Comments on: Mental Reservation in Bishop Murray's Resignation Statement

By: gerrryo

gerrryo — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:29:35 +0000

when will murray and his ilk be charged with aiding and abetting? they knew what was happening and did notthing to stop it. in fact by moving priest from parish to parish they encouraged it. you could even make an arguement that they organized and facilatated these crimes.

By: Scotlyn

Scotlyn — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 10:33:22 +0000

Bock – re "mental reservation" I came across a reference to Eusebius (a third century Christian apologist who is suspected by some to have forged the historian Josephus's only supposed reference to Jesus) . He thought that lying, which he apparently called "pious fraud" was ok, so long as it was for a greater good. So the idea has been knocking around Christian circles for a very long time.

Also, Leo, I couldn't agree with you more, but I would go deeper and wider. Christianity (not just Catholicism), and some other monotheistic religions you could also name, are perversely obsessed with sex and this results in a whole series of warpings of the sexuality of individuals. But deeper than this lies the basic problem. These religions are anti-world. Listen, and they will tell you that "being in the world" but not "of the world" is the virtue. They devote their energies to diverting our loyalty, love and effort away from this world, and from the real people we are connected with, into some otherworldly enterprise, and with the expectation of an otherworldly reward or punishment (and note, because we have such good imaginations, they've gotten away with never having to prove either). What I realised, when I left my faith, was that loving and devoting all my energies to this world was the virtue. And that anyone working for an otherworldly agenda is not on the side of making this world a better place for us all to live. And that alienating us from our own natural appetites (I think you're spot on linking food and sex by the way), is only one part of that larger agenda to separate us from the earthly matrix that is our only home and put our loyalty, love and effort into some other "greater cause" which is whatever they tell us it is.

By: Leo

Leo — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 03:29:00 +0000

Audrey, I don't want to be preachy. I don't want to be giving lessons about anything. You know it's hard. Some people are a mile ahead of me, and some are a mile behind. Do you agree with the idea that some people hold a basically healthy attitude to sex, and some don't? And would you agree broadly with the criterion of consenting adults?
Backhander, I think Mental Reservation = dirty tricky smug lies.
I am profoundly frustrated with the idea that someone can fix the church and make everything all right for children. Mine is indeed a voice crying out in the wilderness.
I am beyond believing church nonsense, the bible, other holy books, online clairvoyants, spinning suns etc.
I like to understand how all that nonsense works, and why it works on people. It's not enough just to knock it. Someone has to take the responsibility of analysing and destroying it, and saving themselves, their children and their friends from a life of subjugation to pathetic horseshite such as Marian apparitions, virgin birth, reversible death and an edible creator.
I think I may have some insights which may help people to free themselves. Joseph Campbell's comparisons of human cultures across the world and through the millennia convince me that all churches, religions, faiths (three very different things), are opressive obstacles to humanity.
I'd like to be able to say these things without hurting anybody.
I've been hurt, and reduced to these anonymous protestations because, if I were to put my name to them, agents of the Irish catholic church would immediately destroy my livelihood.
Come on, Audrey, please engage with me. Also anybody else.

By: Audrey

Audrey — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:16:17 +0000

Leo, thanks for the lesson in what's sexually healthy.. :)

By: Backhander

Backhander — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:25:18 +0000

Mental reservations it would seem has spread throughout the land. Mr Foley of Listowel appeared to have some that prevented him from informing the Gardai af all the details of the sexual assault he committed. Now it appears that Gerry Adams had some relating to the actions of his brother. Lets cut to the chase here, Mental Reservations = Moral cowardice

By: Leo

Leo — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 01:57:24 +0000

I know I often seem to be off the point. That's because I'm coming to this from a different perspective. But I appreciate the opportunity to propose my opinions.
To each survivor, the details of what happened to her or him are crucially important. Every survivor must have the support they need. And yes, the abusers must face justice, and so must their enablers too. Every diocese must be investigated, and not by sample, but in full.
But this isn't just a series of random crimes.
Yes, the church is rotten at the top. But that's not the problem to solve. Put in a new top, that will be rotten too. Sorry to labour this point, but the problem is not that the church is rotten at the top. The problem is that the church is rotten at the core.
I mean its very core.
Catholicism is a wicked virus. It has no good side. It promotes sexual deviants into positions of authority from where they dictate sexual propriety to the sexually healthy.
There are no sexually normal priests or nuns. Any person who can agree to opt permanently out of their own sexuality is less than fully human. They have sexual anorexia (with apologies to people who suffer from eating disorders.) A person who can promise lifelong abstention from sexual union with another human is a sexual deviant, whether or not he or she perseveres.
To me, anyone who embraces their own sexuality and is prepared to share it with a willing adult partner is sexually healthy.
There is no priest, nun or bishop who can claim to know how sexually healthy people should behave. Much less can they know how sexually healthy men, women and children should be treated. The clergy are, by definition, sexual cripples. Catholic morality is obsessed with sex, and is dictated by sexual and moral cripples with enormous egos and gargantuan arrogance.
Our republic has grovelled too long to these obscene bullies. You can't take out lousers and put in nicer bishops. This Irish catholic church is sexual toxin. And the sexual abuse is only the tip of the bullying iceberg.
The practice of altar serving by minors has to stop.
The nation has to own and run our national schools, and all state-funded schools and hospitals.
The Irish catholic church has to stop being a hostile foreign state, and stop being a de facto owner of Irish government departments and institutions.

By: Scotlyn

Scotlyn — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 15:00:16 +0000

Bock – excellent deconstruction – just one small thing to add – this was what I thinking (reading between the lines) as soon as I heard these words on the radio:

I know full well that my resignation cannot undo the pain that survivors of abuse have suffered in the past and continue to suffer each day.

"I also know, but won't say, that my actions and omissions in the past could certainly have prevented a great deal of the pain that survivors of abuse suffered. As an enabler for abusive priests I have therefore caused much of that pain, and my resignation isn't going to change that very much. But I know if I keep harping on about the suffering of survivors, I might get people to forget about my causative role as an enabler."

By: Howard

Howard — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 12:31:40 +0000

Builderfromhell thanks for posting, its worse then I thought.
Are there no laws in Ireland that convicted paedophiles cannot work with children?

By: Builderfromhell

Builderfromhell — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 11:52:16 +0000

Unbelievably one sided discussion on Marian Finucane show right now. All panel seems to be defending Catholic church including Marian herfelf.

By: Bock

Bock — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 19:21:13 +0000

I'm planning to condense and post parts of the Murphy report when I get time.