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Ireland: More apologies, more symbolism, more words BUT (Main Forum)
by desi 
, Australia, Monday, February 21, 2011, 23:07 (822 days ago)
STILL NO MENTION OF THE COVER-UP!
DUBLIN -- Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley this afternoon washed the feet of Irish abuse victims as he presided alongside Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin at a "Liturgy of Lament and Repentance" for sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.
O'Malley, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Boston, is in Ireland because he was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to lead a review of the response to sexual abuse by the Archdiocese of Dublin. At today’s service, held in St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral in Dublin, O’Malley said that he and his aides have heard a great deal of painful testimony from victims and their families, but they also see reason to hope for a better future.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2011/02/cardinal_omalle_8.html
lockedIreland: More apologies, more symbolism, more words BUT
"We have left them with a lifelong suffering."
Doing the words and symbols is aeons away from doing the hard yards. I don't want the words and symbols anymore - I want to have my life and that of my family back on track: I want a future again.
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill
lockedSome advice to anyone who may go to Towards Healing
Accept nothing less than what the clergy get - all their bills paid, all their needs met, all the practical things needed in life, the pensions, the security of housing, all, for as long as they need.
I wish I had my time with Towards Healing again and know what I know now. I would now instead of a payment, 'request' that I and my family be cared for until I can get back on my feet again (and I am trying) and if someone can never get back on their feet again because of CSA, then they deserve the same pension plan as the clergy, from the church. And from whence does that money come anyone - correct me if I am wrong, the people in the pews for one.
One reason if no other that I would now insist on TH paying the bills until I got re-established, is because it would be a very good reality check for the church as to what pressures families, (particularly families of CSA sufferers) are under, have to go through, pressures they really don't experience. Let them know how much the whole thing has cost you in every way. It might also make many of them realise that most of us actually have to work if we want to have food and to pay the bills rather than get handouts from parishioners in the form of tithing - something not far from parasitism.
Look, I don't really know how the finances work in the church but it honestly makes me puke when I read about abuse victims getting their feet washed - it is such a condescending (an us and them thing - royalty and pleb) trip into escapism by the church - it is reverse psychology at its most devious unless there is a practical component to go with it. Jesus at least put his money where his mouth was - he died for those whose feet he washed. When it's all over, what then - each goes back to their respective lifestyles - and we know which one struggles the most - they go on living palacially while people such as myself and so many I know are still left to fend for themselves to make ends meet as a result of breaking down.
And to tie it now in with Liz's post below:
I suppose I could instead adopt the whole "self-abandonment to Divine Providence" spirituality/trip: Fine if you don't have a family to care for, if you are on your own or in a system/organisation/church that will look after you financially anyway. See how crappy it all is? Is it not a big farce? All the spirituality that the church says we in the real world should follow is a pipe dream.
Well, I can't help but see it like that anymore: reality is a harsh eye-opener.
So, if anyone is thinking of seeking "help" from Towards Healing, be as practical as you can: Insist on them caring for you by paying all your major bills UNTIL you actually do 'heal' and get back on your feet again to a level close enough to where you were, able to care for yourself and your family financially and emotionally, if not better. Both sides need this kind of reality therapy. I say this because I am in an ever increasingly vulnerable state as to my/our future: I have lost all my superannuation, my career, my ability to find an income to sustain us and why? Because of CSA and the way the church has (not) handled me and my family. I'm not saying all this to make people feel sorry for me - it is just the reality of the situation and I am sick to my stomach and so angry at the injustice of it all and it is this that holds me back so much from getting to a point where I can actually get on with my life. Yes, life is unfair and I will hopefully find a way through it all inspite of the church and all my past, but I sure as God is my witness, would love the church to come to the party and make it easier for me/us, because it is so hard, so soul destroying to look even just one year ahead and feel the panic of not being able to make it, of losing even more, including home and respect. This they just don't get and don't seem to care about.
Yes, they may wash our feet, but it is their dirt that we carry anyway for the most. Oh how powerful the symbol would be if it were to be followed up by action, real practical action, as laid out above.
Stephen
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill
locked
Some advice to anyone who may go to Towards Healing
by Francis , Kingsgrove, NSW, Tuesday, February 22, 2011, 09:19 (822 days ago) @ Oh Yet We Trust
Stephen, I wish I could give you some confidence of help but I will find it difficult to see Jesus in the organizational Church and in the clinging-to-it rich who control the sheep. There is always the hope of a Romero.
