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The full report from Dublin... (Main Forum)
by Brian Coyne 
, LINDEN, NSW, Monday, November 30, 2009, 16:29 (1268 days ago)
My apologies if anyone has already posted these links. They are to the full report on the Church's responses to complaints of Abuse in Ireland. Please note this is a separate report to the Ryan Report (which basically looked at the question of if abuse occurred and how widespread it was). This new report examines how the authorities in the Church and State responded to complaints when they were first raised. It is a damning report and here are two sample paragraphs from Part 1:
The authorities in the Archdiocese of Dublin and the religious orders who were dealing with complaints of child sexual abuse were all very well educated people. Many had qualifications in canon law and quite a few also had qualifications in civil law. This makes their claims of ignorance very difficult to accept. Child sexual abuse did not start in the 20th century. Since time immemorial it has been a “delict” under canon law, a sin in ordinary religious terms and a crime in the law of the State. Ignorance of the law is not a defence under the law of the State. It is difficult for the Commission to accept that ignorance of either the canon law or the civil law can be a defence for officials of the Church. [Para 1.17]
There is a two thousand year history of Biblical, Papal and Holy See statements showing awareness of clerical child sex abuse. Over the centuries, strong denunciation of clerical child sexual abuse came from Popes, Church councils and other Church sources. A list covering the period 153 AD to 2001 is included in an article by the Promoter of Justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.4 These denunciations are particularly strong on „offences against nature‟ and offences committed with or against juveniles. The 1917 code of canon law decreed deprivation of office and/or benefice, or expulsion from the clerical state for such offences. In the 20th century two separate documents on dealing with child sexual abuse were promulgated by Vatican authorities (see Chapter 4) but little observed in Dublin. [Para 1.18]
The report is in three parts and here are the links to each part.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/1126/Partone.pdf
http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/1126/Parttwo.pdf
http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/1126/appendices.pdf
![[image]](http://catholica.com.au/images/CatholicaICO_30x30.jpg)
Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]
lockedTo back up this post..."I Accuse" by Vinnie Nauheimer
Perhaps I am adding insult to injury but this article called "I Accuse" from a while ago on Catholica has said it all for me, so clearly and logically ...and damningly. For those with the time and the stomach to read it here is the connecting address
http://www.catholica.com.au/gc2/vn/001_vn_310808.php
and here is an extract:
This 1962 instruction, called Crimen Sollicitationis, was signed by the Pope John XXIII. According to Fr. Tom Doyle, noted Canon Lawyer and survivor advocate, it is very similar to an instruction issued in 1922. The 1962 instruction was reaffirmed in 2001 under the signature of the current pope who at the time was the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.[3] Why one has to ask, is it necessary to say the same thing three times in less than a century? The logical conclusion is that it has been a long recognized problem.
Even though the name Crimen Sollicitationis refers to the crime of soliciting in the confessional, the section marked Title V deals with the sexual abuse of children. Title V of Crimens Sollicitationis is subtitled: "The Worst Crime" as seen from this excerpt:
Title V
The Worst Crime
73. To have the worst crime, for the penal effects, one must do the equivalent of the following: any obscene, external act, gravely sinful, perpetrated in any way by a cleric or attempted by him with youths of either sex or with brute animals (bestiality).
74. Against accused clerics for these crimes, if they are exempt religious, and unless there takes place at the same time the crime of solicitation, even the regular superior can proceed, according to the holy canons and their proper constitutions, either in an administrative or a judicial manner. However, they must communicate the judicial decision pronounced as well as the administrative decision in the more serious cases to the Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office.[4]
The wording of Title V is extremely important as it confirms the Vatican's own knowledge and acceptance of the fact that the sexual abuse of children, regardless of sex, is a crime. The Vatican did not use the words evil, sinful, offensive, lapse of judgment, moment of weakness or illness. They used the word "crime" which is the only word that can adequately describe the act of a priest preying on a child for his own sexual gratification. Therefore, by stating that "the sexual abuse of children is a crime," the Vatican tacitly acknowledges before God and man that priests who commit the crime of having sex with children, are in fact criminals! They also demand that these criminal acts be reported to their international headquarters, the Vatican.
