I cannot understand this....

[wanderer33]

In the last few days Australia has incorporated its first 'saint', Mary McKillop. The press in Australia (ABC and 7 network specifically) spent a huge amount of time on this topic. They presented the picture that ALL Australians were in agreement with the idea that we needed a catholic saint in Australia and that ALL Australians would benefit from this.

This occurred at a time when the Catholic church had been proven to be an organisation in which 60% of its clergy had been reported to be paedophiles. Paedophilia is a crime of deviance and cruelty in most western countries. Not only has paedophilia been extant in the contemporary catholic church, but the crime has been occurring for centuries and is endemic to the organisation.

Any organisation with a history of crime as revealed in the last decades would be banned as a criminal organisation, one would think. Yet this is not the case in this case. This organisation is so powerful that it is above the law.

What is most disturbing is the fact that the entire catholic population of Australia completely ignores the crimes committed and chooses to carry on, business as usual. I feel like I live among a group of aliens not of this world. Mass hypnosis is the only explanation that makes sense to me (no pun intended).

Any thoughts on this?

 

[Hildegarda]

This is the first time I hear about Mary McKillop, so I read up on her a bit, in Wikipedia and elsewhere. Saint or no saint, it sounds like she was a genuine and earnest person who dedicated her life to improving human condition and the life of poor in Australia. She was a rebel figure and seems to have had a fair share of run-ins with the psychopaths within the Church. Her order was more integrated in the community and had the autonomy of female leadership, which is still unusual. At some point she was even excommunicated and chased out of the diocese where she worked, by the bishop who was bent on attacking her. I first thought she may be part of the whole saint mill that the previous Pope had set in motion -- a bunch of people were moved through and canonized very quickly -- but not even that, she lived in 19th century and has been beautified long time ago.

I too find strange the idea that "all Australians" would benefit from having a Catholic saint of their own, obviously nobody but Catholics would care. But I guess she may have this wholesome and very Australian image that makes for a good patriotic sentiment and a positive story on evening news. She does deserve to be remembered, IMO.

As for why people still cling to Catholic faith at this time when so many scandals are coming out, I was wondering about out myself. From what I gathered out of talking to people, two things are going on. First is that, people are very good at compartmentalizing. The Church is all right, it's some people who are bad. In no particular order, people go to their church to socialize, to maintain their heritage, and to answer some questions about life and God (and the catholic tradition seems to appeal to a certain rule-oriented, intellectual person) -- to renounce all that is just too much for many. And second, they look around and say, what are the alternatives? Who is to say that they are any better? In fact, there are many examples when they are worse! In fact, it's those other people who attack the Church and over-exagerate the negatives. There is definitely this defensiveness going on.

fwiw

 

[Starlight]

Maybe it's a diversion technique???
"Turn the other cheek???"
Even though there are a lot of scandals that would show that there are a lot of leaders in the Catholic church with pathological tendencies, there is this one person who truly deserves to be a saint....

So there is still a valid reason to cling to.... to have hope for... to have faith in....? To still sleep in a peaceful slumber....

 

[Gimpy]

Any thoughts on this?

There are certain periods of time in a person's life in which they have windows of opportunity to change how they see things. Some people will discard what they have been raised to think and others will go only so far as to scare them back to what they 'all ready knew'. Most won't even see this opportunity exists. For them its all said and done, and changing it is the same as the world ending.


Whenever I read questions like this, it reminds me of the sott article on Moral Endo and Exoskeletons.

Link here: http://www.sott.net/articles/show/163349-Moral-Endo-skeletons-and-Exo-skeletons-A-Perspective-on-America-s-Cultural-Divide-and-Current-Crisis

 

[dannybananny]

What is interesting is that there are few people in Church that are really positive(and those that weren't in a Church like Jesus, so they use mask of benevolence to get power from people), and Church is always focusing on that people in public, but they are minority(like Hildergard said first they say people who do bad are in minority and it's really vice versa) and if you say no it isn't truth, then people say they are only humans like all others. "Humans" like all others that have privileges and can't get caught like all other pedophiles and they use Church to bypass the law. And if you show them that program, then they say we can't do nothing, but if that happened to their kid they would do everything they could, but in the end you can't expect from people to care when they are programmed to only stay silent and look for themselves, and that there is no hope for different world. I was recently asked from my friend from college if I want to go to religious teaching. She is a nice girl and it's little paradoxical because I'am a "heretic", but it isn't so black and white and it helps you see that most people that are great believers are more positive and they are nice people, but on the other hand they are the most easy to manipulate.

 

[pirataloko]

Hi everybody

I think that all this thing is PROPAGANDA !!

The church isn't a reliable source, and real history is the proof. I guess that the media are speaking about this subject, to avoid another subjects. I don't think this is a relevant thing, if someone is a saint or not, and i'm sure that the church isn't able to say who is a saint or who is not.