Francis
My purpose is to remember the love that created me in God one with my brothers and sisters and with all life. My function is to extend that love and unity each moment to all.
lockedSome advice to anyone who may go to Towards Healing
See, now as soon as I read what you write (and this is not having a go at you but is about my triggered reaction), I think to myself, "Oh just shut up Stephen and stop your whinging", but then, when I am alone, I go back to looking at the coming year/s and ask Why?, What?.
Sorry, Francis, it's just that I went to my "disability' employment service yesterday and this just upsets me so much, gets me going so much because it makes me realise how difficult it is going to be for me to ever get a job again especially one in which I will be happy and will provide enough income to support me and my family. As a result I get so angry and simply ask, "why am I in this position? Why?" And then I get depressed and blame myself and on and on it goes. And I just pray that perhaps someone in the church, in TH will read this and say "Yes, he is right", and then they will fix things, do something about it.
I just go through depressed panic mode when I have to be practical and I am in danger of simply blocking out reality and letting my/our whole life just slip into poverty - yes poverty, something no religious or priest really knows ANYTHING about really. I hate it and don't want it. It causes too much tension and insecurity and.....but how many of the world live in real poverty. Will "Godde" look after us? Will S/he? Come on, we've got to be real about this - no more financially secure-based self-abandonment crap. I don't get it. Have I become too doubting, too cynical? If so, why? Oh, it make my head spin. Sorry.
Stephen
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill
lockedSome advice to anyone who may go to Towards Healing
I hadn't actually read the whole extract provided by Desi (thanks Desi again). Just read it all now. It is moving and does seem sincere but I also looked for the practical and there was none.
I was very moved by the Japanese parable at the end. Here's my take on it.
All the money that went into the useless new translation etc. (and similar like all the costumery of the church triumphant, should have been concentrated on real reparation of those who have been abused and other real needs of real people. Why concentrate on getting a language/performance right (just one of the things in the current church which is so misdirected, such bad-timing and shallow and out of touch) when they can't get the heart of Christianity - compassion (salvation) and justice (redemption) - right. Had they concentrated on these, those 'on the beach' who are motivated by compassion and justice would have been activated while those who are in the church simply to 'enjoy themselves and their 'status', well.....
They had, and still have a chance to save the church by returning to the spirit of Christ, the practical as well as the spiritual Christ, rather than trying to re-establish some 'church militant/triumphant': But this Christ they did not want.
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill
locked
Some advice to anyone who may go to Towards Healing
by Roy , Tuesday, February 22, 2011, 10:06 (822 days ago) @ Oh Yet We Trust
Well Stephen. victims of cklergy just have to understand that we are seen as the unclean.
Everybody will go ' what a travesty
but nothing will change.
It's all lip service you'll notice.
I was think about what you said Stephen ...these clergy don't even look after their own gardens and always have some parishoners running around doing everything for them.
if you take any legal course of action you will find that after 10 or so years in that not only does your solicitor get tired of it ...but also the police and your own family.
I still think the hardest thing to deal with is not getting a cuddle from my wife in three or four years.
I just live in the shed now and stay out of the way of those I love.
They encourage me to stay with the court action but I can see it on their faces that they wished I had never mentioned it.
even the policeman that acted for me had to be changed because of 'the stressful nature of his job' ...I'm on my third different copper as it's too stressful for them
not a soul understands Stephen I do know that! Not worth baring your soul as few really care.
....OR IT WOULD HAVE STOPPED .....just so obvious to me!
lockedSome advice to anyone who may go to Towards Healing
I know Roy, I know, but what do you do with all the residual feelings? And how do you cope when you have a family depending on you. I just have to get on with life I suppose but they wonder why the bitter taste in your mouth. How dare they even 'wonder'? But, I tell you, if me and my family ever get to the point of losing our home, I will be 'returning' to the door of the church and start pounding loudly: I will not let them off the hook. I will at least 'remind them' of the consequences of all that has happened and I will keep reminding and reminding and reminding. They will not be allowed by me to 'retire' in comfort.
If, on the other hand, by chance I do get 're-established' in life with a job and a new direction (going the opposite way to because of in spite of the church institution), I will still be there to support others and I will still be a reminder to the church of its hypocrisy and its impotence when it comes to their 'mission statement/s' and wonderful foot washing rituals. I just wish I knew then what I know and understand now - Oh how I wish. But wishes can drive you mad.
