused their position. What restitution/punishment should be made, and not just cash payouts and defrocking.
What would you suggest is done?
This is one issue the church can not be let buy itself out of. The Vatican`s approach to dealing with social issues and problem could not IMHO be any further removed from the teaching they profess to follow, and the word hypocrisy looms large on my radar. Yes, I may appear vitriolic in my outburst on this issue:mad: , but it is not aimed at you or any other good Catholic that upholds the ideals and principle their faith was founded on. If you read that interesting post on "is mastrerbation a sin" you will note that I was a guest of the Christian Brothers for 7 years during which I saw plenty of this type of stuff. That Manach, was more than 30 years ago, and quite frankly, nothing has bloody well changed.

"Enough is Enough"

Manach

Thanks for the constructive replies. As Asiaprod said, that this thread might upset people, but that can also be included who have an automatic attack reflex on all things Church, (which I am admit to having the opposite ).

Firstly have not myself read the Ferns report (it runs to 230 pages), only sections of it reported in the media, (whose pre-publication leaks of the report seem to "detract from the ultimate findings of the report " <Colm O'Gormon of One in Four>). I would be grateful if someone could provide a link to it if it is published on the net.

I do not accept that all clerics should be tarred by the same brush as rouge priests. This does not mean that guilty parties should not escape justice, and I would hope that legislation is introduced so that does not happen again, covering all institutions that care for children. I would be interested to hear people's ideas on how the issues raise by the report can be addressed by changes within the Church from this point on, (i.e. automatic suspension in suspective cases etc.), but not leading to its effective dismantling.
So what I suggest is done is let the law take its course.

Asiaprod

Thanks for the constructive replies.

Nice reply Manach, I respect greatly a person who listen and coments honestly. The heart is always the great differentiator.
I also do not want to see all priests tarred with the same brush, I have many Jesuit Priest friends, who are dear to me, and who are suffering terribly as a result of this. These are men who adore kids, and I know secretly they wish they had their own.
If only those old fashioned diehards in the Vatican could change their stupid bloody attitude to celibacy (oops. sorry all mods:o) and make it optional, a lot of this may well have been avoided.

I don't need to read any more of the report myself, it is sickening enough with the little we have already heard. I am sure it will eventually be on the net for all cranks to see, and I am equally sure that a lot a hurtfull things will be said. The only consolation is that once its in the open the healing can begin.
Please lets hear your ideas on what to do about these people and how to prevent it ever happening again, all opions hold equal value here.

Asiaprod

Absolutly Fu**ing amazing, here we talking about the way the Health officials, Catholic Church, and garda failed us all on the Ferns issue and what do we read, In a statement the Health Board acknowledge the pain that victims are going through and regret if any action contributed to that."They also vowed to tackle criticisms of their handling of child abuse investigations in Ferns by setting up a special committee made up of representatives of the Catholic Church, gardai and health services to deal with cases of abuse.

Am I going out of my mind, or what!!! A special committee made up of the same as**oles who are part of the whole sorry mess to start with. I am sorry, there is absolutly no justic in Ireland. A country where not even little kid are safe from the people sworn to protect them. Already here in Tokyo this is a major talking point.

Right now I feel absolutely ashamed to be Irish.
Sorry for ranting, I just got to get this of my chest.

Dellgirl

I have many Jesuit Priest friends, who are dear to me, and who are suffering terribly as a result of this. These are men who adore kids, and I know secretly they wish they had their own.

Am I going out of my mind, or what!!! A special committee made up of the same as**oles who are part of the whole sorry mess to start with. I am sorry, there is absolutly no justic in Ireland. A country where not even little kid are safe from the people sworn to protect them. Already here in Tokyo this is a major talking point

Like you say, There are good as well as bad. I havent gotten around to reading that yet....aer we talking about the same people here...or other people from the same parish?
Can you post up a link please. Thanks.

OfflerCrocGod

Asiaprod wrote:

What restitution/punishment should be made, and not just cash payouts and defrocking.
What would you suggest is done?
This is one issue the church can not be let buy itself out of.