Criminals commit crimes. Sex with children is a crime under both Canon and Civil Law. Therefore, there can be no doubt that priests who commit the crime of sexual abuse with children are criminals! Ipso facto, those who protect these criminals are themselves guilty of aiding and abetting criminals. The Vatican has known for centuries that the sexual abuse of children is a criminal offense. In that, they are in total agreement with the secular law of just about every country on earth.
Not only is the sexual abuse of children considered a crime by the Vatican, but to add emphasis to the matter, the Vatican chose to label it "The Worst Crime". Of all the adjectives that are available to describe a crime, the Vatican chose to call the sexual abuse of children "The Worst". What does that make the men who allow these sexual predators ply their trade unabated? What does this do to the commonly used hierarchal defense, "I didn't know?" What does it say about the hundreds of bishops in 28 known countries around the world who failed to live up to the Vatican's standards? What does it say about a Vatican that tolerated these failures?
Crimen Sollicitationis directs the bishops to prosecute crimes of child sexual abuse? Failing to do so makes them all scofflaws! They scoffed at every indecency perpetrated on the bodies of children around the world. Neither bishops nor the Vatican can claim ignorance of the law anymore! Whether it was an internal or external law, they failed to prosecute the rapists, sodomizers and molesters in their midst; by their own account, the criminal element. Therefore, I accuse!
Due to the global ongoing sexual abuse and cover-up by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, it is safe to assume that the only part of Crimen Sollicitationis that was adhered to was the demand for secrecy. Up until 2002 almost every settlement involving sexual abuse by a priest came with an enforceable gag order on the victim. The victims were silenced while most offending priests were moved to new hunting grounds.
Let the light (of Christ) shine again.
Stephen
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill
lockedTo back up this post..."I Accuse" by Vinnie Nauheimer
by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Monday, November 30, 2009, 18:37 (1268 days ago) @ Oh Yet We Trust
Vinnie sent me a new article today which I'll try and get up on Catholica in the next few days.
I've spent most of this afternoon reading the Dublin Report. So far I'm only about three quarters the way through Part One. It is a fascinating document to read and should be almost required reading for any Catholic in understanding a whole host of important things about how the Church is structured and operates as a legal entity. On another academic discussion forum I notice that some are already talking of this document in terms of "this could finish off the Catholic Church in Ireland". I can understand what they mean. This is a devastating critique of almost every recent bishop in Ireland. Talk about grown men, even highly qualified men academically, in short pants. In its entirety, what I've read so far points up what a poison the entire culture of clericalism has been to Catholicism. While the bishops of Ireland, as we read in reports of recent days, have finally "seen the light" I sincerely doubt that those in Rome have yet done so. I'm sure they'll still be in the mentality of "this is an Irish problem". If they do not act it can almost be guaranteed that before too long there will be a State-sponsored inquiry in one or other country of the world that is as crushing to those who warm the seats in Rome as this one has been to the bishops who formerly warmed the seats in Dublin.
{James, I'd be particularly interested in your perspectives on some of the revelations around para 4.50 onwards.)
Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]
locked"We can't shut the Church down . . . "
by Englishwoman , Monday, November 30, 2009, 18:33 (1268 days ago) @ Brian Coyne
From the Irish Independent - what now?
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/we-cant-shut-the-church-down-so-what-do-we-d...
Mary
locked
Its the people, not the reports
by TonySee , Adelaide, Monday, November 30, 2009, 21:55 (1268 days ago) @ Brian Coyne
I really don't want to downplay the importance of these official reports, they are so important.
But it's the people, firstly and most importantly the victims, but also their families and everyone who holds their faith dear, who have been so wickedly betrayed.
Listen to this man ...
... it just breaks your heart.