Stephen
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill
lockedSome advice to anyone who may go to Towards Healing
Our understanding of 'Towards Healing' has only ever been, that it was a front set up by the Church, to look as though something concrete was in place to help victims - but was in reality, intended to keep them (the victims) behind a curtain, so that their cases would never be publicised through the Australian media, as they would be if the victims sued the Church for damages.
So bottom line, TH was a very cynically constructed, dud outfit, intended to save the Church's face and even more importantly, to save them a lot of money. This is why people who have become entangled with TH have been used, in effect abused - and then spat out.
lockedSome advice to anyone who may go to Towards Healing
by Roy , Tuesday, February 22, 2011, 10:07 (822 days ago) @ Iris of Oz
edited by Roy, Tuesday, February 22, 2011, 10:23
exactly Iris, exactly!
I haven''t seen nor heard from Angela Ryan for a while ....she may have woken up that she is just another pawn being USED.
I'd love to subpoena her to court as I think she has been hoodwinked as much as anyone else. And will be trying.
I think she's welcome the opportunity to have the truth in the open these days.
lockedSome advice to anyone who may go to Towards Healing
by Roy , Tuesday, February 22, 2011, 10:32 (822 days ago) @ Roy
My family depends on me also ....my house is falling down but I have zero motivation to go near it.
Everything I touch turns to shit lately so I just go and help others and keep myself busy and out of trouble.
Biggest problem lately is no sleep ....just love to have a nice sleep and wake refreshed for a change.
Still wake off the back of dreams that just rip me up.
(Is why I sleep in the shed and I throw myself about like a bear in my sleep ....bit dangerous as it can be nasty until I wake.
then I'm just broken for ages ....finally get going and then the day ends and it all starts again.
it ain't easy but is all in my head I suppose so if I keep it there it won't hurt anyone else......is all you can do.
Just one other thing that I found out a few weeks ago. I won't be allowed to have my day in court as I will have to do it by video link ....as I'm too offensive to have in the court ....well my feeling is that I'll buy them all clothes pegs for their noses.
Just crap that I'm the offensive one ....but my legal advice is that it would be the best.
all I want to do is yell at them ....and I don't wish to miss that.
lockedSome advice to anyone who may go to Towards Healing
Oh God, Roy, this is just so, so wrong. Why can the followers of Christ not see this? Why? Because they are no longer followers of Christ and as such do not deserve one bit of accolade, status, financial support from anywhere. They deserve to be thrown out into the desert, locked into monasteries with each other, made to work with their hands and by the sweat of their brow or starve. They certainly don;t deserve one bit of the palatial and secure existence they have managed to create for themselves while their victims suffer. They certainly need to be made to feel as uncomfortable in their secure existence as possible until something breaks through their walled existence.
Will stop now. Sorry if I've stirred you up too much.
Stephen
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill
lockedSome advice to anyone who may go to Towards Healing
This reminds me of a village church I visited in our diocese last year - virtually no congregants left and partly because of the Church scandals in our diocese - the priest was demanding 15$ a week minimum from those who are left (2 handfuls).
"We don't want to have to start knocking on doors" he said. He seems a good hearted bumbling sort of guy, orig from a small country town. Hey, he just wants to be able to keep driving a car with the latest series numberplate!
You think, 'will they ever, ever learn?' Do they know what is in the minds of some of their congregants? One doubts it!
lockedSome advice to anyone who may go to Towards Healing
by Ian Lawther , Tuesday, February 22, 2011, 11:32 (822 days ago) @ Roy
Stephen Iris Roy, thank you all for your posts and I say to you all keep talking this sort of crap that is Purely the fault of the church and has grown into the monstrous problem it is because of the hierarchs lust for control and money. While we would all like to see it end tomorrow it wont ever stop,if we stop talking ,public awareness/opinion is the only thing the church will listen to the more we get out there the wiser our kids become. There was a group of young rappers on Box Hill station the other day singing and rapping to pedo songs that to me is a great sign that awareness is growing. Growing because people like you are willing to bare your souls and get the poison out of your system. If you don’t get it out by writing posts or verbalizing to some one it is capable of rotting your very Soul. Don’t forget this bunch of Kiddy Fiddlers have had 1000years (beginning of celibacy)to develop a defence system to cover their own arses. I thank you all for your posts,keep em coming.
Cheers Ian Lawther.hungry:
lockedand you can get your bloody self off the computer for starters!! ...I don't want some blind bloke coming to visit me on the w/end.
