Should we protest against the pope's visit?

My only point was that I do not see why someone should be made justify their beliefs/support for an organisation. An organisation that has it's flaws, like any organisation.

Personally I have a serious issue with Apple: In this case not due 100% to their tax dealings. That's another conversation. My issue is that their unit sales are slowly dropping - they are not selling as much product as before - yet their profits have never been higher. First trillion-dollar company.
Yet their fans insist that this is awesome: "I love my iPhone. The company is great" yadda yadda yadda. They are exploiting their fanbase by charging more and more for their products. They have a history of exploiting workers via third parties etc.....

Yet I would never presume to force an Apple fan to justify their support/purchase.

Why does somebody believe that a person should be obliged to justify their belief. And this is EXACTLY what is happening here. Someone said "Let's protest". Someone else said "I won't" and they have to spend the rest of the time explaining why.

santana75 wrote: »

Thats a bit of a leap you're making there.
Literally every day it seems, I read about some new sexual abuse scandal in Hollywood. Women, children, men........pretty much everyone has been touched by it in that industry. Yet most people wouldnt think twice about boycotting a movie made in Hollywood. It would never even occur to them but some of the things that went on there and still do go on, are shocking.
The catholic church messed up big time. They were given power and abused it. It all came out and they were rightly attacked and condemned for their crimes. But the thing is people will go to that mass to hear the teachings of Jesus, and the word of God. They wont go for the institution that is the church. I dont know if you are aware of this or not, but Jesus was actually put to death by the church of his day. It was religious figures who murdered him because he called them out on their BS. And I have no doubt that if Jesus was to come to us now, as he did back then, he would call out the catholic church and tear the whole thing to the ground. Its the word of God that matters and thats what people will go to the phoenix park to hear.

Weinstein has been kicked out, Kevin Spaceys last movie made $126 in its opening weekend.

So people are taking action. And customers are showing they don't like things that are going on.

But again, Hollywood is made up of many different individuals, and many different companies. And it does not put itself as the moral compass of the world. It does not try to get people shunned if they like a different type of movie.

The church sells itself as the guardian of Gods own morality. Yet when faced with a pretty straightforward decision, look after victims or turn against them, it went against pretty much all the basis for the morals they preach.

Why should anybody pay any attention to anything they say? And thus if you can't believe in the product there are selling, why continue to support them?

Seth Brundle wrote: »

So the mass raping of children and subsequent organisational cover ups all the while preaching at the public on morals is the same as some in FIFA taking bribes?
You've a poor moral compass there!

I never said the crime was the same. Nobody would claim that and you know that. But I am making the piont that people who go to the mass next week are not supporting the Vatican corruption in the same way a football fan going to the Qatar world cup in 2022 is not supporting FIFA's corruption.

Leroy42 wrote: »

Why should anybody pay any attention to anything they say? And thus if you can't believe in the product there are selling, why continue to support them?

Why should anyone pay any attention to anything they say?
On the basis of all the sh1t thats happened within the confines of the catholic church, nobody should pay them any heed at all.......but the thing is, people do pay them attention. People are still drawn to the word of God. I've known the most militant atheists who have turned to God and become followers of Jesus.
So there must be something of substance there. Beneath all the organised religion and aside from the people who claim to represent God, something draws people in. And people do believe in the "Product". In spite of everything thats happened, people still come to follow Jesus and everything he stood for. Not the organisation, not the men who claimed to be "Guardians of morality", they come to him.

Would people stop trying to find equivalence in commercial set ups and sports groups. They are irrelevant.

The Catholic church sets itself up as the guardians of morality, to the extent that they meddle with everyone's morality, not just their adherents'. These same guardians, the people who should be able to be trusted in all circumstances, have proven since the birth of the church that they cannot be trusted to pursue any of the teachings of their founder.

Some individuals within the church are corrupt, there are always going to be bad apples. But it is the reaction of the higher authority in the church that is significant. If they choose to quietly remove a bad apple only to put it in another barrel, or deny its existence, then the whole church is rotten.

The one person who can make a difference is the head of the church, the Pope. If he allows himself to be bogged down by politics, or if there are not enough honest Bishops and Archbishops to out-weight the corrupt ones, then the church is corrupt. A clue to the number of honest hierarchy mmbers is in the lack of protest when inconvenient Popes have ended up dead/ there has not been outrage at the evidence of child - or other - abuse/ the financial scandals and money grubbing overwhelms the needs of the 'bottom layers' of the church. If Jesus came back he would not last five minutes in that set up.

