Pope meets Irish Bishops on Child Abuse scandal.

[Callie Del Noire]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE61D13U20100215

Seems that the Murphy Commission Report is still creeping out of the closet to give the Irish Bishops a black eye. I've read up on this one a bit. It's a truly toxic piece of reporting. An it makes the reports on the US look like a case of jay walking. (some of the cases go back DECADES)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_Report

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Bishops who will meet Pope Benedict over a paedophilia scandal that has shaken devoutly Catholic Ireland will acknowledge the "enormous injustice and cruelty" inflicted on the victims, a participant said Sunday.

The Monday and Tuesday meetings, the first of their kind at the Vatican in eight years, will discuss a plan for action and could lead to more prelates resigning in a shakeup in the Irish Church hierarchy. Four have already quit.

Benedict, 24 Irish bishops and top Vatican officials will hold three sessions in response to outrage in Ireland over the Murphy Commission Report, a damning indictment of child sex abuse by priests in the country.

"This is not just a cosmetic exercise," one of the prelates, Bishop Joseph Duffy of Clogher, told a news conference at the Irish seminary in Rome Sunday.

The bishops would acknowledge "the failure on the part of all of us" to be vigilant against abuse and express their commitment to try to rectify "the enormous injustice and cruelty" that victims have suffered, he said.

The Vatican said in December that the pope will write to the Irish people about the crisis -- the first time a pope will have devoted a document solely to the clergy's abuse of children.

"We're asking for Pope Benedict to restore the honour to Ireland which was so severely damaged by these scandals," said John Kelly, founder of Irish Survivors of Child Abuse.

The report, published in November, said the Church in Ireland had "obsessively" hidden child abuse in the Dublin archdiocese from 1975 to 2004, and operated a policy of "don't ask, don't tell."

It said all Dublin bishops in charge during the period under study had been aware of some complaints, but the archdiocese had been more preoccupied with protecting the reputation of the Church than safeguarding children.

Four bishops have offered their resignations and the pope has so far accepted one of them. Victims group One in Four called on other bishops throughout Ireland who engaged in this "culture of cover up" to step down.

One in Four also complained that the Vatican and its ambassador to Ireland "saw fit to hide behind diplomatic protocols to avoid co-operating with the Murphy Commission." The Vatican said the commission had "not gone through the appropriate diplomatic channels."

BANKRUPT DIOCESES

Victims groups said they will seek monetary compensation, which could lead to a financial crisis for the Irish Church.

In the United States, hit by a priestly paedophilia scandal in 2002, seven dioceses have filed for bankruptcy protection in the wake of thousands of sex abuse claims against priests.

"Many who have suffered throughout their lives from the impact of sexual abuse by priests in childhood now realise ... that their pain and suffering could have been avoided if senior churchmen and the civil authorities had acted properly in response to complaints received from earlier victims," one open letter to the pope said.

The pope has strongly condemned priestly sexual abuse during his trips to two countries hard hit by widespread scandals -- the United States and Australia. In December, he expressed his "outrage, betrayal and shame" over the Irish scandal.

But critics say the Vatican and the Church had not gone far enough in handing over suspected abusers to civil justice.

The current archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, who started his job after the period covered by the report, has said he expected "a very significant reorganisation of the Church in Ireland" as a result of the scandal.

The Church's prominent role in Irish life was one of the reasons why abuses by a minority of priests were allowed to go unchecked, the report said.

One priest admitted abusing more than 100 children. Another said he had abused children every two weeks for over 25 years.

[RubySlippers]

To little, to late. Hit them with international crimes against children and ricco statutes in the US and rape the leaders and the perverts over the coals. Then go after their money for the victims - break the bastards open.

Like Truman taught the - Buck stops at the top if the Popes did nothing then the sins on the innocents falls on the Throne of Peter!

[Callie Del Noire]

As I have heard from the new sites in the UK/Ireland and reading through the articles, the Murphy report (and it's predecessors) have done a lot to change the way the Irish and the Catholic church interact (supposedly even cause a MASSIVE drop in church attendance in areas) that is only now being felt.

[HairyHeretic]

I suspect you mean rake the leaders over the coals, hmm?

I doubt much will happen. A few bishops may resign, or be shuffled off to other places. The church is doing its best to make it seen as a local problem, and are in damage control mode. The papal nuncio, or ambassador, or whatever he is has already refused several times to appear before any of the committees or help in any way.

Much of the damages that the religious orders was to pay was being funded by the government buying property (I'll not guess at who set the value for those properties), which means effectively its the tax payer footing this bill. At least one of the orders I believe are already declaring themselves bankrupt to avoid paying their share.

The damage has been done to the church. Attendances have been steadily falling for years, there are almost no new priests coming out of the seminaries to replace the ones that retire or die. We just need to break the stranglehold they have over the education system to become a proper pluralistic society.

For those that don't know, the catholic church effectively controls well in excess of 90% of the schools, and have tried to muscle in on the Educate Together ones too. Unless your child has a catholic baptismal cert, they can, and will, push that child down the admittance lists. It's beyond a joke.

[Callie Del Noire]

**Holds up a hand, been there. Went a small Catholic run school outside Newtownforbes in County Longford back in the early 80s for 2 years before spending the last one in a Protestant School in Longford**

As an American (of Scottish-Protestant decent) I felt REALLY welcome. It was definitely an education for me.  The school was full of antiques. (The desks had dates rolling back to the early part of the century carved in it, ink wells). We had a teacher cover 3 grades at one time. Culture shock for a kid who had come from a classroom of 25 kids to a teacher (it was a good school back then)

As for the Church/State issues. I knew that was coming when one of the prior reports all but white washed the names out of the report and exempted an order from prosecution. I figure (given how much nastier this report was to the prior ones) that things are starting to snowball.