I thought the tax payer was paying and not the church, was there not some controversy over the fact that the state gave nearly €1 billion to the church to pay for all this ****?

robindch

> some controversy over the fact that the state gave
> nearly €1 billion to the church to pay for all this ****?

AFAIR, the church will pay something like the first €180,000,000 of any claims, and the state will pick up the tab after that, and figures of a billion euro were tossed around as the likely final cost (that's a bill of around EUR1,200 per family).

Frankly, it's a slap in the face for the taxpayers to have to subsidize not only religion, but, more pointedly, the largest owner of property and land in the country, after the state itself -- grunt -- but I'm sure others will disagree!

Manach

I'll partially agree with you. Having capital is well and good, but losing the trust of people is not a good trade-off. Money is a crass way to try and make up for lost innocence, but as a gesture it has to be made.
I would not see the beggering of the Church, but the pledging of a significant proportion of its/our estate to show a just repentence <just not to the soliciters>. I do and will support the finances of my local parish and it can be made into an opportunity to rebuild. But again to re-iterate that in parallel, some internal changes are needed within the Church that strenghten the clergy/laity bond.

Asiaprod

Dellgirl wrote:

Like you say, There are good as well as bad. I havent gotten around to reading that yet....aer we talking about the same people here...or other people from the same parish?
Can you post up a link please. Thanks.

The Irish Independent web site requires you to sign up. Therefore I have included the entire thing. The bit I refere to is at the very end:



Rape probe priest is still practising

A PRIEST under investigation for allegedly raping a young pregnant woman is continuing to serve in the same diocese.

A spokeswoman for the Garda Press Office last night confirmed gardai are investigating allegations of a sexual assault and are currently preparing a file for the DPP.

The priest at the centre of the allegations confirmed he will be saying Mass this morning but refused to comment on the allegations.

He is carrying out his full range of parish duties.

The Archbishop of Tuam, Dr Michael Neary, has declined to answer several questions put to him by The Irish Independent or to clarify why the priest is continuing to serve.

This lack of action by the Church authorities directly contravenes assurances given over the last 48 hours following the Ferns Report.

It is understood the alleged victim went to the curate for advice when she became pregnant at 24.

She has alleged he raped her on two separate occasions.

It is understood she is now in her 40s and happily married but she confronted the priest in question earlier this year.

Sources close to the Garda inquiry are investigating allegations that the alleged victim was paid €10,000 by the priest and was offered a further €5,000.

Gardai have confirmed their investigation began after the woman provided them with a statement relating to the alleged assault.

The woman at the centre of the abuse claims was initially willing to discuss the matter, but later changed her mind on the advice of her solicitors.

In a letter to the archbishop - seen by the Irish Independent - solicitors acting on her behalf detailed the "loss, damage and expense" their client suffered as a result of "assault, battery, rape, trespass to the person, sexual abuse and the infliction of emotional harm" perpetrated upon her by the priest.

A spokesman for the archbishop last night said he is aware of the allegations, but added: "While the issue is being dealt with at a civil level the bishop would be slow to interfere."

He said removing someone from office can have severe implications for the person's reputation, even if they are later proven innocent.

He acknowledged that in the 1996 paper 'Child Sexual Abuse: Framework for a Church Response' it is recommended that if a priest is accused of child sex abuse they should be removed pending a full investigation.

But in a written statement the diocese said: "This is not a Child-Protection Matter."

"Any complaint involving alleged inappropriate behaviour by a priest of the Archdiocese with an adult is viewed with the utmost seriousness," it read.

"Where a complaint involving alleged criminal misconduct gives rise to a Garda investigation the Archdiocese would co-operate fully with such an investigation."

Further questions were put to the archbishop including:

* Has the archbishop or anyone in the church authority spoken with the priest in question?

* Was the priest in question asked to step aside?

* If not, why not and who took that decision?

* Has he access to minors?

