Nuns and babies. Ireland.
- Thread starter wacko
- Start date
gassor
There may be more posts after this.
gassor
There may be more posts after this.
What interests me is why, with all the control the Church had over the lives of the people, did Ireland become one of the most socially progressive countries in the world? Ireland seems to be unique in the way the hegemony of the Church just seemed to evaporate in next to no time.
Sloop John B
And any old music will do…
It's such a sad part of our history, the worst being that this was let happen and the vast majority of the public who knew about it didn't speak out.
What annoys me in Ireland currently is we have committees and commissions and righteous indignation from political leaders and the general public about this brutal part of our history, while at the same time we have a system called "direct provision" for asylum seekers where conditions aren't probably much better than in the Magdalene Laundry years ago. It's so easy to condemn things that happened years ago whilst tuning the exact same blind eye today that was turned years ago.
.sjb
What annoys me in Ireland currently is we have committees and commissions and righteous indignation from political leaders and the general public about this brutal part of our history, while at the same time we have a system called "direct provision" for asylum seekers where conditions aren't probably much better than in the Magdalene Laundry years ago. It's so easy to condemn things that happened years ago whilst tuning the exact same blind eye today that was turned years ago.
.sjb
Darren L
Egalitarian
I can't give you a definite answer as to why, but I think the RC Church had control jointly along with the various Monarchies in a lot of countries in Europe for over a thousand years, then of course King Henry VIII sacked the RC Church and made himself the head of the COE, he was the big boss who answered only to God, The Church hand in hand with the monarchy and those who served controlled the population and the wealth.
In Ireland whether with the formation of the COI or the Protestant reformation the RC Church remained the church of the Irish , not the churches of the invaders or planters, so the RC Church aligned itself with Irish Nationalism and later Irish Republicans. Along with controlling the education system the RC Church and a lot of those who served the church abused the power they had over the population.
When the evidence of the paedophile priests along with the horror of the Magdalene laundries was released the RC church lost a lot of its power and respect.
LostAtSea
"33 222 1 222"
This is interesting. A similar process has been occuring in the Jehovah's Witnesses religion. Ownership of assets (buildings & real estate) being transferred from the local group (who paid for it with donations!!) to numerous companies that are legally unrelated to the central 'body' of the church and therefore out of the reach of those seeking redress for historic child abuse. A moral bankruptcy, but not a financial one, it would seem.
Oooops, my profuse apologies, I have not checked but this sounds FAR too similar, but I may have cast an unforgivable aspersion and it could be that the R4 programme was about JWs, rather than Mormons. Profuse and humble apologies if I have offended anyone by confusing the two, if I have done so.
Abso-fooking-lutely.
mykel
Perpetual Hack.
You all are not going to like this - at all.
Religion as a force for good - ya, in concept, but in execution, like anything human it tends to get highly perverted in the quest for power - even though they were originally well intentioned....
The Church.
Dont care which one, god, devil, aliens, bob next door...
Strip them of all assets - follow the money re LDS, Jehovah above.
Ban their formal structures.
Assets to into a public trust to help the poor and downtrodden - the ones they were supposed to help, but seem to fail institutionally. Term limits on administration and other barriers erected so the trust does not turn into another form of the same thing.
You want religion, has to be personal - no institution - no problem.
You want study groups (legally limited to size) - no problem.
Study groups are not interlinked / joined / nor do they associate in any way for anything other than simple dissemination of doctrine.
You want to organize and monetize in any way past a bake-sale with profits turned over to the trust - PROBLEM - Banned.
This way you get the "love thy neighbor good stuff" without the money and power.
Have I missed a whole bunch of issues - yup - but compared to the shit-show religion has forced upon the world for thousands of years it can't get any worse than burning people at a stake, pressing them under weights, throwing babies into a septic tank, and a whole host of other atrocities that somehow get rolled up in some perverted love of god.
Flame suit on - convince me otherwise - bring it.
Religion as a force for good - ya, in concept, but in execution, like anything human it tends to get highly perverted in the quest for power - even though they were originally well intentioned....
The Church.
Dont care which one, god, devil, aliens, bob next door...
Strip them of all assets - follow the money re LDS, Jehovah above.
Ban their formal structures.
Assets to into a public trust to help the poor and downtrodden - the ones they were supposed to help, but seem to fail institutionally. Term limits on administration and other barriers erected so the trust does not turn into another form of the same thing.
You want religion, has to be personal - no institution - no problem.
You want study groups (legally limited to size) - no problem.
Study groups are not interlinked / joined / nor do they associate in any way for anything other than simple dissemination of doctrine.
