If commanded, we will obey
The Catholic church in Ireland is all heart – like Mr Collins, it graciously consents to do what it is obliged to do.
The Primate of All-Ireland Cardinal Seán Brady said this afternoon that were the remit of the Murphy Commission to be extended to other Catholic dioceses in Ireland, the Catholic Church “will co-operate fully with that inquiry.”
Is that not kind? Is that not generous? Is it not affable and condescending and truly gracious? The Catholic church will co-operate fully with an inquiry into its long habit of letting its priests molest children while it keeps the whole thing secret. I’m totally impressed.
The pontiff also noted “the more general crisis of faith affecting the Church,” the statement said…and he linked that to the lack of respect for the human person and how the weakening of faith has been a significant contributing factor in the phenomenon of the sexual abuse of minors”.
Aha! So it turns out it’s the atheists’ fault! It’s not the church’s fault, for being a powerful unaccountable arrogant self-protecting bunch of thugs, no, it’s the atheists’ fault for causing a ‘crisis of faith.’ Of course the child-molesting and the horrors of industrial schools have been going on for generation after generation, so one wonders which crisis of faith the pope has in mind…but never mind, the point is the atheists did it, and that’s what matters.
Yes OB, the Pope could have been blaming loss of faith by the general population. (I’m only going by TV news grabs here.) Another interpretation, less likely perhaps, is that he is having a crack at loss of faith among the clergy.
It appears to me likely that the clerical child molesters and their clerical defenders probably have a fair number of cynics, sexual opportunists and two-faced men in their ranks. Just a hunch, you understand. But this leads to the question: ‘how many priests actually believe all the theology and doctrine they are trying to sell?’ Secondly, how could anyone ever find out how many?
I suggest that the Pope require every member of the Catholic clergy to answer a few fairly basic questions, starting with ‘do you believe in God?’ and ending with ‘would you submit to a lie-detector test on all that?’
I am sure that after he reads this Pope Ratzinger will lose no time starting the program.
I don’t understand why the bishops who covered this up and alllowed the perpetrators to continue their crimes aren’t being prosecuted for conspiracy.I know the Catholic Church is very powerful in Ireland with friends in high places,but…oh,sorry,I do understand.
If there were any justice, Ratzinger would be under indictment for obstruction of that very same justice. The Vatican apparently has total impunity for concealing and abetting sexual abuse of children anywhere on the planet. It’s quite remarkable.
Yer, right, it was the influence of the Beatles, Twiggy and Ken Tynan on Sixties Ireland that led to all that child abuse. Oh, and Vince Hill’s yodelling.
You couldn’t move in Dublin in ’68 for people in dayglo caftans taking LSD. Thus the influence of the church was fatally undermined. And that’s why priests buggered little boys and the bishops covered it up.
Catholic use of logic has declined a wee bit since Aquinas, hasn’t it?
No, it was the influence of strident Richard Dawkins, working retroactively!