Peace to you
For all that has been — Thanks. For all that shall be — Yes. Dag Hammarskjöld
lockedIt's the people, not the reports
by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Monday, November 30, 2009, 23:50 (1268 days ago) @ TonySee
Tony, thanks for much for bringing this to our attention. Such testimony is priceless. I was in fact just returning to the forum from my almost constant reading of this report today to report that the sections on the financial structure of the Church in Ireland, and the separate section on the relationship with the Church Insurance Company make fascinating reading. As a journalist I have long been intrigued by the "miracles" of how Church finances work. This report is perhaps the most wonderful expose that has ever been conducted anywhere in the world into the "mysterium" of this aspect of the Church's "heavenly" and "miraculous" works.
While it is quite evident reading the report that one of the chief concerns for the Church administrators were the financial costs, what seems equally clear from the point of those abused is that money has never been their prime concern. What has been more important to them has been (a) making the hurt stop in their lives — the man in the video above provides ample testimony to that, and (b) the deep sense of wanting to stop the abusers having the capacity to inflict the same sort of hurt on other people.
What is so devastating about this report is that it shows the moral ineptitude of the ecclesial leaders. They are supposed to be "THE experts" in society about morality. I think for a long, long time people have lost faith in their priests and bishops being experts about "morality" and that is why so many have given up going to confession. Confession has been assessed in the eyes of many to provide no relief — temporal or spiritual — and, as Stephen related to us yesterday, for some it was the very place where some of the worst abuse took place. That recalls an incident in my experience of an aunt, now dead, who reported to my wife and I a case of what was clearly abuse by a priest in a confessional about 20 years ago. The decline in participation in the sacrament of confession has probably been many, many times greater than the decline in participation in the sacrament of the eucharist. Perhaps that reflects our growing lack of confidence in our priests actually being an authority on morality?
What is wrong here? Increasingly I do believe it is the culture of clericalism. Men in short pants who have never grown up — perpetual 14 year olds. They might play with budgets of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars each year but they have proved themselves to be incompetent in those matters we all believed they had been trained to be most competent about — simple morality ... being able to tell right from wrong. The emperor has no clothes. These are fallible men who struggle with all of the issues of what it means to be human just like all the rest of us. We need a thorough-going reform of the priesthood, the whole notion of clericalism, and this whole belief system and culture that has grown up over centuries that somehow priests were somehow spinkled with some magic fairy dust at ordination that elevated them above the ranks of ordinary people.
Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]
lockedIt's the people, not the reports
by TonySee , Adelaide, Tuesday, December 01, 2009, 07:23 (1268 days ago) @ Brian Coyne
Brian,
There are analogous processes we've seen in secular organisations. Police forces are probably the nearest example.
Police were traditionally held in high esteem and had immense personal, unchecked power. In many jurisdictions we heard about individual 'bad apples', then we heard about more 'bad apples', then we heard about how the collusion of leaders, sometimes right to the top.
At some stage the police themselves and the politicians admit what everyone else knows; the curruption is systemic or 'cultural'. From their first days in the force young officers are invited into the club where, willingly or unwillingly, they engage in corrupt practice or are put into a postion where they can't do anything about it.
What follows is some sort of investigation, a Royal Commission, followed by root and branch reform with strong mechanisms for accountability at every level. These reforms, made necessary by the 'bad cops', make the life of the 'good cops' more difficult. They are now burdened by accountability systems that, in a sense, make it clear that they can't be trusted.
The church at different levels and with varying degrees of enthusiasm, has attempted to reform and take responsibility but, to me, the ongoing symbol that the 'system' (clericalism) is still in charge is the presence of Cardinal Law in Rome. It is a form of 'enabling' that goes to the very top.
I make no judgement about the level of his guilt or innocence, but he has a case to answer and he needs to face his accusers.
But again, this is all high level stuff that can get a bit cerebral and therefore easy to brush off. Its the experience of the people, the individuals who are now so courageous and can bear to tell their stories (like our own Stephen and Ann) who have the most devastating impact and who shine the light of judgment on those who abused and those who enabled.