Now piss off Ian and I'll see you then 
Some need to be told you know 
lockedSome advice to Ian
by Ian Lawther , Tuesday, February 22, 2011, 12:09 (822 days ago) @ Roy
HATE TO HAVE YOU AS AN OPTHA ------OPTI-- STUFF IT EYE DOCTOR BUT YES SIR BOSS ISA GOING RIGHT NOW BOSS---- IANL.
lockedSome advice to anyone who may go to Towards Healing
I don't believe celibacy is purely to blame.
My experience of disordered priests (those who are massively disordered psychologically, deeply homosexual, woman hating and hopelessly perverted),is that they are ugly, sadistic creeps who would never in one million years have taken up with a woman. So suggesting that 'if only they never been celibate they would not have become perverts and sexual predators', to me is not much of an argument.
The ones I have encountered, have been deeply dyed in the wool of homosexuality - 3 which spring to mind, in boarding houses of Catholic schools - one Marist in Vic and 2 Jesuit (one in Melb and one in NZ). Their twig was bent very early and I believe in an irrevocable way.
lockedSome advice to anyone who may go to Towards Healing
I don't want to agree with you Iris (I feel guilty by thinking this - they were so 'nice' to me) but something inside of me responds to what you say as feeling true. But are they simply operating within the boundaries imposed on them by both the institution and their own inability to fully grasp the psychological and practical implications of abuse?
We all just want the freedom within that achieving a sense of full and satisfying justice alone can bring. Is that it? That's what it feels like. It's so simple (look after me/us until we fully heal and get established again) but the institution has made it so complex and so full of emotional hidden pitfalls which legalism and being too big to deal with the lived reality of real individuals brings. So, that's why I say, if anyone reading this does happen to go to TH be very astute, aware that a quick and easy pay-off is only a short term thing and doesn't in the end give you what you deserve. You deserve to find full restoration and reparation again and they should be legally bound to provide that and give you the support you need until that happens - accept nothing less. My 'agreement' will still see me back where I started when the payout runs out, and this is happening exponentially until I get a job again: when it does run out, I will still and still do have little future, have last so much, while my abuser will be cared for, in something close to luxury, for the rest of his priestly life in comfy retirement. And I never did get the promised full apology which outlined what actually took place and his guilt in the whole event - still just a nice letter which doesn't implicate him in anything except "letting me down". And he was just one of the 'church' that has brought me to my knees - the others are 'gone'.
This is wearing me out. Must stop.
Stephen
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill
lockedSome advice to anyone who may go to Towards Healing
by Roy , Tuesday, February 22, 2011, 10:45 (822 days ago) @ Oh Yet We Trust
as my records show I only went to Towards Healing because they promised to take Father Ayers away from children
THEY NEVER DID AND HE IS STILL EXACTLY WHERE I FOUND HIM!
TW made this promise and then did nothing!
and for 10 years now I've been trying to get him away from kids myself!
The bosses of the church don't care a fig ....is plain as day to me!!
lockedStephen, go look up Chris Riley and get some work with him.
He will put you straight and on a good path.
And he will use your skills to the max to help his kids ....it won't hurt you a bit.
I can see that as a way forward for you Stephen....and your own personal experiences make you a specially qualified soul to assist Chris ....and he doesn't miss that and sees it as a big plus.
hanging with us ain't the way out for you Stephen....go do some good in the world with a motivated doer like Chris.
want an introduction? ...I think you'd climb into that world of caring for others and leave the bits behind you didn't need.
busy is good ....and being busy helping others in a structured format like YOTS would be right up your street.
You know he runs plenty of schools / education centres.
he needs teachers ;)
(clue ...chris is easy, if you run out of convo just mention horses ....he's nutz on horses. I tell him they make good dogs meat ...and we agree to disagree heheheee)
lockedSome advice to anyone who may go to Towards Healing
I think you are agreeing with me quite a bit, Stephen! I believe my view is that of academe and the professions, in this country.
I regret very much what you suffered up there in Brisbane, Stephen, though I do not know your story. Maybe if you have a summary of what you suffered, you could email it to me - as an example of what happened within the Church in Brisbane. I did read once that Qld has a higher per capita ratio of Roman Catholics than any other state, which has made it easier for Catholics to 'get on' there, than in other states - though this may be inaccurate or out of date info.
lockedSome advice to anyone who may go to Towards Healing
by Roy , Tuesday, February 22, 2011, 11:45 (822 days ago) @ Iris of Oz
sort of relevant
....and I think some would find interesting ....crossing over threads here but forgive me.