However, the archbishop's spokesman declined to comment any further on the matter and refused to add to the official statement.

The spokesman added that the archbishop does not comment on individual cases "save only in circumstances where due process of law is complete."

The Irish Independent put the following questions to a number of dioceses yesterday.

(1) Is it your policy if a priest is accused of abusing an adult that he should be asked to stand aside pending an investigation?

(2) What is your comment on the Tuam case?

Fr John Carroll, spokesman for Acting Bishop of Ferns diocese, said: "My answer is yes, he would be asked to stand aside, but I'm not addressing any specific case. Where the diocese was satisfied there were serious boundary violations, someone would be asked to stand aside, but I want to make it clear that I am not commenting on an individual case."

A spokesman for the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, said: "Any allegation of criminal activity is sent to the police and the priest is asked to stand aside."

She added: "We have no knowledge of what's going on in Tuam and can't comment."

Fr Nicholas Irwin , Secretary to the Archbishop of Cashel and Emly, Dr Dermot Clifford, said that he was not aware of the situation in Tuam.

"If there were any serious allegation found, a bishop would be most concerned about something like that. There isn't a specific policy that I'm aware of although I'm no authority on that, but if there were serious grounds, any actions taken would be in consultation with gardai."

Health officials, meanwhile, vowed to tackle criticisms of their handling of child abuse investigations in Ferns.

The former South Eastern Health Board said a special committee made up of representatives of the Catholic Church, gardai and health service is now in place in Ferns to deal with cases of abuse.

It said: "We acknowledge the pain that victims are going through and regret if any action contributed to that."

Edel Kennedy

Asiaprod

Manach, in answer to your previous post, I just got this on the RTE home page.

"The Ferns report will not be published on the Internet because of legal advice."

Kinda what I expected. Does anybody out there have any idea how to get a hold of it. Is it a private report, or is is available to the general public?

OfflerCrocGod

robindch wrote:

AFAIR, the church will pay something like the first €180,000,000 of any claims, and the state will pick up the tab after that, and figures of a billion euro were tossed around as the likely final cost (that's a bill of around EUR1,200 per family).

Who the **** approved this ****? I don't see why my taxes should be going toward paying off a bunch of rapists I cannot believe this is actually going ahead, why isn't there more press coverage over such a huge waste of our money? No one asked us and the bloody Vatican can easily afford to pay for this if it choose to ignore what was happening it can pay for it.

robindch wrote:

Frankly, it's a slap in the face for the taxpayers to have to subsidize not only religion, but, more pointedly, the largest owner of property and land in the country, after the state itself -- grunt -- but I'm sure others will disagree!

Slap? It's absolutely disgusting and sickening that such a thing is happening! Utterly repulsive slimy organization should pay for it's own crimes.

Asiaprod

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

why isn't there more press coverage over such a huge waste of our money? No one asked us and the bloody Vatican can easily afford to pay for this if it choose to ignore what was happening it can pay for it.

I am afraid it gets a little worst. I can't find the post right now, it was on the Irish Independent News site, it quoted a comment by Bertie Ahern at some EC meeting where he stated that the "yes, it was terrible to hear about the Ferns report, but people just have to move on from there"

Now excuse me if I am wrong, but that seem to me to be down playing the whole issue. I expected him to be outraged, instead I can't help but feel that he is in favour of brushing the whole thing under the carpet.

On a side note, last night I hade an interesting dream, all the catholics in Ireland went on strike

is_that_so

The report offers a number of things.


1. The fact that it has been perceived to be direct, illuminating and has determine who was at fault will be of some solace to those who suffered. It acknowledges the horror of what they experienced.

2. It will offer the Church an opportunity to acknowledge its wrongs and work out how it will go forward. This already appears to be happening. The fact that further enquiries into all the other disoceses will come about is also a positive.

3. It will unquestionably offer some commenetators the opportunity to bash the Church yet again. I personally am no great fan of the Church but see no purpose in damning it for the sake of it. The report has done that. Not only that our media has not exactly covered itself in glory of late.