You want to organize and monetize in any way past a bake-sale with profits turned over to the trust - PROBLEM - Banned.
This way you get the "love thy neighbor good stuff" without the money and power.
Have I missed a whole bunch of issues - yup - but compared to the shit-show religion has forced upon the world for thousands of years it can't get any worse than burning people at a stake, pressing them under weights, throwing babies into a septic tank, and a whole host of other atrocities that somehow get rolled up in some perverted love of god.
Flame suit on - convince me otherwise - bring it.
A very seriously HUGE problem there Mykel. You have confused and conflated purveyors of religions, with religions.
Many, many times, I have said that if I had one wish, it would be that all humans were devout, observant Buddhists. A second would be that all humans had the same shade of the same colour skin.
Trouble with those wishes is that they do not legislate for maniacs and megalomaniacs.
mykel
Perpetual Hack.
Like I said not perfect, but the history remains that the best of religious intentions get twisted into a quest for power, control and money.
The trust would need to be structured in a way to prevent it co-option. No entrenched power structure etc.
You hit on the problem - people. Some will always look for differences to exploit.
Religion is what its purveyors say it is. Look at all the gatherings to discuss how may angels can dance on the head of a pin etc etc. People write the religious texts then later generations interpret them in a way that serves whatever agenda the institution is pushing at the time.
You can still have your beliefs, but they are constrained by a prohibition of any type of power structure arising, so local. Like I said contact between groups limited to dissemination of doctrine. If you must, designate a group as the keeper of he faith, but the only power they have over any group is what they push down - each group is free to do with this info what they wish.
Faith is fine, Faith backed up by a huge power structure is not.
LostAtSea
"33 222 1 222"
Faith is fine. Parasitic exploitative human behaviour is plainly wrong, yet it happens on a one-to-one and a macro- scale. You don't need religion for this, and you can't reboot religion to address the issues seen.
In short, we are doomed to repeat those mistakes which laid waste to previous civilisations on this planet. Is it any wonder we 'choose' to talk about cables instead?
In short, we are doomed to repeat those mistakes which laid waste to previous civilisations on this planet. Is it any wonder we 'choose' to talk about cables instead?
1964meb
pfm Member
I went to a Del la Salle Catholic school. It was brutal. Only some of the Brothers (and only some of the lay teachers (non-brothers) were violent towards the students.
Oddly and sadly, that school taught me to be homophobic. My parents were very supportive of our closet uncles (I grew up in the 70s so most gay people were not out then) . It took very good friends to set me right on my then homophobia a few years later in life. I don't see those people anymore but I am thankful to them to this day for that.
I did quite well at that school but that school did damage me.
-alan-
pfm Member
Almost identical experience here - except (despite being born and raised a Catholic) I went to an almost exclusively Proddy school in the Bible-Belt heartland of Norn Iron.
You get (or used to get) vicious old b&stards of teachers everywhere. And homophobes.
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
This is about power. The vast majority of the public who knew about it didn’t speak out because the church had all power and they had none.
The power balance has shifted over the years and we are in a better position than we were in the past, but the imbalance of power is still there, which is of course why it still happens today.
The past informs the present.
hifinutt
hifinutt
I recall being given the slipper for putting the name of my hamster as my middle name....that was a secular school in Britain not that long ago !!
Craig B
Re:trophile
It wasn't only infants killed by nuns, and not just in Ireland either.
Warning, once read, this article cannot be un-read...
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/articl...rphanage-death-catholic-abuse-nuns-st-josephs
Warning, once read, this article cannot be un-read...
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/articl...rphanage-death-catholic-abuse-nuns-st-josephs
gassor
There may be more posts after this.
I was trying to ask why is Ireland apparently unique in the way it has moved away from being arguably the most Catholic country in the world to one where the power of the Church is a busted flush? This dramatic decline has not been matched by the Church anywhere else although the abuse committed by priests has been exposed all over the world.
I think it says something about how difficult large scale indoctrination can be even with complete control over the education system and providing the social cement of most communities. For example, some people seem to think indoctrination can be achieved simply by scanning a newspaper like the Daily Mail every day. In voting for same-sex marriage, acceptance of abortion and electing a gay PM indicates that indoctrination is no easy matter.
Joe Hutch
Mate of the bloke
Which reminds me of the old story about the Jew driving round in Northern Ireland, being stopped at a roadblock by masked gunmen. One of the gunmen says 'Are ye Catholic, or Protestant?' The Jew replies 'Neither, I'm Jewish'. The gunman goes off to confer with his colleagues, comes back and says 'Are ye a Catholic Jew, or a Protestant Jew?'