Peace to you
For all that has been — Thanks. For all that shall be — Yes. Dag Hammarskjöld
lockedPlease watch the video...and more 'diary' stuff.
Tony, thank you from every fibre of my being for posting this. Where do I begin: I so identify with the psychological understanding of what the two survivors are describing - it is perfectly accurate, I cannot emphasis this enough - what goes on in a child's mind and even an older teenager, when trying to process what is happening during abuse/assault. And the life-long impact, the confusion , the withdrawal, the drug/alcohol/depression problems. It was good (and healing) to see it objectively.
I have been struggling for a couple of weeks now with signing off my settlement but, as much as I want and so need the compensation to cope with the financial situation I and my family have landed in because of the effects of abuse (and in this context, I'm sorry, but it is about money), I just can't sign it. I am stuck and I don't know why. But after watching this video I am beginning to understand:
I am feeling that in signing this agreement I am in a way being 'terminated'. I can't explain it in any other way. I know what is ahead of me and my family and again, after listening to these stories, I have come to the realisation that the church just doesn't have the resources, financially, emotionally, time-wise, people-wise, to adequately compensate for and help me/victims/survivors deal with what has happened and by signing off I am saying to them, you're off the hook and I am out of your life. But we have our whole future still to cope with and the fear that this brings (and this fear is the residue itself of abuse), the fear that I will not cope in the future is stopping me from giving them absolution because in doing so, it is as if I am also saying that all the stuff still hidden, never revealed to me, not just about this one abuser but about all the other occasions, is going to be now forgotten and I now no longer have any right to pursue things any further, and God only knows how many other possible victims there are who have been molested by the same people I am dealing with. I can't stand the fact that somehow there is still unresolved stuff in me and others that will now remain unresolved because I have 'signed off'. I am also deeply troubled by the whole "behind closed doors" approach to all this. I know there are reasons for this for the victims but it also seems to allow for, has it written in law, further secrecy and cover-up and this also smacks of and triggers similar processes involved in the actual abuse. No wonder my inner antennae are quivering and my heart is not co-operating. That's why I am stuck.
I also am upset now that I didn't get any good legal advice (something I have been reminded of by two solicitors that I so should have) before I entered into the agreement and also that I have entered into this agreement in the middle of therapy, still trying to understand and come to grips with the implications of abuse on my life, still not able to fully face the pain and confusion, and admit the damage done.
This is one reason I am SO grateful for this video: I still feel so much that everything that has happened to me was my fault, that the flaw was in me, that I am the sinner here (my head tells me otherwise but my heart can't get rid of this) and I wonder how much of this still present attitude is influencing my wanting to 'submit' to the church still. Now, listening to these very articulate and calmly related stories has made me come closer to understanding my own situation.
So, was I ready emotionally to pursue my abuser/s and to do so in a way that will not see me blindsided. And then there are the other occasions, what do I do about them. I really want to open up the possibility of abuse in my old parish - maybe "Peter" was a one off but what if he wasn't? What if there was a whole undertow of seething sexual perversion which has yet to be brought out into the light. What if there has been a big silencing? "What do I do", I keep asking Billy. Do I just let it all go? Why can't I?
I think it's because I simply don't yet feel that there has been total honesty and freedom of information and to sign off means giving up on finding that. And, and this is no small matter, I haven't even begun to be angry to actually release the emotions, and I so want and need to - the people I have been dealing with from Towards Healing and the order involved have been so nice and warm and understanding and supportive and how can one get angry at them? I feel I have no right and yet need so much to get it out of my system, and then I feel so guilty for wanting to; sort of like being a 'poor little rich boy' and I can't help feeling there are many out there (no one here on Catholica, by the way, in case you are thinking you are one of these people) who would want to just say, "Oh, for God's sake, what do you want? Stop being so ungrateful. You are asking for too much, you are going over this with a far too fine-toothed comb. You have too much time on your hands - get on with your life".