4. It will also give those who loathe the Church pleasure to see it exposed.

5. Some commentators will relish the opportunity to damn a whole generation.
This seems to have become a fashion in the last number of years or so.

My own feeling on this is that a great evil was done. That needs to be acknowledged properly and where possible those people appropriately punished. The victims need to helped to overcome that pain,whatever that takes. Yet at the same time wholesale vilification of the Church serves no useful purpose other than paint us all as a vindictive vengeful race.

What is most important is ensuring that it cannot happen again and that is where we should be going next.

robindch

> I hade an interesting dream, all the catholics in Ireland went on strike

What an interesting idea! Though if they've not done it by now, I can't really imagine what would make them take up their pickets and walk.

Asiaprod

robindch wrote:

> I hade an interesting dream, all the catholics in Ireland went on strike

What an interesting idea! Though if they've not done it by now, I can't really imagine what would make them take up their pickets and walk.

I don`t know about that, read the following from the Irish Independent. It does show a glimmer of hope.

Cleric's refusal to read out apology
A PARISH priest yesterday refused to read out a letter at mass from the Bishop of Cork and Ross.
The letter, addressing sex abuse, from Dr John Buckley "didn't go far enough," according to Fr Gerald Galvin.

Fr Galvin from the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Clonakilty, said he didn't question the Bishop's sincerity. But, he insisted the letter was "mistimed" and Dr Buckley should have waited until a more appropriate date in the future when positive work in relation to clerical sex abuse had been carried out.

"I just felt the letter was incomplete. It didn't go far enough. There was no real sense of atonement," he said. There are a couple of statements in there that I was disturbed by. There is no admission in the first place as to who broke the trust."

He added: "It is more PR than reality. I just feel that action should have come first and that the letter should have come at a later date when something positive had been done." Fr Galvin also expressed concern about some of the terminology used in the letter citing one line in which Bishop Buckley said that "the Church's system in the past did not deal effectively with the problems".

"Who are the church systems? I would have been happier if the bishop had said the church leadership. I still have depths of pessimism about the whole thing." The west Cork priest devoted his sermons to discussing his reaction to the letter and his feelings about how issue of sexual abuse involving clergy. He received a round of applause from the congregation at Saturday night's mass. A spokesman for the Bishop of Cork and Ross, Dr John Buckley, was not available for comment yesterday.

luckat

http://www.dohc.ie/news/2005/ferns.html

Copies of The Ferns Report may be purchased directly from:

The Government Publications Sale Office
Sun Alliance House
Molesworth Street
Dublin 2.
Tel. 01-6793515.
Cost: €6 per copy

Copies may also be purchased from bookstores in Wexford town.

Copies may be ordered from:

Government Publications
Mail Order Section
51 St. Stephen's Green
Dublin 2.
Tel. 01-6476000
Cost: €6 per copy (cheque, credit card or postal order)

---

Yes, the idea that the taxpayer should pay compensation on behalf of rapists is extraordinary.

The effect is that the people who have been raped or assaulted are expected to pay (through their taxes) for their own compensation.

The church that (to put it generously) stood by and let down the children it should have been protecting is now fighting tooth and nail to avoid paying compensation.

If the church were genuinely remorseful, its authorities would simply call in its accountants and put aside enough to cover pensions for elderly priests and nuns, and then *sell everything* to pay for compensation.

But Hell (if you believe in it, presumably populated with the same rapists and child abusers) will freeze over before that happens.

By the way, asiaprod, I'm sure you don't mean to be offensive, but the term "RC" puts most Catholics' teeth on edge.

And "the media using the scandal to attack the Church in general". Woah! The Church in general has known about these rapes for years, and has done nothing, or worse, closed ranks around the criminals. It deserves to be attacked.

The only *body* within the Catholic Church that has behaved honourably in all of this is the Jesuits. Many individual priests have behaved well, but *the Church as a group* has shown itself to be empty, greedy and vicious.

