Atheist Ireland Forum

The Sham Squire Bertie Ahern was interviewed this morning on TV3 by that buffoon Aidan Cooney. They discussed briefly the Indemnity deal like it was the loss of a minor league match by some local team.

http://www.tv3.ie/article.php?article_i ... ename=news

It's says a lot about this comatose country that this kind of scumbag can walk around the streets smiling and smirking.

They're sticking by their deal...

Architect of Church-State deal has 'no regrets' as bill hits €1bn



Nice one. So completely innocent people will be paying the price for someone else's crime. And we like to think that scape-goating was a primitive practice long discarded.

You got that wrong, FXR - its the other way round

She's right. Nothing they can SAY will compensate the victims of her organisations abuse - but they could DO something to alleviate the traumatic effects (in most cases, life-long) of their victims. On second thoughts, they can't because they (those religious sadists) are not human enough to do the right thing!

Ygern, if the "completely innocent people you're referring to are the general Irish population, you couldn't be more wrong. The fact is, the VAST MAJORITY of the Irish have and still do collude with their abusers in power - seems they are afflicted with a collective form of Stockholme Syndrome (like the Germans under Nazi rule).

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

Certainly there are more than just nuns, priests and brothers who are guilty; but you can't convict an entire country in the process, not even if they are a card-carrying Catholic. That's a simplistic and naïve way of viewing it.

While your Stockholm Syndrome is reasonably apt, if you explore what the condition actually entails, you'd realise that in that condition the sufferer or hostage is exempted from full culpability or guilt, so your statement fails.

But in any case, there are plenty of people in this county who in no way have anything to do with this scandal, not even by association. They are innocent, and they will be paying the price.

There is some grain of truth to the argument. There is something seriously wrong collectively with the Irish people. No matter how much provocation they seem to sleepwalk through everything. Even the history of rebellions on the island are a series of half hearted badly supported and badly planned revolts (or so called "heroic" failures). There's nothing heroic about failure. All the girls put into Magdalene laundries had families who walked away. All those kids in Catholic run institutions were beaten and humiliated by people who were born and raised in the same country. The officals who ignored their plight and the ones right now in the government and the civil service manufacturing the cover up and twarting the victims are all Irish.

When it came to dealing with the Vatican the croppies did'nt just lay down they bent over.

The poisonous nature of Catholicism seems to have created a particularly toxic mix in it's efforts to subsume the native Irish culture. The 17th of March should be turned into a day of mourning.

To what end? Guilty feelings are useless unless you intend to do something about them. Rather like the proposed monument, it will just encourage people to wallow in emotions of regret and (maybe) guilt. It will do absolutely nothing for the victims. It's a pretty empty gesture.

Whatever Ireland needs to deal with this tragic legacy, it's not that.

you can see the loop or trap that the church have set up, theres no other schools to go to, most of the department officials have been educated in these schools, lots of the solicitors have been educated in these schools are they really going to fundamentally challenge the place that got em where they are.

mary raferty is very strong on this
Taxpayers pick up the bill while abusers get secrecy and protection
OPINION: The deal making religious orders liable for a mere fraction of the cost of the abuse of children in their care underlines the vulnerability of a State owning so little of its vital social infrastructure, writes MARY RAFTERY
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opi ... 11378.html

the church partly owns and runs the hospitals and the schools so they can't let them go bankrupt and sell em off, all these socials services should be done by the state anyway.

Catholicism and Subservience, cause when they met, it was murder

About 25 years ago, I was helping my Aunt out with a charity collection in front of a village church in the west. The Parish Priest comes storming out, face blazing, shouting at us about who gave us permission to set up the table in front of his church. In fact, the charity had permission in writing.

My Aunt was apologetic and subservient, I stood and watched this unfold. The priest seemed to revel in it, his face got redder as he continued to splutter his nonsense at us.

Eventually, I'd had enough. I was a teenager and had always had this respect for priests, you know, putting them in the same category as doctors and teachers and policemen as 'people you should respect'. I spoke up; 'Father, we're trying to do a collection here, for charity, and if you don't know that then you don't know your own religion'

Silence.

'How dare you!' - And with his face blazing, he turned and marched off. (He has my gratitude for starting me on the path to Atheism)

Even now, I see it in the older generation; this weird class gap between 'priests, farmers and doctors' - the untouchables - and the rest of us. If it's like that now, imagine the power and control that brothers, priests and nuns were able to take advantage of, unquestioned, back in the 1950s and 60s.

I am almost thankful when I see the cockiness of the current generation of Irish teenagers.

It's amazing that even after all this has come out you dont hear anybody in the media asking "why" the church is still permitted to run the education system in this country.If it was any other organisation people would demand that they be kept a million miles away from children.The state is fighting tooth and nail to preserve the status quo again.Cowen says that the indemnity deal shows that the state is accepting responsibility for what happened in these institutions.Yet they will not accept responsibility for what happened to Louise O'Keeffe only recently.That deal saved the church in this country and that was its sole purpose.

The best outcome I feel would be if the church handed over all its schools to the state and walked away from education.I'd love to see the state take it off them but with the current government it doesnt look likely.They truly are shameful and I hope they are castigated by the history books.

theres some hint from the the church and orders that there saying hey we looked after the kids you didn't want to, be grateful.

ahern said there thousands who weren't abused, but did those thousands go to decent institutions?

I think we should baptise that line of rationalising the Argument from Father Ted fallacy:

"We're not all like that. Say if there's two hundred million priests in the world, and five percent of them are paedophiles - that's still only ten million!"

Are you taking things a bit too serious thar?

actually Fergus Finlay of barnodos have been saying the trusteeship method needs to be reviewed and mary raferty has also been very strong on that, but the gov reps try to say as little as possible, you read about various groups wanting to hear from the dept of ed about the go ahead for schools, they wait and wait and ask and ask and the dept of ed refuse to say anything and then word comes down from the dept of ed. yes or no and thats it, its totally opaque and impenetrable.