Some insight into how it got this way ....
r Frank de Dood .....originally from BrokenRites
In a Deed of Release dated 7 February 2008, the Salesians of Don Bosco (a Catholic religious order) paid a settlement to a former student who was a boarder at “Rupertswood” Salesian College, Sunbury, Victoria, in 1982-83. The deed of release states that the ex-student has alleged that he was sexually abused by Fr Francis de Dood and Father Frank Klep. The deed says the ex-student claimed that, “as a result of such assaults, he has sustained loss, damage and injuries that may require specialist counselling and therapy.” The deed says that the Salesians do not admit that they are legally liable for the loss and damage claimed. However, the deed says, “in order to avoid the cost, expense and inconvenience of litigation”, the Salesians and the ex-student have agreed to settle the claim on payment of a lump sum.
Just found a pic of Frank DeDood as a student in Form 4 Blue in the Rupertswood ‘67 ‘Certantes In Vita’ (whatever that means!).......Fr Jack Ayers was DeDoods form master in ‘67 according to this book.
Even has a picture of both of them.
So is Frank DeDood a victim or otherwise ......I feel angry with him at the same time i recall him from school as students and I also feel sorry for him. Maybe he just didn’t have the where for all to get away in the beginning ......he was a timid and always had his head down….just sucked in to a system .....and looking at how it operates now, there is no escape once you’re in…...outside world would tear you to pieces if you blew the whistle anyway ......safer to stay with the family/clergy where at least they keep it secret even if you do get caught occasionally.
from here
http://www.sydneyanglicans.net/forums/viewthread/3501/P225/
frank DeDood is not an any list and there fore can get a Working with kids card anytime ....makes a mockery of the system as was said on that thread.
Must pat me self on the back and say that I helped get Klep on the list ....that at least made my heart fly for a moment.
lockedSome advice to anyone who may go to Towards Healing
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Roy, you posted:
“In a Deed of Release dated 7 February 2008, the Salesians of Don Bosco (a Catholic religious order) paid a settlement to a former student who was a boarder at “Rupertswood” Salesian College, Sunbury, Victoria, in 1982-83. The deed of release states that the ex-student has alleged that he was sexually abused by Fr Francis de Dood and Father Frank Klep…
…liable for the loss and damage claimed. However, the deed says, “in order to avoid the cost, expense and inconvenience of litigation”, the Salesians and the ex-student have agreed to settle the claim on payment of a lump sum.
Hi Roy, well evidently the Salesians paid this guy some comp., purely out of the goodness of their not very blessed little hearts, so that the victim would not have to endure the psych trauma and expense of a court case!
Classic case of ‘pay him out to shut him up - so that the details never come out after a court case, which could diminish the rep. of our religious order’
De Dood and Klep both sound like Dutch names. I think you said de Dood was timid at school. Dutch Australian kids of that age often came from very authoritarian backgrounds and carried psych. scars from that. [Not that this diminishes the above crimes in any way.] It could be that de Dood became a paedophile because he ‘just didn’t know any other way’, due to the sort of example he had set before him in his school, from the taint within the teachers. His parents were likely remote from him and he may have been beaten by his father and so felt that conventional masculinity was just too scary to adopt. He may have seen his mother beaten and his siblings, including sisters.
The Dutch Australian principal of our parish school (1995) suggested to my husband that he beat me up regularly, ‘so that I would never talk back, when being verbally disciplined.’ I had never even met the guy at that stage and never did. He apparently used to deliver ‘woman discipline’ over the telephone, certainly he tried it with me – the parish priest later told my husband that this was done with the priest’s approval and that ‘he had never met a woman who was not a lunatic’. Both principal and priest were, and are, raging queens and of course were best friends in 95.
Congrats on helping to nail that guy, Roy.
lockedSome advice to anyone who may go to Towards Healing
Maybe if you have a summary of what you suffered, you could email it to me - as an example of what happened within the Church in Brisbane.
Iris, maybe one day but not at present if that's OK. However, I have told my story in bits and pieces here in 2009. Also, the actual clerical abuse/assault actually happened in Melbourne, not Brisbane. I must one day put it all together - that would be good for me too.
Tired now. Been a big day with doc.
Stephen
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill
locked