And the Church has been backed in its protection of criminals by health officials and gardai, and by politicians, all of whom did nothing when the hurt pleaded for help from them.

We've got a fine set of Augean stables here.

robindch

> why isn't there more press coverage over such a
> huge waste of our money? No one asked us and
> the bloody Vatican can easily afford to pay for this
> if it choose to ignore what was happening it can pay for it.

"The media" aren't completely silent about it -- he's something from the front page of yesterday's Sunday Tribune:

http://www.tribune.ie/article.tvt?_scope=Tribune/News/Comment&id=31370

Religious orders renege on Eur5m of 'soft deal' made over sex abuse

CATHOLIC orders have failed to hand over at least 5m worth of the property they promised to compensate children abused in religious-run institutions, more than three years after striking a "soft" deal with the state.

The Department of Education this weekend said it is now "in negotiations" with 18 religious congregations about the shortfall and may pursue them for a cash settlement.

The 2002 deal, signed off by the then Minister for Education Michael Woods has already been widely criticised as too generous towards the religious congregations. It will effectively work out that the congregations are contributing less than 90m, or around 10% of the estimated final compensation bill of 1bn.

Labour Party spokeswoman on finance, Joan Burton, said she was "not surprised" that the congregations had fallen short. "They employed highpowered solicitors, Arthur Cox, to argue their case while the state went for a soft deal, " she said. "The result is that the taxpayer will shoulder the vast majority of the final bill."

Most of the 62 church properties . . . valued at 75m . . . which the Department of Education has accepted "in principle" as meeting the congregations' obligations, have also yet to be transferred over for use by the state. A department spokeswoman confirmed that, with regard to the 14 properties to be handed to Education, none are yet in the department's possession or use.

In 2002, the government demanded that any prior state investment in these church properties had to be offset against the final agreed valuation and it is understood this is causing the delay.

Under the cut-price 2002 deal, the religious institutions agreed to give the state 76.8m worth of property, 28.5m in cash and 22.7m towards counselling and an education fund.

The 128m total was based on a 50:50 liability split between the religious congregations and the state of what was then estimated would be a total compensation payout of 256m. That estimate has since quadrupled to 1bn.

In a further concession, the state agreed to offset 40m worth of property which the congregations had already handed over to the state in the three years prior to the 2002 deal, effectively cutting the congregations' contribution to 88m.

The state agency resposible for allocating fund to victims is the Residential Institutions Redress Board, which lives at http://www.rirb.ie -- they've a few reports up there which are worth reading. In short, by the end of last year, they'd allocated around EUR185,000,000, and by the time the board winds up (applications close in December of this year), they're expecting to deal with around 8,000 people, each receiving an average of around EUR78,000, for a total of ~EUR625,000,000. Of this, the congretations will pay, according to the above, EUR88,000,000, and the taxpayers will therefore have to cough up ~EUR537,000,000, or around EUR150 per inhabitant of the Republic.

I can't imagine that this statement of account is going to be read out from the pulpit any time soon, even from that honest, and lonely-sounding, guy in Clonakilty.

Asiaprod

luckat wrote:

By the way, asiaprod, I'm sure you don't mean to be offensive, but the term "RC" puts most Catholics' teeth on edge.

You would indeed be 100% correct, I would never dream of offending anybody. Thanks for pointing it out. My appologies to any any who incurred any bouts of dental sensitivity during my posts.:)

Asiaprod

robindch wrote:

> Of this, the congretations will pay, according to the above, EUR88,000,000, and the taxpayers will therefore have to cough up ~EUR537,000,000, or around EUR150 per inhabitant of the Republic.

I am not sure I agree with the maths here. If I am wrong do correct me but:

1. the congretations will pay, according to the above, EUR88,000,000, The congregation are the people that worship? If yes, then this means that the people will pay this portion. Remember that the church owns nothing, it is held for the faithfull.

2. the taxpayers will therefore have to cough up ~EUR537,000,000
again we are talking about the people paying?