No, too much unresolved stuff yet, to sign off on it all. But, on a financial level, I have to (and I suspect others know this and it suits them well) and I hate being in this situation - it seems wrong. And I also hate the possibility of doubting their good intentions or throwing their good intentions back at them. But, it is my whole life being handled here and that of my family and in the end I will be left to, have to deal with it on my own, so I have to get this right. What do I have a right to and where and when does personal responsibility now start? I find this so hard to answer.
Sorry, again, everyone. I know this may come across as rubbing old wounds and dwelling on it all too much but I just can't get on with my life until I deeply feel that I have found satisfaction and not just for me but for other victims, and especially the ones I know who have NOT come forward but who I also know are suffering and don't perhaps even know why.
Any way, thank you again Tony. If nothing else, even having said all this, I do see things actually progressing on the larger scale even if not on the individual ones.
And please, don't let all my personal ravings get in the way of the clarity of what the two interviewees have so perfectly described.
Blessings on you all.
Stephen
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill
lockedPlease watch the video...and more 'diary' stuff.
by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Tuesday, December 01, 2009, 10:47 (1268 days ago) @ Oh Yet We Trust
Stephen,
I think it is we who owe people like yourself and Ann, and Marie Collins (the woman in the video) the thanks for sticking to your guns for decades until you had the strength to tell your stories. I'd read about Marie Collins in the report yesterday but seeing her "live" on this YouTube clip cuts to the heart even more.
Your observation that the scale of the damage done is so huge that even an institution as big, and old, as the Catholic Church doesn't have the resources to undo all the damage is correct. We who are left with the institution though do have a responsibility to both endeavour to help the victims to return to a place of equilbrium in their lives — and very often there is a financial aspect to this in that the psychological damage has impaired a person's ability to earn a living in normal ways — and a responsibility to ensure the culture that allowed this cancer to grow up in the Church is eradicated forever.
I rarely pray for people today because I simply do not believe God acts like some magician and puts his great hairy arm down into our soup to 'make everything better'. I do pray today though that Our loving God will lead each of you who have been victims to a place of personal peace in your hearts from which you are each able to rebuild a personal sense of hope and trust — the core ingredients we all need from which to be able to see our lives as worthy.
From the bottom of my heart, Stephen, thank you. I am sure you and Ann speak for many thousands, perhaps even millions, who don't have even the strength to cry in private let alone tell their stories or vent their frustrations in public.
Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]
lockedAlso...
by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Tuesday, December 01, 2009, 10:53 (1268 days ago) @ Brian Coyne
...to all of you who have been victims of this institution to which I belong I again express my profound sorrow for what was done to you in our name.
Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]
lockedOF MENTAL BREAKDOWNS, both personal & institutional, and why they might happen.
Thank you so much Brian for this response, yet again. I just want you to know that this 'journey' of mine on the public forum of Catholica is as beneficial to me as seeing my therapist - in the process of writing, more barriers come down and one very big one just did. May I try to explain? I do so again for myself but also to allow some insight to those interested in the workings of this abuse victim's mind at least and how abuse/trauma can and does affect people's whole lives - those two interviewed, I'm sure would understand.
When I just read your last 2 posts, I lay down on my bed next to Billy and said, "why aren't I feeling a response as well as mentally appreciating it. I now think I know why and why I never let emotions get to me, be expressed, even when people are reaching out to me in support and even love, but to explain I have to start a few steps back.
Billy and I have been discussing the role of 'splitting' as a result of trauma (yes, we do have very interesting conversations). I also remember reading in an excellent book called "Victims No Longer" by Michael Lew about how abuse victims or any trauma victims, especially when abuse happens at a young age, how they split off the event in order to cope or as Lew describes, how they compartmentalise their life - the extreme of this being alters or the classical multiple personality or as it is now called Dissociative Disorder Syndrome (or whatever).
In my therapy right at this very point, I am at a stage where I consciously understand what is happening but it is as if I can't, as I have said often, emotionally go there. After reading your post just now, I realised what I was doing and what or more accurately who I am on this forum. When I read your post all I could think of was sort of "isn't it great that this OYWT is getting this support" almost as if it isn't me, but an alter, a pseudo, a compartment of me that is dealing with this and I am but an observer.