IE.. somewhere down the line folks who AREN'T beholding to the church will put out one with real teeth and the Church will be out on it's ear. I'm figuring that one will be sometime around 2020 or so. (Unless something changes)

[consortium11]

I have a little somewhat personal experience of this.

The school I went to from years 5 to 11 was Presentation College (since renamed) which was formerly run by the Presentation Brothers. The reason for the "formerly" was that in 2003 the Presentation Brother's made the decision to shut down the school. They claimed the reason was that it was unsafe for human occupation and a whole other bunch of similarly head scratching reasons. It came to light that the real reason for the Brother's need of an influx of cash (they'd already set in motion selling the site to Tesco) was that they had substantial child abuse claims to pay off in Ireland in a deal they'd struck.

So, no special insight and thank God nothing serious happened to any of the kids there... and I must say that the Brothers I regularly interacted with were some of the best people I have ever met, a credit to the Order and pretty much a perfect example of what a monk engaged with teaching should strive to be.

In an institution which has as many horrors regarding their treatment of paedophile priests as the Catholic Church it is quite soul destroying that the whole infrastructure of that institution in a single country can be so morally corrupt and so pigheaded.

[Callie Del Noire]

You want to get really depressed surf around the links on the Wiki Entry I put up at the first post. The implications of the prior investigations were scary and only get worse as you realize how far back some of these abuses go.

DECADES. We're not just talking child molestation either. Physical and mental torture. There is a love of evidence that some of the 'Children Homes' were veritable hell holes.

[HairyHeretic]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Laundries

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_to_Inquire_into_Child_Abuse

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sexual_abuse_scandal_in_Ireland

and what is the response so far of this meeting?

The Pope has urged the 24 Irish bishops to show unity in identifying concrete steps aimed at bringing healing to survivors of abuse.

He said he realised that the current painful situation will not be resolved quickly and he urged the bishops to address the problems of the past with determination and resolve and face the present crisis with honesty and courage.

The Pope's statement follows a two-day meeting with most of the Irish hierarchy to discuss the fall-out from the Ryan and Murphy reports.

The Pope also said that the weakening of faith has been a significant contributing factor leading to the sexual abuse of minors.

He called for an improved preparation both for candidates for the priesthood and religious life and of those already ordained and professed

Yes, a weakening of faith is clearly the problem here. No mention of further resignations. Like I said, damage control.

[Blackshade10]

Kind of why I don't go to church anymore....  Organized religions are always messy.

I prefer my personal and private faith.   Incidents like this are inevitable, since power just really isn't a positive influence on a human.  Though, I've always wondered why it was child molestation.  Always baffled me.

[Sabby]

I remember a few years ago, a group that specialized in flash games themed after, erm... touchy subjects caught wind of this and ended up creating Operation: PedoPriest. It was sort of like Lemmings, but you controlled a Vatican trained Eunuch that had to flutter about the level and basically be on damage control, as Hairy says. Police, citizens, Priests and young boys would mill about aimlessly, and every now and then, a Priest would just randomly grab a child and violate him (this was animated without censoring as well)

Your job was to keep the Priest safe by pressuring parents into silence, stopping the child from revealing what happened, distracting the police and even calling in a helicopter to remove the Priest to safety.

Back then, I didn't know much about this issue, so the game didn't make a whole lot of sense to me... after reading this topic, however, I far too enlightened >.< hopefully they stamp this shit out. No place for it in the modern world.

[HairyHeretic]

The news stories I've read today have pretty much echoed my thoughts. The meeting has been purely cosmetic damage control. Maybe something will come out of it, but I won't be holding my breath.

Edit - A link from a few years back came up on another forum where this is being discussed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/aug/17/religion.childprotection

It relates to a 1962 document that seems to indicate any abuse was to be dealt with privately, swearing all and sundry to oaths of silence on the matter, with threats of excommunication for anyone that spoke publically.

The article also states

Lawyers point to a letter the Vatican sent to bishops in May 2001 clearly stating the 1962 instruction was in force until then. The letter is signed by Cardinal Ratzinger, the most powerful man in Rome beside the Pope and who heads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - the office which ran the Inquisition in the Middle Ages.

And he expects the world to believe this is all a shock to him?

[RubySlippers]

I still recommend FBI resources enact the Ricco Act and go after the Roman Catholic Church for supporting interstate criminal activities namely child rape and abuse. All they need is to prove one priest left one state for another and then they have the perverted bastards and their sicko church leaders involved. They have lots of assets to seize and lots of artifacts to take for damages.

But no one will have the balls to try that sadly.

(Not saying all Catholics obviously many are decent but the Pope leads the faith so the buck does stop with the Vatican and its leader, so if they conspired against victims then they should pay dearly.)

[Callie Del Noire]

I still recommend FBI resources enact the Ricco Act and go after the Roman Catholic Church for supporting interstate criminal activities namely child rape and abuse. All they need is to prove one priest left one state for another and then they have the perverted bastards and their sicko church leaders involved. They have lots of assets to seize and lots of artifacts to take for damages.

But no one will have the balls to try that sadly.

(Not saying all Catholics obviously many are decent but the Pope leads the faith so the buck does stop with the Vatican and its leader, so if they conspired against victims then they should pay dearly.)

I think it'd be a fairly easily proven fact in the US, given that SEVERAL Dioceses used to send folks who got into 'particular' trouble out to the Southwest (New Mexico, Nevada).  Doesn't fix the problem of reforming the church and that is what is needed NOW.

I figure that in about a decade or two, they'll have to do something because all the priests who aren't involved in this will be dropping dead of old age.