That sums up as the people will pay 100% and the Church as usual will pay sod all and skip away free?

Why not sell off some of the horded art treasures? Double bonus there, the money will be payed by the church and not the people. Well the logic here is that rather than have to put their hand in their pocket to finance this sham they can sell off something they would probably never get to see anyway and humanity will benifit by being able to see the said art treasure which normally is gathering dust in some Vatican Storehouse.

UU

luckat wrote:

The only *body* within the Catholic Church that has behaved honourably in all of this is the Jesuits.

To be perfectly honest, I see little difference between different Catholic orders as they're all Catholic priests. Many Jesuit priests may have behaved themselves over here but in USA there has been many sex scandals by them. Search for "scandals by Jesuit priests" and you will find many cases.

Asiaprod wrote:

1. the congregations will pay, according to the above, EUR88,000,000, The congregation are the people that worship? If yes, then this means that the people will pay this portion. Remember that the church owns nothing, it is held for the faithful.

2. the taxpayers will therefore have to cough up ~EUR537,000,000
again we are talking about the people paying?

That sums up as the people will pay 100% and the Church as usual will pay sod all and skip away free?

Well, I really can't see that working. I doubt very few Catholics will give a cent towards the Church for these payments. I was baptised Catholic so I'm still formally a member but changed to Unitarian Universalism(UU) and I will not give anything to the Roman Catholic Church(RCC).

robindch wrote:

AFAIR, the church will pay something like the first €180,000,000 of any claims, and the state will pick up the tab after that, and figures of a billion euro were tossed around as the likely final cost (that's a bill of around EUR1,200 per family).

There will be a General Election soon and the government will really fail if they use the population's taxes to pay out some of the money. This won't be fair for Catholics and especially non-Catholics who aren't a part of this religion. I hope this isn't true as very, very few will pay it and there'll be mass protests and demonstrations.


I hope that the RCC will have another "Counter-Reformation" as celibacy of priests obviously doesn't work as there has been dramatically less scandals in Protestant churches in which their ministers can marry and be homosexual.

Asiaprod

As I expect, the Vatican damage control machine ponderously moves into gear. Now the Church was given bad advice according to today's Irish independent.

A Catholic bishop in the West today claimed that psychologists and psychiatrists failed the church hierarchy by advising them that priests who sexually abused children could be treated not to re-offend.
Dr Thomas Flynn, Bishop of Achonry, a diocese covering parts of Mayo, Sligo and Roscommon, said bishops referred such incidents to professionals at the time for counseling, assessment and advice.
Bishop Flynn apologized to victims and their families, but said experts had let everyone down badly.

One of the reasons they may have got such bad advice is because of bad judgment on their part, like hiring sports psychologist to council priest down in Manooth before the release of the report. I am not sure how one can possibly consider a sports psychologist an appropriate choice to deal with child abuse. The world moves in many strange ways. I am especially peeved at the last comment "that experts had let everyone down"
They did not let me down. I expected no better.
For those interested, I have posted the link to the entire report in a separate post. It is a large down load. All I ask is that people use it constructively,

robindch

> 1. the congretations will pay, according to the above,
> EUR88,000,000, The congregation are the people that
> worship?

No, congregations here is used in the sense of 'religious organizations'. While Manach mentioned that he'd be stumping up some cash, I can't imagine that the rank (pew?) and file membership of the church is going to be much interested in bailing out their religious leaders.

> Remember that the church owns nothing, it is held
> for the faithfull.

While this may technically be true, in reality, it's not and various religious organizations of one kind or another *have* agreed to hand over property to pay for the damage that their employees caused. Though as the article above makes clear, this seems to be happening with an uncommon slowness, at least in the case of the Department of Education.

> 2. the taxpayers will therefore have to cough up
> ~EUR537,000,000 again we are talking about the people paying?

The estimated €537 million will be paid, as far as I'm aware, by funds allocated by the exchequer, meaning that it's the taxpayers of Ireland, personal and corporate, that will ultimately have to fund it.