So, why can't I get angry, or emotionally respond? My sub-conscious has allowed me to do the work yet which will not allow me (yet) to integrate enough to be the person receiving the support, because, somehow, to be that person means to acknowledge the pain, the reality that my life has been one of compartments, dis-integration, abuse or more so, the effects of abuse.
I don't know if any one can really understand this but believe me, I do. It's why I can't "sign off" on the settlement - because it is a compartment, one part of my dis-integrated personality which is doing it all and the others haven't been integrated enough to be part of it and they are screaming for attention or to be part of it all but they don't know how.
Hue! Oh boy! God, it makes so much sense to me any way. I know what I am saying. No wonder abuse victims are often seen as un-hinged - in so many ways we are when you consider all this.
Oh God, what will happen when my sub-conscious (as my doctor explains it) gives permission for all the other compartments, roles, personas to integrate? It is too, too, (something) to fathom, to believe in, too hopeful to believe in. My doctor says it will happen when your sub-conscious tells you you are ready. Oh this sounds so weird but it resonates deeply - but I just know it is truth even though it is so out of the field of 'ordinary' life. God, it is so objectively fascinating as well.
You know, I think this is what breakdowns are all about. Breakdowns occur when the personas, compartments, 'alters' can now longer do their job (of protecting and hiding the damaged person/essence underneath it all. I suspect this is why you also have such things as mid-life crises and why so often abuse victims breakdown in mid-life. I am sure that this is what happened with me and having children also has a big part in it. The damaged child underneath it all is screaming to be let out. I aslo think this is why I am in hiding, a bit of a hermit in some ways, at the moment, if I come out in the open so to speak, I will be now revealing the damaged child who can no longer hide behind his personas or roles because they don't work anymore. Does this explain things a little, Ray(o)? I have to find trust again, and I will.
I also think that one could apply all this to what the abuse scandal will mean, is meaning for the church. I think the church, as a whole, is having a massive breakdown - the personas that were able to be hidden behind aren't working anymore. Why? Well in this case they have been exposed for what they are. But, as my doctor says, in a paradoxical kind of way, once they have been discovered they will fight in a last ditch attempt to hold on believing, falsely, that they are protecting the child beneath (or, the essence of truth), but they are not - they are disabling growth and healing. So, is the church having a breakdown - Oh God, I so hope so.
Getting back to my own case - a little fear of people's opinions demands that I say here I am no 'Sybil' (if you've seen the movie) or multiple personality in any classic sense but like most mental disorders or damage, they are just expressions of usual, relatively ordinary human ways of functioning or existing, but under pressure and the degree of damage and pressure will determine the degree of disorder. Please try and empathise with this when you listen to stories such as those on the videos.
I would love to know more of the 'healing/therapy' parts of their stories/lives - that would so help me to not feel so odd or alone or anxious and that's one other reason I write what I do here, and in diary form, honestly, even though it may well be just my story and not applicable to anyone else, but I still write just in case there are others wanting to know that healing, overcoming the damage is possible and a little of what is involved, how it happens - you just never hear much about this other end of abuse and it is so needed and important.
As an aside: We wonder about the mental state of paedophiles, or those who need to be put on priestly pedestals, or those who are obsessed with creating religious certainty in the form of being 'faithful' to every dogma no matter what - when you start to even scratch the surface of human psychology - how the mind/emotions work, especially when one throws even the 'ordinary' traumas of life into the arena, the inability of finding the unconditional love we all crave, the image of which was 'planted in our hearts', well, when you consider this, my God, one can possibly begin to comprehend what might be happening in the minds of the institutional church, it's hierarchy, in their total unwillingness to listen to us mere laity and to not fully face up to this whole sorry scandal.