The membership of the church can make a difference by individually walking away from this organisation, this includes not attending their events. This does not mean they have to deny their faith, but they do have to remove their obedience to the edifice, represented by the Pope, that purports to direct that faith. What does tend to happen though is that when someone walks away from the organisation they realise that in fact there was nothing else for them beyond learned obedience to that organisation. And oddly enough it does not mean that they walk in to a life of dissolution and immorality; it is absolutely possible - arguably easier - to live a moral and honest life with no help from any religion.

Cabaal wrote: »

McAleese gets a serious amount of abuse alright, alot of it seems to end with...if you don't like it then leave.

But if she does that and so does everyone else then nothing will change in the church, McAleese is a catholic who wants change. She should be listened to because the church's changes at the speed of a glacier

She was very quiet about all this when in the Aras. Great for doing her schoolmistress role though and inviting Turkey into the European Union.

Ex-President McAleese has evolved as most people do. There was a time when she sat with the heirarchy and made their case at Govn't Commissions. Have no difficulty with that.

eviltwin wrote: »

If only it were that simple. The entire trip is damaging to a lot of people. They were silenced long enough, they deserve to speak out now.

I know. I fear it will do some long term damage to our society. The people who were silenced 100% deserve to speak out and release their rage. However I fear the rage may be being directed towards the wrong people and collateral damage may ensue.

Eric Savory Misogyny wrote: »

Sure, the victims are entitled to speak up and seeks answers/justice.

The average poster here is using the victims and their suffering to bash the church, because hey, fcuk the church, not out of any genuine empathy for victims.

Yeah, the church is the victim here. Poor, downtrodden church being attacked by those nasty people.

Eric Savory Misogyny wrote: »

Sure, the victims are entitled to speak up and seeks answers/justice.

The average poster here is using the victims and their suffering to bash the church, because hey, fcuk the church, not out of any genuine empathy for victims.

A lot of the victims are gone now or can't be vocal. It's not easy to publically admit those things. Support from the public is crucial. The more people who speak out the harder it is to ignore.

looksee wrote: »

Would people stop trying to find equivalence in commercial set ups and sports groups. They are irrelevant.

The Catholic church sets itself up as the guardians of morality, to the extent that they meddle with everyone's morality, not just their adherents'. These same guardians, the people who should be able to be trusted in all circumstances, have proven since the birth of the church that they cannot be trusted to pursue any of the teachings of their founder.

Some individuals within the church are corrupt, there are always going to be bad apples. But it is the reaction of the higher authority in the church that is significant. If they choose to quietly remove a bad apple only to put it in another barrel, or deny its existence, then the whole church is rotten.

The one person who can make a difference is the head of the church, the Pope. If he allows himself to be bogged down by politics, or if there are not enough honest Bishops and Archbishops to out-weight the corrupt ones, then the church is corrupt. A clue to the number of honest hierarchy mmbers is in the lack of protest when inconvenient Popes have ended up dead/ there has not been outrage at the evidence of child - or other - abuse/ the financial scandals and money grubbing overwhelms the needs of the 'bottom layers' of the church. If Jesus came back he would not last five minutes in that set up.

The membership of the church can make a difference by individually walking away from this organisation, this includes not attending their events. This does not mean they have to deny their faith, but they do have to remove their obedience to the edifice, represented by the Pope, that purports to direct that faith. What does tend to happen though is that when someone walks away from the organisation they realise that in fact there was nothing else for them beyond learned obedience to that organisation. And oddly enough it does not mean that they walk in to a life of dissolution and immorality; it is absolutely possible - arguably easier - to live a moral and honest life with no help from any religion.

I actually agree with pretty much everything you’ve said, but that last paragraph. I take a different point of view because I don’t believe that walking away from an organisation which I do support and have always supported, will do anything to reduce opportunities for paedophiles and child molesters to have unfettered, unquestioned access to children or to vulnerable people to abuse them and then cover up that abuse.

There’s a nuance there that I think you’re missing, and in any other context it would be considered unacceptable to accuse people of supporting paedophilia and child abuse on the basis that they are members of an organisation which paedophiles and child abusers gained access to and used the structures of that organisation to carry out their abuse.

Instead I believe it is better for people who don’t tolerate that kind of behaviour within their organisation to root out the minority of people within the organisation who would use the structure of the organisation to their advantage, and to put measures in place to protect children and vulnerable members of the organisation from paedophiles and child molesters.

That way, nobody has to walk away from an organisation that means something to them, they are in a better position to support and protect children and vulnerable people within the organisation, and they are in a better position to ensure that the organisation and it’s structures are a safer place for members of that organisation while at the same time making sure that paedophiles and child molesters know that they won’t have any opportunities to take advantage of children and vulnerable members of the organisation.

Walking away, to me at least, would be like turning a blind eye to the abuse and allowing paedophiles and child abusers and the people who cover for them, to go unchallenged, and allow them to continue to rot the organisation from the inside out.