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You are here: Home / Just Lucky Timing, I Guess

Just Lucky Timing, I Guess

by John Cole|  November 27, 200912:46 pm| 33 Comments

This post is in: Assholes

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The Irish government releases a report on sex abuse in the Catholic church:

But rather than helping the victims, the church was concerned only with “the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the church, and the preservation of its assets,” said the 700-page report, prepared by a group appointed by the Irish government and called the Commission of Investigation Into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin.

***

Although that report portrayed a church that seemed institutionally broken, with guilt spread among many, the new one attaches particular blame to those at the top. It reserved particular criticism for the police and for four archbishops of Dublin: John Charles McQuaid, who died in 1973; Dermot Ryan, who died in 1984; Kevin McNamara, who died in 1987; and Cardinal Desmond Connell, who retired in 2004. The report said those four knew of the abuse, but did little about it.

Just the luck of the Irish that all the people to blame in this report are either dead or retired.

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Reader Interactions

33Comments

  1. 1.

    Notorious P.A.T.

    November 27, 2009 at 12:51 pm

    Ah, the joys of religion.

  2. 2.

    freelancer

    November 27, 2009 at 12:59 pm

    Can we waterboard Connell?

    as you know, a light-hearted punishment?

  3. 3.

    Scruffy McSnufflepuss

    November 27, 2009 at 1:00 pm

    Still no Irish Popes either, I guess.

    After 1,500 years, you’d think there’d at least have been one of those by now.

    Fucking Church.

  4. 4.

    demkat620

    November 27, 2009 at 1:00 pm

    This.

    This is why I don’t go to mass anymore. It’s all lies.

  5. 5.

    DougJ

    November 27, 2009 at 1:01 pm

    The report is unbelievably horrifying. Much worse than what went on here.

  6. 6.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    November 27, 2009 at 1:02 pm

    And still you can bet your bottom dollar that some fucktard will still rear up on its hind legs and whine about how utterly unfair it is that people keep attacking the Catholic church.

  7. 7.

    Ed Drone

    November 27, 2009 at 1:06 pm

    Just the luck of the Irish that all the people to blame in this report are either dead or retired.

    Well, then the only way to get at the truth is to wait till everyone’s dead — or kill ’em all and let God sort them out.

    I am sometimes amazed at the vast power of the Church over the centuries, and the amazing ability of people to give them a free rein today, even to the point of denying there’s anything wrong with covering up dastardly deeds if it’s “for the best”. And we let those cravens tell us what’s “sinful” and what’s not?

    We do not need a Church to tell us how to behave toward one another. We do not need a clergy to tell us what’s right and what’s wrong. We do not need dogma and cant and sermons and bells and smells to bring us closer to God. Fallible man makes a very weak reed to rely on, and if you give that man power over your lives, you have doomed yourselves.

    And now they want to take away our health insurance? To tell us what hospitals can and can’t do? To tell us what we can and can’t do in the privacy of our own homes and bedrooms? To condemn our fellow man or woman based on the translation of a translation of a translation of folktales and tribal customs from 2000+ years ago?

    May God damn them all. And this, soon. These are the goats who will be set aside when the day of judgment comes. And pity the many lambs they have lead astray.

    /sermon-rant

    Ed

  8. 8.

    freelancer

    November 27, 2009 at 1:09 pm

    @kommrade reproductive vigor:

    Allow me to introduce you to my entire extended family on my dad’s side…

    everything is explicit, intentional anti-Catholic bigotry.

    Ft. Hood? Hassan hated Catholics.

    H1N1? Obama engineered the whole pandemic because Catholics have really huge families, and it started largely in Mexico. MEXICO is mostly Catholic! (I heard this one last night. The mind reels.)

    Allegations of kid-fucking? Rat-fuckers trying to make the Church look bad.

  9. 9.

    MattF

    November 27, 2009 at 1:09 pm

    It’s good to know that can never happen again… everyone understands nowadays that theocracies always end up with lying, hypocritical, power-hungry scum in charge. Right?

  10. 10.

    JScott [formerly a Scott H]

    November 27, 2009 at 1:09 pm

    Bonus: Irish taxpayers will be picking up the tab for most of the compensation claims.

  11. 11.

    Mnemosyne

    November 27, 2009 at 1:13 pm

    @DougJ:

    The report is unbelievably horrifying. Much worse than what went on here.

