How refreshing to hear tell it LIKE IT IS!
After years excuses upon excuses that Pope had "nothing to do" this this or that... That he had "no authority" to intervene here or there... that dog "ate his homework!"
Geeeeeeeeeeeee.
1) This thread will go 3000+ responses.
2) No more than thirty responses before somebody accuses somebody else of "Catholic Bashing" because they said "anyone who does this should go to jail."
3) No more than fifty responses before somebody else says "well, sure, but IT'S ALSO HAPPENING ALL THE TIME IN PROTESTANT/ATHIEST/WICCAN/STATE-RUN DAYCARES!!!!!!
So, here goes:
Anybody who molests children, destroying their innocence and trust in Christ's world, is evil. I don't care if you are gay or straight, man or woman, Catholic or Protestant...it's evil, and those who do should rot in jail with no parole, ever. Counseling? Sure, you bet. But statistics show you're gonna repeat, and in jail we'll know right where you are. The people who did this are evil to begin with, and twice as damned because they did it under the cloak of the church. The people who covered it up are TEN TIMES AS EVIL because Christ said that anyone who harms his little ones would be better to have a millstone tied around his neck and be thrown into the sea then to know what waits for them in God's eternal judgment, and if Jesus said that, it's good enough for me.
That said, I have no other gripe against the Catholic church or any church, so shut up in advance. I despise the people who did these crimes and if you don't, you should be ashamed of yourself. And if you can make excuses for those, of any faith, gender, philosophy or creed that have done these horrible, horrible crimes, than you should be ashamed of yourself. If you love an institution of any kind under any circumstances so much that you cannot say, "this is an abomination before God that has been allowed to fester and poison like a cancer, hurting those least able to protect themselves, and it should have been rooted out years ago rather than be excused away" then you need to take a long look at yourself though Christ's eyes, and decide who you serve.
It's evil. Don't bother writing me a billion "oh,yeah?" responses. It's evil, it cannot be excused (although it has been by lots of people) and the only response should be locking up a bunch of corrupt and evil people ASAP.
BS. An old, specious, long ago refuted argument.
The author of this piece, Eamonn McCann, is a Northern Ireland radical in the mould of Trotsky or Saul Alinski. This faction, North and South will seek to exploit this report in Ireland’s “culture war”, which is far more intense and pitiless than even the US. The target is the role of the Church(s) in education (how can we now trust them with children?) and Health, and to remove the strong Pro-life and Pro-family elements from Ireland’s written constitution.
Since it became legitimate, legally, to attack the deepest pockets as "restitution", that became the focus of the problem. The pervert lottery. And what better way to keep it alive than to assure a constant drumbeat about the horrible crime that gets little or no attention. It's like pretending that by removing the exposed tip of a humungous iceberg, the problem has been solved. In fact, I don't think there has been an effort to determine the incidence of child abuse outside the religious arena, since there's no profit in it.
Willful ignorance of how the churches operate contributed to the problem. The penalty has been paid by the parishoners everywhere, and benefactors long dead who made the construction of all the churches possible; not the bishops or cardinals or the vatican.
The parishoners are no more guilty than the victims themselves, which should raise the basic question of equity and justice. Or is justice only measured in dollars, regardless of who is forced to pay?