Clergy still managing to miss the point.
The country’s men in dresses both North and South of the Border have continued to miss the point of the Nation’s and the World’s outrage over Child Sex Rape and Pederasty scandals in the Church in recent years.
Addressing parishioners and fellow clergy in Kilaloe today Bishop Willie assured his listeners that no abuse has occurred in his diocese for the last 20 years.
They still think it is just about the abuse don’t they? They still really do not get it.
No Willie, it is not just about the abuse, it is about the systematic cover ups that followed them to. The transfer of the perpetrators, the burying of documents, the use of intimidation and fear to silence the victims and more.
Does Willie want to stand before the nation and tell us none of THAT has been going on in his or any diocese in the last 20 years? In the last 5 even?
This week Donal McKeown came out at Knock to tell people that drunk adults are probably abusing drunk kids. He alas does not cite a single statistic for this but bases it entirely on the fact that…. adults get drunk…. kids get drunk…. and kids can not control themselves while drunk…. so adults MUST be abusing them.
“The actions of intoxicated adults and some young people’s own inability to have control of themselves would imply that many children are being physically, emotionally and sexually abused across this country on a daily basis — and especially at weekends,”
Trust a catholic Bishop to think that if a child is vulnerable, then SOMEONE has got to be abusing it. That is, after all, what vulnerable children are for right “Father”?
The icing on this particular cake comes when he adds:
“That is a national disgrace and we seem unable to acknowledge it”
Yes “Father” because acknowledging child abuse is something your career background and experience to date is known to illicit in your ilk huh? Maybe you should explain this one to Willie.
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2 Comments
The second example smacks of opportunism, both trying to deflect attention from the Catholic-centric abuses and trying to make it appear that someone in the Catholic hierarchy actually gives a crap about abused children. I doubt many people will fall for it.
And in both cases, they seem to be just trying to get people to shut up and stop whining about the church, as if it is somehow unfair that they are still targeted for criticism. I see no contrition or even sympathy here, I see simply cynical politics in their attempts to distract from the issue and from their own complicity in the disgusting culture of fear and control that allowed abusers to get away with it for so long.
I think it was tuesday night last I heard a radio presenter on newstalk refer to the Hse as secular organisation. The HSE is not a secular organisation, mind there is not doubt that it could benifit from rationalisim.
paraphrasing
the child abuse scandal caused by the chruch and the secular Hse.
I generally have great respect for news talk but this presenter has demostrated a bias to religiophiles before and I believe this was an attempt not just to reduce the heat on the church but also tarnish secularisim