Jezebel 
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New York, 6:32 AM
Sun Nov 29
17 posts in the last 24 hours
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George W. Bush was a bad president, let's dissolve the government! /sarcasm
05/21/09
and once again, Catholic church does not equal a democratic republic. There is no voting of leadership among church members. Not at all the same.
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(Sorry if I'm ripping of a Jezzie - I can't remember where I read this!)
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Orphans. "Bastards". Children of the poor. "Bog Irish". Ireland has, or had, a pretty strong class/caste system, and I think that's at least as much at play here as the religious issues. The institutions only formalised a much larger pattern of abuse of, and prejudice towards, the "lower classes".
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Screw seal hunts. Residential schools existed in Canada until the eighties and nineties and may very well be the country's biggest and most tragic failure. But again... a few bad apples!
05/21/09
There is nothing worse than the abuse of a child, physical or sexual, but for it to happen under the guise of Christianity and Jesus is just sickening.
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05/21/09
Overall most of the world's blind eye towards abuse on children, whether its sexual abuse in an orphanage in Ireland, an eight year old marrying a man in Saudi Arabia, or a 2 year old being sold to a pimp for drugs in Oregon, has seriously taken its toll on me in the past few weeks. I have made the mistake of watching far too many docs on the subject and the injustice of it is making me want to point fingers and yell.
05/21/09
The most vocal org is SNAP (Survivors Network of the Abused by Priests) -- www.snapnetwork.org. If it makes you feel any better they make life hell for their local archbishops...
05/21/09
It is a horrible, horrible thing. In our church, the pastor got up to rage against the abusers and assure the parish that it had not happened there (the church was founded in the late 1960s, so hopefully it indeed was too late for the worst of the abuse.)
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The only consolation to be had is that there are still good people -- very good people -- doing what should be done for the good of humans everywhere. I hope I can call myself one of them.
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This seems like old news. Horrible news, but old news.
I'd also like to point out that there are many religious sects in the world, and many branches of Christianity as well, that behave in the exact opposite manner than their chosen deity would. This is not confined to the Catholic Church, and it minimizes the abuses committed by ALL dogmatic religious leaders to ascribe it to one denomination of one religion.
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I certainly disagree that it 'minimises' other abuses to acknowledge the unique role of the Church in this. Having said that, the people who are blaming the Church alone are missing the point. Much of this abuse was carried out by laypeople. The Church was an integral part of this system, and its darkest sides were allowed to flourish, but there are plenty of countries in which the Church wasn't able (or willing) to systematically abuse an entire generation of children. That's the result of its particular position in Ireland. In this context, the physical and sexual abuse that took place is much more analagous to the use of rape as a weapon of war or oppression.
05/21/09
The hierarchy of the Church protects itself, as it has in the past, and as other hierarchies of other churches continue to do so. No it is not right. It is abhorrent. However, I am merely attempting to illustrate that these threads turn into Catholic bashing instead of insightful comment on the nature of religious hierarchy and the damage it does.
@BiteMeMitchell!: My point is that if this were a thread about Jewish institutions, how many people would be speaking of "suffer the little children"? If this were Islam, would we be decrying the very institution of Islam?
@Rare Affinity: I do not disagree. The Church has a history of these actions. I guess I'm a little sick of people utilizing the abuses of people in power as some form of justification as to why a religious belief practiced by millions of people is wrong and/or evil.
05/21/09
@BiteMeMitchell!:
exhibit a
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exhibit b
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as for the 'well catholicism sucks so there' comments, there are a few of them...usually hidden in comments made by other people, but they are here.
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we agree that the catholic church should be taken to task on this. however, i also pointed out that all religious organizations have issues like this in their past - victims, cover ups, and the like - and yet the reports on them are scant and not nearly as widely reported as the issues involving the catholic church. catholic church is bigger, so yes, easy target, but it happens in all faiths and denominations, yet it's not reported on nearly as much.
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Oh well then, no big deal! If it wasn't a criminal offense then, who cares how many children you ruined!
@rednrowdy: Sorry, but what do you want? It is clear that there is systemic abuse throughout the church and that the church does as much as it can to cover it up at almost every instance!
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If the RCC wonders why they have such a problem with recruitment and numbers, maybe they should read reports like this. This, it turns people off the church forever.
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i'm not condoning what those schools and the church did - far from it. they should be called out and strung up for their actions. but inversely, should all christian brothers schools in the world be chastised for what the christian brothers schools in ireland did? i'm pretty sure that my cousins who attended schools run by the christian brothers in the usa did not have those experiences.
my point is that if you are going to report this, then start reporting it on all religions, and trust me, it's out there...it's just that the media in the u.s. conveniently ignores it or whispers it because it's not nearly as much fun compared to pointing and yelling and screaming at the catholic church, which is the easiest target in the world for good reason.
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really? that's your concern here?