The only "problem" about this is that there are people that believe all this stuff.

One more time thinking by our own selves, and not taking what others say as the truth is the better option under my understanding.

 

[Lindenlea]

I see Mary MacKillop as one of the strongest women of the 19th century, probably Australia's first feminist. She saw a great need among the poor and the downtrodden, especially children. She (along with her mentor and spiritual advisor, father Woods) started free education for children and when they couldn't get clothes to wear to come to school she went begging for them. The order that was formed was the Sisters of St Joseph, which was totally egalitarian and centralised, answering directly to Rome, and therefore outside the control of the diocese, a rarity in it's day.

Mary was hugely successful, and greatly loved, the order opened orphanages, hostels for unmarried mothers and refuges for the aged. Her success became her downfall as the priests, envious of her success conspired against her, I suppose her reporting the pedophiles within the church didn't help her popularity with the priests either. A lot of her time was taken up fighting the establishment, having been excommunicated and reinstated.

I have no love for the Catholic Church, or any religious dogma, but Mary MacKillop was a wonderful human being, and if the church she belonged to want to give her the highest earthly honour thay have, then I for one do not have any quarrel with that.

Kudos to you St Mary of the Cross.

 

[Buddy]

I agree with Hildegarda that Mary McKillop does deserve to be remembered, but to my way of thinking, the issue here is about the same as it is with political institutions. Namely that they tend to collect any example of anything that people might place a high value on (especially in the field of aesthetics and 'spiritual worth') and by associating it with themselves, they can project their own credibility to a public that sees no difference between symbol and substance.

At root, we know that these institutions provide great camouflage for parasites and wolves who don't really care about people anyway, OSIT.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Nienna]

I agree with Hildegarda that Mary McKillop does deserve to be remembered, but to my way of thinking, the issue here is about the same as it is with political institutions. Namely that they tend to collect any example of anything that people might place a high value on (especially in the field of aesthetics and 'spiritual worth') and by associating it with themselves, they can project their own credibility to a public that sees no difference between symbol and substance.

At root, we know that these institutions provide great camouflage for parasites and wolves who don't really care about people anyway, OSIT.

Just my 2 cents.

I agree with what Bud has written. I am wondering how Mary McKillop would feel about being a saint for a predatorial, psychopathic system? How would she feel knowing that she was being "used" to get people to accept this institution that feeds on them? Because, as Bud says, that's what is being done here, or at least this is how it looks to me.

 

[Mrs. Peel]

As for why people still cling to Catholic faith at this time when so many scandals are coming out, I was wondering about out myself.

I was the product of 12 years of Catholic school and an aunt who is a nun in a cloister yet.

As to why people still cling to the faith, one of my grade school friends who I still keep in touch with said she is afraid to NOT go to church because there's still a small part of her that thinks "what if all that stuff (dogma) IS true?" Kind of like the person who forwards those bogus e-mails that say "if you forward this you will get money from Bill Gates (or whoever)" all the while saying, well, it can't hurt...

They want to cover all the bases, and are afraid (so brainwashed) to break away because what if there IS an invisible Man in the Sky with a clipboard keeping track of every time they ate meat on a Friday?? Their programming does run that deep.

I read something in the local paper recently about some priest who is getting "nominated" for sainthood, or going through the process. So now, everybody who knew him and "prayed" and had some "miracle" happen, is saying it was because they prayed to that priest. That's part of the "process." Gah, how can people believe that rot??

I fell for it for about 40 years tho.

 

[Nienna]

As for why people still cling to Catholic faith at this time when so many scandals are coming out, I was wondering about out myself.

I was the product of 12 years of Catholic school and an aunt who is a nun in a cloister yet.

As to why people still cling to the faith, one of my grade school friends who I still keep in touch with said she is afraid to NOT go to church because there's still a small part of her that thinks "what if all that stuff (dogma) IS true?" Kind of like the person who forwards those bogus e-mails that say "if you forward this you will get money from Bill Gates (or whoever)" all the while saying, well, it can't hurt...

They want to cover all the bases, and are afraid (so brainwashed) to break away because what if there IS an invisible Man in the Sky with a clipboard keeping track of every time they ate meat on a Friday?? Their programming does run that deep.

I read something in the local paper recently about some priest who is getting "nominated" for sainthood, or going through the process. So now, everybody who knew him and "prayed" and had some "miracle" happen, is saying it was because they prayed to that priest. That's part of the "process." Gah, how can people believe that rot??

I fell for it for about 40 years tho.

This is so true! Fear, I think, is the number one way to keep people doing what they are told. They are looking for that...somebody/something that will save them, not knowing that they have the power within themselves to do this and that by wanting someone/something else to save them they are giving themselves over to, well, slavery.

And keeping people afraid is what the government is really good at. Seems that the church and the state are working hand in hand to keep everyone afraid and controlled, as has been happening for a long, long time.