    Ugh, yes. The stuff about the orphanages and unwed mothers’ homes will give you nightmares.

    The worst part was that the police were in on it, too. Imagine getting the courage up to go to the police and tell them about the abuse that you or your child suffered, only to have them tell you that it was a church matter and they couldn’t do anything. Calling it kafka-esque is an understatement.

  12. 12.

    NCReggie

    November 27, 2009 at 1:16 pm

    makes ya wonder how there’s a functional catholic church and how anyone continues to give a fuck what the clergy think. guess that vow of celibacy shit don’t work.

  13. 13.

    Dave C

    November 27, 2009 at 1:18 pm

    @freelancer:

    The Catholic Church can never fail. It can only be failed.

  14. 14.

    techno

    November 27, 2009 at 1:22 pm

    You know, Martin freaking Luther tried to get the Catholic Church to abandon their requirement for a “celibate” clergy in about 1520. Claimed that men without families are prone to sins like pedophilia. Now, nearly 500 years later we discover that nothing has changed–it has probably gotten worse.

  15. 15.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    November 27, 2009 at 1:27 pm

    It is my understanding the child sex abuse scandal in Ireland decimated the Catholic Church there.

  16. 16.

    Brachiator

    November 27, 2009 at 1:27 pm

    The report said those four knew of the abuse, but did little about it.

    It’s not that they did little about it, it’s that the church and the authorities deliberately refused to investigate or prosecute priests.

    From the UK Daily Mail:

    The Catholic hierarchy was granted police immunity and Church leaders protected abusers in some cases with the blessing of senior law enforcers.

    From the Irish Times:

    Among the main findings of the report were that all archbishops and many of the auxiliary bishops in Dublin handled child sexual abuse complaints badly. None of the four archbishops reported their knowledge of abuse to gardaí “throughout the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s”.
    …
    It also found senior members of the gardaí regarded priests as outside their remit, with some members reporting complaints to the archdiocese instead of investigating them.
    …
    It said there were some courageous priests who brought complaints to the attention of their superiors. But in general there was a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

    The bishops in Ireland will make a statement about the abuse report on Sunday. Bet your money on a whitewash. The general pattern has been to delay, delay, delay, and then seek to minimize the offenses and ask everyone to forgive.

    In the November issue of The Furrow, [Bishop of Killaloe] Dr Walsh warned against calls to prosecute perpetrators of abuse.
    …
    “Apart from cases of extreme abuse I do not see that there will be any healing in attempting to drag large numbers of elderly religious or lay people into courts at this hour of their lives,” he said.

    Here, the Bishop was discussing primarily allegations of severe physical abuse (e.g. a child whose arm was broken by a teacher, a child with spina bifida beaten by a nun), but by implication sexual abuse as well.

  17. 17.

    Cat Lady

    November 27, 2009 at 1:32 pm

    Tweety will have Bill Donohue on to complain about how this report will be used to promote abortion and gay marriage.

  18. 18.

    freelancer

    November 27, 2009 at 1:54 pm

    @Cat Lady:

    I for one can’t wait for the media blitz this report with reap, starting with “Homobortion” the movie.

  19. 19.

    burnspbesq

    November 27, 2009 at 2:03 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Is it just me, or do the Irish Church’s arguments for no prosecutions sound eerily like the wingnut arguments for not prosecuting torturers?

  20. 20.

    estamm

    November 27, 2009 at 2:42 pm

    I read a while ago that Patrick Kennedy was denied communion because he was ‘pro-choice’. I’d bet a thousand dollars that not one single one of these pedophiles or their enablers was ever denied communion. It is obvious where their priorities lie.

  21. 21.

    Bubblegum Tate

    November 27, 2009 at 2:44 pm

    @Cat Lady:

    Did you know that quoting Bill Donohue’s more noxious statements is slander? A wingnut Catholic told me so!

  22. 22.

    Mnemosyne

    November 27, 2009 at 3:05 pm

    @estamm:

    It’s even better — now they’re rescinding the excommunications of Holocaust deniers, which means that, in the eyes of the church, Patrick Kennedy is going to hell for supporting a woman’s right to choose but a guy who thinks it was a-okay to kill 6 million Jews isn’t.

    Gee, and the church wonders why it’s bleeding members ….

  23. 23.

    Redshift

    November 27, 2009 at 3:23 pm

    Just the luck of the Irish that all the people to blame in this report are either dead or retired.