That's, why, I think Brian, this denial, this craving for old certainties at the expense of the realities of the church as we are seeing them unfold before our very eyes, holds so much power over them, a power equal, as you so often say, to the power that runs the solar system. If I, someone who wants to integrate, to find truth and healing, have deep reasons for why it can't (quite yet) happen, can't yet do it, what does it mean for those who don't want to face reality?
Oh dear, where have I gone this time. Am I making any sense? Am I helping anyone? Am I turning people 'off' me by exposing myself, carrying on like I am in a therapy session? Every time I ask these questions I get the response that I am not boring people, that it is OK even good to be writing like this and to keep going, keep writing. So I do. Thank you Brian and all. Perhaps your prayers (the ones you mentioned above) are being answered as we speak/post.
And now, my OYWT persona (LOL) will sign off and try to make sense of what he has written also. I'm not a nutter, honestly, but you are seeing a damaged person trying to and coming to grips with the damage. You are also witnessing my process of healing and re-integration and for those who appreciate this, I give it to you as a gift.
And now I need to take a break.
"That not a worm is cloven in vain!"
Stephen
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill
lockedA few relevant passages.....
Stephen
So, why can't I get angry, or emotionally respond? My sub-conscious has allowed me to do the work yet which will not allow me (yet) to integrate enough to be the person receiving the support, because, somehow, to be that person means to acknowledge the pain, the reality that my life has been one of compartments, dis-integration, abuse or more so, the effects of abuse
For Thomas Aquinas, following the thinking of Aristotle, anger is a necessary element of the virtue of fortitude: "fortitude isn't a matter of just putting up with evil, or of enduring sorrow, but includes actively resisting evil, bravery in the struggle, and anger at the evil which has led to sorrow (over some evil occurence). Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, Q. 123, Art. 10.
St. Thomas affirmed that “wrath is a necessary and positive part of human nature,” and “the lack of wrath against injustice is a deficiency.”
From Andrew Kania's commentary today.
Therefore, Aristotle's famed comment of man being a political animal, is only a half truth; for before man can successfully be an active member of a community he must first obey the words of the Delphic oracle in knowing himself. This coming to know oneself is integral to the spiritual journey, indeed the great English mystic, Evelyn Underhill, noted that the mystical journey begins from the singular launch-pad of the ego; for God calls — but the human person must respond.
http://www.catholica.com.au/andrewstake2/137_ak_011209.php
Time to get angry??????
Time to move off the mothership and find a lifeboat! 
Billy. 
lockedPlease watch the video...and more 'diary' stuff.
by TonySee , Adelaide, Tuesday, December 01, 2009, 12:01 (1268 days ago) @ Oh Yet We Trust
Stephen,
It's hard not to respond to your post without coming across as giving advice and I really don't want to do that ...
» And please, don't let all my personal ravings get in the way of the clarity of what the two interviewees have so perfectly described.
... but what you call 'personal ravings' are important for the very reason I posted the videos. The personal stories are what make this issue so fundamental to our church.
We must hear them.
If the church responds with love then we have hope for the future but if it responds with 'survival' as the prime motivator, then it is doomed as an institution.
Peace to you
For all that has been — Thanks. For all that shall be — Yes. Dag Hammarskjöld
lockedSee my last post, Tony.
Thank you Tony. (See my last post). I'm very slow to trust this but the message is starting to get through/past the guardians of my temple, the 'sentries of the heart'. And I have your (and others) often-needed-to-be repeated words of encouragement to thank for that.
Thank you all for being.
Stephen
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill
lockedIt's the people, not the reports
by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Tuesday, December 01, 2009, 10:06 (1268 days ago) @ TonySee
Tony,
I think you are right. I kept reading that report into the early hours of this morning. I think it is more devastating than the Philadelphia Report, or the Ryan Report and I'm beginning to agree with some of the academics I've been reading on another list who have been studying it that this could be the tipping point. Virtually the entire hierarchy in Ireland comes out of this report as almost totally incompetent but, worse than that, in a couple of significant places it shows where complaints or appeals were made to Rome in cases of flagrant abuse that ROME CAME DOWN ON THE SIDE OF THE ABUSING PRIESTS INSTEAD OF THE VICTIMS. As you suggest, THIS GOES RIGHT TO THE VERY TOP.