In round financial terms, this total works out at around €1000 per family in the country, or around €20 per week for a year. Bear that in mind the next time that the church plate comes a-begging -- as a taxpayer (possibly) you'll already have contributed!

> That sums up as the people will pay 100% and the
> Church as usual will pay sod all and skip away free?

Not far from the truth -- as far as I'm aware, originally, the church agreed to pay 50:50 of whatever damages were awarded and this total was agreed to be around €250 million, so the churches reasonably agreed to stump up €125 million. This agreement was duly signed and sealed, then the costs rocketed, the churches called in the lawyers and insisted that they wouldn't be paying any more than the agreed amount, despite the grounds for the estimate of the agreed amount having changed radically. And, of the reduced amount that they've to pay, they're slouching at producing that.

Students of religious morality may like to ponder the honesty of the church in all of this ghastly episode, from their sweeping of the original problem under the carpet, to their latter avoidance of guilt and their marked reluctance to make recompense for their crimes.

rockbeer

Face it, if it were a small religious order, not the catholic church, it would (rightly) be closed down and dismantled. Why anyone would entrust their spiritual needs to these people is beyond me.

For God's sake burn it down.

Asiaprod

rockbeer wrote:

For God's sake burn it down.

That is actually quite funny:rolleyes: . Strange poetic justic there as that is exactly what they used to do to their opponents.
As they say "What comes around, goes around"

wolfsbane

Guys

I am not a citizen of your State, so I don't feel the anger so much. But I do grieve for all the oppressed children and adults, oppressed at both the hands of The Roman Catholic Church and the State. I wish you well in your attempts to purge this evil from your society.

The Church responsible for this is not the one revealed in the New Testament. This is not the Bride of Christ, 'holy and harmless and undefiled'. The Reformers faced a similar situation, were in fact priests within it. They protested its sin and error and tried to reform it, but were chucked out. Maybe this is a wake up call to every sincere Roman Catholic to 'follow the Lamb where ever He goes', even if that is outside the camp.

panda100

Hey just to answer the op's question what do us irish catholics think of the ferns report.Im only 22 and so am in a unique position of stilll having quite a strong faith unlike many of my age since the ferns report was published.I am pleased that justice has been done for these poor children who were abused for so many years under catholic priests and welcome more reports so that justice may be done.I feel that these reports are the best thing that could happen to the church in Ireland in recent years.The catholic church in Ireland has been spiritually dead for a number of years now-people have just been praying with their head and not with their heart.Beacuse of the fear many irish priests instilled onto their congregations people prayed because they had to and not because they wanted to.I for one believe that sometimes things have to hit rock bottom before they can come up again.Just like a drug addict has to hit their lowest point before they can admit they have a problem so was the same with the church in Ireland.Some people reckon its an awful crisis that only 15 priests were ordained in Ireland last year.For me i think this number is great-its not like the old catholic church in Ireland where it was seen as prestigous at having a priest in the family.Thoses priests who abused children never should have been priests in the first place.they were not called to a religus life and would only have entered cos it was the thing to do at the time. These 15 priests who were ordained last year are entering the church because they are called to do good in their communities.I for one am excited about the crumbling of the catholic church here in recent years cos i think out of its ruins us young catholics can build a church of great spirituality,love and open debate and not the old church or rules and regulations.

Excelsior

Its great to hear you have such a thought-through opinion of the Catholic Church Panda. But I am your age too and the deadness of the RC Church in my parish (I know of vibrant congregations elsewhere) sent me into the dead cold hands of the black hearted Proddies.

Still though, I don't think the quagmire will end until the newly ordained and their congregants describe their call as one to follow Jesus, instead of helping the community. I think I'd have the backing of the atheists, agnostics, pagans and Buddhists on this board when I say that social workers care for the community (better than priests, arguably) and tarot card readers bring a sense of "spirituality" into proceedings. What priests must do is focus on Jesus and what the church must do is focus on Jesus. (End enforced celibacy, mariology and let us have communion with you too! )

If they do that right, it will be an open, discussive and revolutionary loving place and the Roman Catholic Church won't have to be a surrogate service provider where the State won't or can't be bothered to go and instead will be a subversive community of believers again. What do you think?