    Actually, from what I understand, the fact that Ireland is a Catholic country is what allowed them to cover this up for so long. Arguably, the publicity of the scandal here is the only thing that made it possible for the situation in Ireland to be brought to light.

    Anyone who believes that we’d be more “moral” if we didn’t have separation of church and state should have their noses rubbed in this until they get a clue.

  24. 24.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    November 27, 2009 at 3:26 pm

    Maybe if they don’t get rid of the celibacy rule, they can at least have the boys stop dressing in those hot little school outfits and sheer white frilly robes. Hooboy, is it getting warm in here or what? I may have to say a penance!

  25. 25.

    kay

    November 27, 2009 at 3:37 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Why is their healing, as a Church, any of my concern?

    I don’t care if it goes toward “healing”. I don’t care about the health of their church.

    I don’t know that prosecuting women who get abortions or lobbying to forbid people from marrying does anything toward “healing” and they’re gung ho on writing that into law.

    I love, love, love how these frauds insist that laws reflect their “moral values”, until they’re headed toward the holding cell, then a moral basis for legal sanction goes out the fucking window and we’re all about “healing”.

    I wasn’t sick. I don’t really need healing. I want the same legal sanctions applied to them that apply to anyone else. What happens to their church is none of my concern.

  26. 26.

    aimai

    November 27, 2009 at 5:00 pm

    When the boston globe published its big exposee on the pedophile scandal here there was at least one story of a high up police official going to the Church and literally kissing the ring of the cardinal, or his reps, while squashing some accusations. I enjoyed Tweety taking on the bishop (?) who tried to deny Patrick Kennedy communion as much as the next person but I really, really, resented the incredibly deferential way Matthews kept referring to him as “your eminence” or whatever his official title was. Just slap those bastards in handcuffs and refer to them by their prisoner identification number.

    aimai

  27. 27.

    chrome agnomen

    November 27, 2009 at 6:26 pm

    no circle in hell deep enough

  28. 28.

    Rich2506

    November 27, 2009 at 8:53 pm

    Seems to me that the Roman Catholic Church’s failure to take the high road during World War II probably made today’s problem with pedophilia inevitable. After all, the Church decided then that their survival as an institution was more important than were the Jews of Europe. Seems like yer classic “slippery slope” problem to me. Once institutional survival becomes the priority, it’s hard to draw the line and to say “No, common decency and morality are more important”.

  29. 29.

    Steph

    November 27, 2009 at 9:23 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Points of clarification – the denier doesn’t say killing 6 million Jews is OK, he said it didn’t happen, that “only” a few hundred thousand were killed. He wasn’t excommunicated for being a Holocaust denier, but for bucking the authority of the Vatican, along with other bishops in his order. The rescinding is not related to the denialism.

    But, whatever. It really hurt Vatican/Jewish relations (and it should).

  30. 30.

    Steph

    November 27, 2009 at 9:25 pm

    @Brachiator: This is what I can’t stand, how suddenly they’re all concerned with “healing”. This is one to watch very closely.

    If I didn’t love my pastor, I’d have been gone so long by now. As it is….a few more months to tie up some loose ends of parish business, honor some commitments in mission work, and then we’re done.

  31. 31.

    Mnemosyne

    November 27, 2009 at 11:26 pm

    @Steph:

    He wasn’t excommunicated for being a Holocaust denier, but for bucking the authority of the Vatican, along with other bishops in his order. The rescinding is not related to the denialism.

    Given that they were excommunicated for rejecting Vatican II and that a big part of Vatican II was saying that the Jews did not actually murder Jesus, I think it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other.

  32. 32.

    Mnemosyne

    November 27, 2009 at 11:31 pm

    @Rich2506:

    Seems to me that the Roman Catholic Church’s failure to take the high road during World War II probably made today’s problem with pedophilia inevitable.

    It’s not quite a straight line. Vatican II was supposed to remake the church from top to bottom, but John XXIII died before he could fully implement it, and other Vatican officials (including John Paul II) have been working to quietly roll it back ever since.

    They refused to learn from the mistakes they made during WWII and, yes, once you decide that it’s more important to preserve the institution than to serve your constituency, you’re on your way to oblivion.

  33. 33.

    Steeplejack

    November 28, 2009 at 12:44 am

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    LOL.

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