# Irish priests beat, raped children: report



## Berean (May 20, 2009)

*Irish priests beat, raped children: report*



> DUBLIN (Reuters) – Priests beat and raped children during decades of abuse in Catholic-run institutions in Ireland, an official report said on Wednesday, but it stopped short of naming the perpetrators.



Irish priests beat, raped children: report

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/world/europe/21ireland.html?partner=rss&emc=rss


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## apaleífo̱ (May 20, 2009)

Without a trace of sarcasm, I am utterly bewildered as to why this happens so often in Papist institutions.


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## PresbyDane (May 20, 2009)




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## william.m. (May 20, 2009)

The depravity of fallen man & the absence of grace.


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## Idelette (May 20, 2009)

The heart is desperately wicked, who could understand it?


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## Pergamum (May 20, 2009)

vow of celibacy, prohibition against marriage, and religiosity without regeneration.


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## Tripel (May 20, 2009)

Pergamum said:


> vow of celibacy, prohibition against marriage, and religiosity without regeneration.



Yep. I'd also like to add that but for the grace of God...


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## BJClark (May 20, 2009)

I guess I don't understand why people are so shocked, there was a movie out a number of years ago concerning this issue..and many times it was their parents who put their children into the facilities--


The Magdalene Sisters



> The film takes place in 1960s Ireland. Three girls from different walks of life are abandoned by their families and forced into lifeong servitude at The Magdalene Laundries, the asylum for unchaste women run by the Sisters of Magdalene order of the Irish Catholic Church. All three girls are sent to the institute for controversial reasons: Margaret (Anne-Marie Duff) is raped by her cousin, Rose (Dorothy Duffy) has a child out of wedlock, and Bernadette (Nora-Jane Noone) innocently flirts with some boys during recess. By today’s standards, this would seem preposterous, but at the time the Church dictated society's moral code. Without due process and appeal, the girls are sent against their will to Magdalene to “wash away their sins.”


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## MrMerlin777 (May 20, 2009)

BJClark said:


> I guess I don't understand why people are so shocked, there was a movie out a number of years ago concerning this issue..and many times it was their parents who put their children into the facilities--
> 
> 
> The Magdalene Sisters
> ...




Sounds like the RCC viewed these institutions as a sort of Earthly Purgatory then...


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## Berean (May 20, 2009)

Another article says "thousands" were abused by both priests and nuns 

Thousands beaten, raped in Irish reform schools


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## Oecolampadius (May 20, 2009)

I did my high school in a Jesuit run academic institution. And, I noticed that many of the priests who were part of the faculty were often rumored to be gay. 

One time, during a retreat, I was by myself contemplating and the priest who organized it sat beside me. He wanted to talk to me about what I was thinking and then while we were talking, I suddenly felt his hands all over my body. I was so shocked that I couldn't utter a single word. I stood up and left. There were no witnesses to what happened and so I decided to just keep quiet about it.


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## jambo (May 20, 2009)

It is scandalous and it is a bigger scandal that the church covered it up by moving suspected priests on to different parishes. The problem is up until the early 90s no one would have believed any such allegation. "But these are holy men..." was the belief and conviction of the RC. Now the floodgates have opened and for many RCs it will be the death nail of any religious belief. The problem is that in their mind having been treated so shamefully the conclusion many assume is that all religious leaders are the same.


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## Reformed Thomist (May 20, 2009)

christabella_warren said:


> Without a trace of sarcasm, I am utterly bewildered as to why this happens so often in Papist institutions.



The percentage of pedophiles among non-RC clergy is no smaller, sadly. It just isn't _the big story_. Catholic priests are a very newsworthy group for several reasons (their 'holy men' image, whereby the moral standard which they are held to, even among secularists, is very high, for one; their curious celibacy, which grates against contemporary mores, another), and when one gets caught doing something he shouldn't be doing -- really, doing _anything_ out of the ordinary for a priest -- you can be sure that it will be in the news. We cannot say this about Protestant ministers; they do not have nearly the same 'mystique' in the culture. Consequently, unlike an unknown Catholic priest, when an unknown Protestant minister gets caught with his pants down it often goes unknown to people outside of the geographical region... it is purely a 'police' matter. It seems that a Protestant minister has to be famous _before_ his crime in order to achieve infamy for his crime.


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## BJClark (May 20, 2009)

Reformed Thomist;



> We cannot say this about Protestant ministers; they do not have nearly the same 'mystique' in the culture. Consequently, unlike an unknown Catholic priest, when an unknown Protestant minister gets caught with his pants down it often goes unknown to people outside of the geographical region... it is purely a 'police' matter. It seems that a Protestant minister has to be famous _before_ his crime in order to achieve infamy for his crime.



I think this might also have something to do with it..When a Protestant Minister is caught with his pants down so to speak, "it becomes a Police matter" within the Catholic Church they 'hide it' and merely send the offender away to serve some where else and basically allowing it to continue, as opposed to reporting it to the civil authorities to punish the crime. 

So for the RCC, I believe it is because they have tried for years to 'hide' the sins of the priest, when it does come out it's an even larger scandal than it would have been had it been reported to the authorities when it was first found out.


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## EricP (May 21, 2009)

Isn't part of the problem the notion that for the past thousand years or so the RCC has considered herself apart from if not above national or civil authority? Thus, they decided to "manage" their problems in-house rather than resorting to police, etc. While I am no fan at all of RCC pedophilia, and they clearly were wrong to cover up (however they did) priestly abuses, however many of the reports were real, the changing relationship between particularly US civil government and the "church" at large will probably have some future repercussions (for example, loss of tax exempt status, rulings forcing churches to marry/ordain homosexuals or other flagrant sinners, etc) for us non-RCC folks. It's easy to countenance "intrusion" when it happens to someone else, and when it concerns a problem we don't seem to have quite as badly.


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## OPC'n (May 21, 2009)

I didn't read the article because things like this make me vomit, but I know of a special chair in which these kind of people can sit.


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## BJClark (May 22, 2009)

Things like this happen here too...

http://www.jacksonville.com/news/me...jacksonville_pastor_pleads_guilty_in_sex_case


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## MrMerlin777 (May 22, 2009)

TranZ4MR said:


> I didn't read the article because things like this make me vomit, but I know of a special chair in which these kind of people can sit.




I know of a platform on which they can stand.


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## Berean (May 22, 2009)

TranZ4MR said:


> I didn't read the article because things like this make me vomit, but I know of a special chair in which these kind of people can sit.



I thought they already had "Peter's Chair" in Rome


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## OPC'n (May 22, 2009)

MrMerlin777 said:


> TranZ4MR said:
> 
> 
> > I didn't read the article because things like this make me vomit, but I know of a special chair in which these kind of people can sit.
> ...



....or that

-----Added 5/22/2009 at 04:39:29 EST-----



Berean said:


> TranZ4MR said:
> 
> 
> > I didn't read the article because things like this make me vomit, but I know of a special chair in which these kind of people can sit.
> ...



Not comprehending that one...


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