This is not a problem that has been brought about by homosexuality, nor the liberalising of attitudes towards sex in everyday, civilian life. This crisis has been brought about by deep failings in the entire system and culture of priesthood — the clerical culture itself. And it's not merely an "Irish problem" that was then exported to the Irish diasporas of nations like Australia and the United States, It cuts to the very heart of the clerical culture that is endemic to the Catholic Church where we laity, as well as religious, placed the ordained on a pedestal as though they themselves were God. At the very highest levels they came to believe they were above the ordinary laws that govern ordinary mortals.
As this report becomes more widely circulated in the world I would not be at all surprised to see bishops everywhere end up in a position very similar to the one I know the Christian Brothers were in in Australia a few years ago where even the innocent brothers were embarrassed to wear clerical garb or insignia in public and gave up calling themselves "Brother" in public. This report is devastating to bishops everywhere. It is devasting to the very culture that forms bishops.
If the bishops cannot see the complete and utter folly of endeavouring to prop up the already badly failing system by importing foreign priests from cultures that still place men, and priests, on a pedestal above everyone else in society they will fully deserve what comes to them in the end.
At another level I despair that even this will penetrate the skulls of some. As I keep arguing we are dealing here with forces in the human psyche that are more powerful than the forces that drive the entire solar system. Just as with some of the abusers themselves — see, for example, the story of the serial abuser Fr Patrick Maquire (www.rte.ie/news/2009/1126/Parttwo.pdf Chapter 16, pp217-238) — who were totally incapable of changing their abusive behaviours themselves, I think this element in the Church that hankers after some glory days of the past where priests, bishops and popes were placed on pedestals remote from any public accountability or scrutiny are totally incapable of having their thinking and behaviours modified.
I could be wrong about this but it seems to me that this Dublin Report has been principally written by women lawyers. Tbe lead judges and staff responsible for this investigation seem to have been principally women. And I take my hat off to them as I think women perhaps have greater insight into the magnitude of the evils that we're dealing with here than any man can — and more especially any man who has been formed in the clerical culture of Catholicism in recent centuries.
Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]
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It's the people, not the reports
by desi , Australia, Tuesday, December 01, 2009, 12:17 (1268 days ago) @ Brian Coyne
Spot on, Brian.
Further to the earlier report that the Vatican refused to co-operate with the enquiry:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8382010.stm
Has there been any formal response from Rome?
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Its the people, their families and friends and
by Ann Free Spirit , Whangarei New Zealand, Tuesday, December 01, 2009, 14:55 (1267 days ago) @ TonySee
Its the people, their families and friends and ll those who know them are infected by the abuse which they went through as children.
I watched my children as they grew up and watch out any one who would say or do anything against they. What I felt inside God must feel when He saw the sexual abuse to us happening. He feels our pain and His Son Jesus, must be weeping now for us, but for those that did these things to us.
If you do anything to MY LITTLE ONES, you also do unto Me. Jesus said this and He must of loved us children so much and He could not save us, or come down to us, because His time is not right yet. He will come and we will be saved again, But lets not wait until then, we have to save the children of today and let no one harm them.
Hay where do we start?
Gosh do you not know yet?
What is the TV for?
What are the papers for?
What are the Rome TV and papers for?
What is the buildings as they are called churches. Yes that is what they are suppose to be, a place for God?
Have we forgotten so soon that WE ARE THE CHURCH and we each have a VOICE.
Send papers to each church catholic or other wise and send to your friends over seas to do the same thing.
Send papers to Parliament and every MP and get your friends to send them over seas as well and the world will soon see that WE WILL NOT GO AWAY.
This way "WE STAND AS ONE NATION" and our voice WILL BE HEARD. Ann
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http://annfreespirit.blog.co.uk/
http://annfreespirit.over-blog.com/
http://annfreespirit.yolasite.com/
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