 

[ec1968]

This occurred at a time when the Catholic church had been proven to be an organisation in which 60% of its clergy had been reported to be paedophiles.

Any thoughts on this?

Hi Wanderer33,

Any chance that you can back up the 60% figure you quote with actual hard facts? I know that even one paedophile spirited away from the law is one too many and a crime against humanity. But I find your choice of words difficult to understand. What does it mean that the church is 'proven' to be an organization in which 60% of it's clergy had been 'reported' to be paedophiles? Proven by whom and reported by whom?

I am in no way an apologist for the crimes committed by pedophile priests, and the church's response to the crisis shows that it's primary concern is self protection. However, if there is proof that 60% of catholic clergy are pedophiles, where is it? Surely no organisation, no matter how powerful, could survive if such proof existed? There's a world of difference between dealing with a situation where a number of your membership are known to have committed horrendous crimes against children, and one where more that half the clergy are implicated.

Regards

Eúnan

 

[Hildegarda]

Any chance that you can back up the 60% figure you quote with actual hard facts? I know that even one paedophile spirited away from the law is one too many and a crime against humanity. But I find your choice of words difficult to understand. What does it mean that the church is 'proven' to be an organization in which 60% of it's clergy had been 'reported' to be paedophiles? Proven by whom and reported by whom?

[..]

Surely no organisation, no matter how powerful, could survive if such proof existed? There's a world of difference between dealing with a situation where a number of your membership are known to have committed horrendous crimes against children, and one where more that half the clergy are implicated.

To be honest, I was wondering about this as well. I did a quick search, and it seems that the percentage of pedophiles among priests hasn't even been reliably estimated, let alone proven. The actual numbers thrown around are between 2% and 6% of those accused of sexual misconduct. These numbers often includes offenses other than pedophilia, such as keeping adult mistresses. They may be overestimated because not all the accused are eventually proven guilty. At the same time, it is an underestimate because it doesn't include those who have never been caught.

I would be curious to see the source of the 60%, but I'm not sure whether the exact number is critical here. What makes the sex-abuse scandals in the Catholic Church so huge is that 1) there is a long tradition of cover-up and disregard for the victims, and now all the suppressed information is coming out in one wave, and 2) to have this abuse and this attitude to it go on in a religious institution which is supposed to be a moral bastion, is a mega-betrayal of the people on both physical and spiritual level. Regardless of what the actual numbers are, this still stands. As to whether people would react to the situation and deal with it differently whether it be 6% or 60% of abusers in the church, that's a big question; but the people's capacity to accept a pathocracy never fails to disappoint :(

 

[ec1968]

I would be curious to see the source of the 60%, but I'm not sure whether the exact number is critical here. What makes the sex-abuse scandals in the Catholic Church so huge is that 1) there is a long tradition of cover-up and disregard for the victims, and now all the suppressed information is coming out in one wave, and 2) to have this abuse and this attitude to it go on in a religious institution which is supposed to be a moral bastion, is a mega-betrayal of the people on both physical and spiritual level. Regardless of what the actual numbers are, this still stands. As to whether people would react to the situation and deal with it differently whether it be 6% or 60% of abusers in the church, that's a big question; but the people's capacity to accept a pathocracy never fails to disappoint :(

Hi Hildegarda

I agree 100% with your sentiments. The whole scandal is a massive abuse of trust by the individuals concerned made so much worse by the coverups that went on for years and still go on. But I still think that the numbers are important. Let me use an analogy if I may. There was a time in the not too distant past when to be a Northern Irish catholic meant that to large sections of the British establishment you were automatically a supporter of the IRA and it's campaign of violence. I was told on numerous occasions that my background meant that I had innocent blood on my hands. The actual proportions of the Nationalist community in NI who supported violence were always quite small, but we were all tarred with the same brush. Just as today, Muslims are the new Irish Catholics.

Although I haven't been a practising Catholic for many years, I know from personal experience that there are many good priests among the Catholic clergy, who make the world a better place for those they come into contact with during their ministry. The icing on the cake of the paedophle scandal is that the way the church authorities have dealt with the situation means that these good men are now all treated with equal suspicion. Guilty by association. That's why the 60% figure bothers me.

Regards

Eúnan

 

[Buddy]

I also know from personal experience that there are 'good', or 'well-meaning' people in many of the various religions, and while many of these may seem blind to what really goes on, many of the ones I know are not blind to it.

The Statistical Yearbook of the Holy See, recently released with figures gathered Dec. 31, 2007, reported that there were 408,024 priests in the world. Even if 60% of them were the 'bad' guys, that still leaves 163,209 'good' guys. And the good guys tend to be humble, yet street-wise about these things...like how 'guilt by association' is just the flip-side of 'credible by association' and that the real issue of the measure of one's worth is 'living the example one preaches', OSIT.
_http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0902698.htm