Category: Religion

Ian O’Doherty in today’s Irish Independent.

So, we’re now officially the most religiously deranged country in the civilised world. Now that blasphemous libel has been introduced to the statue books, it will be a crime to have a pop at religions.

So, here we go — Catholicism is a cannibal cult which eats its leader, Jews who believe that God wants them to settle in the Holy Land are deranged lunatics, Muslims who wants to install Islamic law are nothing but fascist terrorists and Scientologists are nothing but a bunch of brainwashed weirdos who have been suckered by the malicious rantings of a failed science-fiction writer.

Alright lads, I’ll see you in court.

Nuala O’loan, writing in this week’s Irish Catholic about the Ryan Report quotes the Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly.

If things were hidden, they were hidden in clear sight.

The crocodile lines of boys and girls that streamed out of the institutions; the certain knowledge that corporal punishment at the very least was practiced therein; the incarcerated Magdalene women in their Madonna blues and whites who walked the open streets of towns and villages in church processions.

judges knew, lawyers knew, teachers knew, civil servants knew childcare workers knew, Gardai knew. Not to know was not an option.

It was an option for Sr. Stanislaus Kennedy

Yet another journalist has come out in defence of Sr. Stanislaus Kennedy.
Writing in the Irish Daily Mail Brenda Power says:

I know Sr. Stan and I honestly can’t accept that if she had a chance to save a child from torment, she’d have chosen not to act.

Power’s absolute certainty in this nun’s innocence is based entirely on her friendship and the good work that Sr. Stan has done over the years. She warns those who would disagree:

If the representatives of abuse victims continue to doubt this patently honourable woman they risk costing their cause public sympathy and support.

It is exactly this type of blind loyalty that created the environment that led to child abuse in the first place.

Brenda Power and Joe Duffy are not interested in the facts; they’re not interested in proper investigation.

They already know the truth based entirely on their personal contact with this nun and are, in effect, demanding that all further questioning be stopped immediately.

Sister Stanislaus Kennedy was again apologizing on behalf of the Sisters of Charity for the abuse of children at St. Joseph’s Institution in Kilkenny (Morning Ireland, 10th report).

But she was also denying, again, that she knew anything about what was going on despite the fact that she lived in the institution at the time.

Like most religious Kennedy has become very adept at fending off questions which by the way was easy in this particular RTE interview where the interviewer was almost apologizing for having to ask the ‘awkward’ questions.

Kennedy adopted the by now standard response of blaming the Government, Gardai, courts, government departments, society and, just in case she missed anybody, the entire population of the country.

She then quickly tried to change the subject by expressing her concern for the totally inadequate child care system of today before she was stopped with another gentle question.

Personally, I don’t believe Kennedy. I think she knew what was going on but didn’t have the courage to challenge or betray her beloved church.

Her claim that ‘she was there but didn’t have anything to do with the children’ rings hollow especially when we witness priests, nuns and Catholic apologists in general constantly telling us that everybody knew what was going on and therefore all are to blame.

RTEs Joe Duffy, however, would not agree with my views. Writing in the Mail on Sunday Joe tells us that when he was down on his luck in 1980 (when the abuse was going on) Sr. Stanislaus ‘saved his bacon’ by giving him a job.

He infers from this act of kindness that Kennedy must be innocent of all allegations.

The evolutionary biologist and author of The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins has helped to establish a summer camp for children in Britain where they will be taught rational skepticism and receive lessons in moral philosophy and evolutionary biology.

Seems like a reasonable idea for those who wish to challenge the all pervading indoctrination of children by the main religions.

Catholic apologist, Mary Kenny, however, is scathing of the idea. Writing in the current issue of The Irish Catholic Kenny compares the camp to Hitler Youth and Soviet Youth camps where, among other things, children were taught to report their parents for anti state tendencies.

Meanwhile, in the same issue of The Irish Catholic there’s a two page spread outlining plans for a year of evangelisation in the Dublin Archdiocese.

This will be a major effort to convert new recruits to Catholicism and convince those who have fell by the wayside to return to the fold.

Evangelisation, of course, has a dark history. Christian missionaries spread like a cancer all over the world in past centuries ruthlessly converting ‘the heathen’ to the ‘one true religion’.

The peoples of South America, in particular, were the victims of a brutal regime similar to the Nazi and Soviet slave labour/genocide programmes.

No doubt Mary Kenny would claim it was all necessary to save their pagan souls.

Uri Geller, who not only bends spoons by thought processes, but is an effective mind-reader.

This is a quote from an article written by Catholic apologist Mary Kenny in today’s Irish Independent.

It seems Ms. Kenny actually believes that Geller can bend spoons by thought and read other people’s minds.

Understandable I guess when we consider that she also believes in demons and angels, miracles and people rising from the dead.

President McAleese had some interesting comments regarding the recent racist attacks in Northern Ireland.

“Part of the problem is how children are reared to hate and despise the otherness of others. Northern Ireland is not unfamiliar with that, the old Catholic-Protestant thing, that people are making really big efforts now to transcend and overcome, is replicated in racism, the refusal to see the human person in the other, the refusal to see a potential friend. It’s to see a threat, to see something you despise.”

“That’s taught, it’s learned behaviour, no child is born believing any of that, and so all of us, on the whole island of Ireland … have to bend our minds to how we stop our little children from being turned into wrecking balls as teenagers and as adults.”

The President is, of course, correct. No child is born a racist, their minds are warped by adults who themselves were victims of indoctrination.

But there is a close relationship between racist and religious indoctrination of children. Both constitute child abuse and are founded on instilling in the child a hatred or at least a deep suspicion of the ‘otherness’ of the opposing tribe.

It would be great to see President McAleese come out and condemn the wholesale religious indoctrination/abuse of children in Catholic and Protestant schools.