Asiaprod

Excelsior wrote:

I think I'd have the backing of the atheists, agnostics, pagans and Buddhists on this board when I say that social workers care for the community (better than priests, arguably) and tarot card readers bring a sense of "spirituality" into proceedings. What priests must do is focus on Jesus and what the church must do is focus on Jesus. (End enforced celibacy, mariology and let us have communion with you too!

You most definitely have my backing on that. It was the cold, unbending, and discriminatory nature of the Catholic church, that pushed me to become a small fat and bald, navel contemplating Buddhist. In particular, the absolute damnation that I would incur if I were to be on friendly terms with those black hearted Proddies (that should make you smile Excelsior). I am very glad to say I have numerous Anglican and Proddie friends and now I have met Atheist and Agnostics, Pagans and all manner of believers with all kinds of beliefs who I think highly of, and enjoy communicating with, and none of this is by virtue of the Catholic Church. I am too am happy you have a new stock of up and coming priests, but as Excelsior has said, the issues are with the Church's attitude and new priest will not go one iota to fixing the problem.

hairyheretic

panda100 wrote:

I for one am excited about the crumbling of the catholic church here in recent years cos i think out of its ruins us young catholics can build a church of great spirituality,love and open debate and not the old church or rules and regulations.

And while that is a good thought, do you really believe it is realistic?

How much influence does the average parish priest have in overall church policy? I'd imagine any real ability to make changes is unlikely to occur before .. bishop level? Even at that, I'm unsure as to how far their authority would spread.

Unless you had a total grassroots movement, and showed overwhelming support for any proposed changes, then the decisions will be made where they always are, in the upper management levels. Having worked to get that far, anyone with that level of authority will most likely have a vested interest in preserving the status quo as is.

But I'll freely admit I'm a cynic when it comes to organised religion

Asiaprod

hairyheretic wrote:

How much influence does the average parish priest have in overall church policy? I'd imagine any real ability to make changes is unlikely to occur before .. bishop level? Even at that, I'm unsure as to how far their authority would spread.

Unfortunately, I believe this statement to be very true. You only have to look at the the last Pope. His expressed wishes were for all of his papers to be destroyed on his death. Did that happen? No it did not. His secretary decide to go against his own boss and keep them, with the excuse that it would aid in his cannonization. That might well be true, but he was the ultimate leader of the Church, who's word was infallible and even his wishes were ignored.

It realy will take a total grassroot movement to change any policy. I said it before in a post where I recounted that in a dream, I saw the entire Roman Catholic congregation go on strike. This is how drastic a measure one would have to take IMHO to effect any change in this church.

robindch

> The state agency resposible for allocating fund to victims is the
> Residential Institutions Redress Board [...] ~EUR625,000,000.
> Of this, the congretations will pay EUR88,000,000, and the
> taxpayers will cough up ~EUR537,000,000

...this just in from the RTE daily newsletter earlier on this evening:

The Comptroller and Auditor General has told the Dáil Public Accounts Committee that the final bill for compensation by the Residential Institutions Redress Board could reach EUR1.35bn. John Purcell told the committee that the Government's original estimate had been seriously undercooked. The news has reignited claims by the One in Four victims' group that the deal done with the religious orders was a bad one. However, former Education Minister Michael Woods said the scheme had been designed to be open-ended according to the wishes of the Government and the Dáil to justly compensate those who had been injured.

The amount of EUR1,350,000,000 is just over twice what they were saying late last year, and works out at a tab of around EUR350 for every man, woman and child in the country.

Asiaprod

robindch wrote:

The amount of EUR1,350,000,000 is just over twice what they were saying late last year, and works out at a tab of around EUR350 for every man, woman and child in the country.

There must be some law that protect people who do not subscribe to the RC faith from having to foot the bill