The Ferns Report; where do we go from here

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