Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
The clip below is Dave Allen, the Irish Comedian, at his very best, recalling his introduction to religion – his first day of school! Personally, I think this is quite hilarious. Did you know that he was banned from Irish TV in the 1970’s, if you watch this clip, you will understand why … enjoy.
There is currently a case taking place in the UK that involves a girl known as “JGE”, who was sexually abused while a six-year-old resident at The Firs, a children’s home in Portsmouth run by an order of nuns, the English Province of Our Lady of Charity. JGE was sexually abused by Father Wilfred Baldwin, a priest of the Roman Catholic diocese of Portsmouth and its “vocations director”, who regularly visited The Firs during the 70s. Her legal team claim the nuns were negligent and in breach of duty, and that the diocese was liable for Baldwin’s alleged abuse as he was a Catholic priest engaged within the work of the diocese.
Honestly, I’m quite happy for folks to believe whatever they wish, and as long as they behave in a decent manner, I’ll not show too much interest … which perhaps explains why I, and many others, are constantly banging away at both Islam, extreme evangelical kooks, and also Catholicism. For not only are their beliefs truly bizarre and utterly insane, but the manner in which they treat others is quite frankly appalling.
Today, on-side, joining us in valid criticism of the Catholic cult of insanity is the president of the Irish Republic, Enda Kenny. What is most surprising and completely “unprecedented” about his verbal attack upon the Vatican is that it comes from a Fine Gael taoiseach, whose political base lies in the conservative west of Ireland, who has led from the front. It should of course not be a surprise, for quite some time now case after case of abuse and cover-up has come to the surface. In the latest report, we find that the Vatican are still obstructing the civil power, ie the Garda Síochána, in their inquiries into allegations against priests in the County Cork diocese. Here is the Video of his speech …
You can read an interesting article in the Guardian about all this here.
Back in 2009, the Commission of Investigation Report into the Catholic Diocese of Dublin (Nope not my grammar, that is what they called what was also known as The Murphy report) was published with the details of some truly horrifying child abuse. It was not the end-game and so they did not stop there because the last Irish government had agreed to extend the Murphy commission’s remit to include Cloyne, so further investigation proceeded. On Wednesday 13th July they finally issued their report.
To give this a contextual time line, the commission was asked to investigate the handling of sex abuse allegations in Cloyne by church and state authorities between 1 January 1996 – when the church’s first-published guidelines, its Framework Document, came into play – and 1 February 2009. In other words, this is restricted to a period of time that “starts” from the day they claimed to have cleaned up their act and does not consider any of the historical abuse prior to 1996.
First the link so that you can go read it yourself. Here is the full report. At 421 pages in length, it is not a quick read.
We have yet another story about Catholic abuse and an associated cover-up. The tragedy here is that this is now so common, it is almost non-news. A BBC documentary, “Abused: Breaking the Silence”, will air tonight (BBC1 at 10:35 21st June) and reveal all the sordid details. It concerns the antics of Fr Kit Cunningham, the jovial parish priest of St Ethedreda’s church and for many years unofficial padre to Fleet Street. When he was a young missionary in Africa he committed the most disgusting paedophile crimes – he sexually assaulted prep school boys at the order’s school in Soli, Tanzania
The manner in which the Catholic church handles the topic of AIDS is quite frankly bizarre, and illustrates the degree of their utter moral bankruptcy. It is highly ironic, not only because they claim to hold the high moral ground, but also because they claim to have an exclusive direct line to God. This of course is a complete delusion, but I need not ponder on that, it is blindly obvious to any critical thinker.
The latest news is that a Vatican cardinal, Cardinal Tarcisio Berton, opened an international conference on AIDS with a speech that strongly defended the church’s two-pronged strategy against the disease – education of consciences and mobilization of Catholic health resources for patients.