Documentary exposes Primate of all Ireland's role in abuse cases

[retroHelen]

BBC documentary was reviewed by the Telegraph Newspaper here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9241955/This-World-The-Shame-of-the-Catholic-Church-BBC-Two-review.html

After previous coverage of the 'This World' Documentary team in revealing to the rest of Europe the scandal of church's involvement in Spain's stolen babies.http://www.jwtalk.net/forum/read.php?49,58585

Here is another stark documentary of the scandal of Father Eugene Greene of Ireland moved around the diocese of Raphoe for 3 decades as he was reported to church authorities for child abuse in one church after another. Father Brendan Smith who did the same around Belfast with young boys and girls for over 4 decades.

It establishes the power and grandeur of the Catholic church in Ireland and it's distance from the ordinary Irish people who on the whole were awed and subservient. Then how it betrayed the trust of their parishioners.

Father Brady was, in 1975, the church's lawyer sent as investigator and write up reports on all the children who came forward to report abuse for Ireland's Bishop. Nothing was done. No parents were warned despite the evidence. Priests were not removed from office and the abuse went on into the 1980's. The Church claims that there was no structure in place to report the findings to the Police, yet they could have defrocked the abusers and prevented them carrying on, yet they sent them elsewhere to help spread their 'evil disease' onto some other remote location's innocent children. It was the secular authorities who had to deal with the reports many years later. Father Brady is now cardinal and Primate of all Ireland and there are calls in newspapers following the documentary for his resignation.

Alison Millar’s film made the bleak hills and moors of Donegal seem frighteningly empty. That was appropriate, since geographical isolation was useful to priests like Eugene Greene, shunted around from one remote spot to another by the hierarchy that protected him. One Island chapel had a small apartment built behind the altar where a visiting priest could stay if he was cut off by the weather. Fr Greene found it handy for assaulting minors, just a few feet away from the 'Blessed Sacrament'.

Sad fact is that the once regular Catholic churchgoers have developed a new phrase called 'Keep the faith change the Church' so they, at present, still believe all the doctrines even though many no longer attend church.

The documentary was played to acclaim in the newspapers on Wednesday night and this is it on BBC Iplayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01h7m8r/This_World_The_Shame_of_the_Catholic_Church/

Warning to the sensitive: Most of the program was straight forward documentary reporting. However, the program was advertised for adult viewing because a small section is a little explicit in it's coverage of the documented interrogation in the 1970's that one of the young boys was subjected to by the Church in a closed room at a monastery, without any parent with him - necessary to show how much the Church knew to cover up.

One upset victim does use the f-word a couple of times in his frustration as to what was and is happening and the effect on his mental health.

[Greenfield]

The Church claims that there was no structure in place to report the findings to the Police...

Even this doesn't hold water. The church pushes for secular political changes when it wants to, so why didn't they push for this? They pushed for killing heretics back in the past.

[Martini]

Is it any wonder that Jehovah gave them up to their disgraceful practices along with all the false teachings they promote. Feel for the victims of these horrendous crimes of children. Child abuse is one of the most dispicable acts ever!!! Shame on anyone doing that, Jehovah will see to their punishment.

[retroHelen]

There's now an International petition started to get Cardinal Brady, Primate of all Ireland, to resign due to his part in the 1970's as investigating lawyer for the Church into the abuse of children by at least 2 priests, which only led to these priests being moved elsewhere in Ireland to carry on what they were doing and then get moved on again when it came to light there.

Also his methods of interrogation of the boys and swearing them to silence, without parental participation or knowledge, have been questioned.

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Irish-people-asked-to-petition-for-Primate-Sean-Bradys-resignation-150344455.html

[rbrown1205]

There is a lot in history that talks about where this idea of priests not being allowed to marry came from. The earliest indication was in the year 305, long after Jesus and the early Christians. From Wikipedia:

Council of Elvira (c. 305)

(Canon 33): It is decided that marriage be altogether prohibited to bishops, priests, and deacons, or to all clerics placed in the ministry, and that they keep away from their wives and not beget children; whoever does this, shall be deprived of the honor of the clerical office.

Some say that because Jesus was not married, that the priests should not be either. But Jesus said, let those who make room for it make room for it, and he wasn't talking about whether or not people who are in some sort of teachng position in a congregation had to be celibate, but he was just talking about choices. The apostles were married, but with their increased spiritual duties, their wives took second place after their spiritual duties, but they did not neglect them. Peter bore witness to this in his beautiful passage in 1 Peter chapter 3. Paul bore witness that the apostles still had their wives in 1 Corinthians 9:5. For that matter, there is no scriptural mandate that any man should be called priest within the Christian arrangement, so...

Catholics who believe in priestly celibacy feel that the priests who commit pedophilia do so only because they are breaking their vow, not because the whole idea of priestly celibacy is unscriptural. However, even the idea of having priests, celibate or not, on earth under the Christian arrangement is unscriptural. And priests under the Mosaic law could also get married. The Christian priesthood is reserved for those who reach heavenly life, and no one in the Christian congregation on earth can be called a priest (or a king, for that matter). Some who have the heavenly hope, like the Governing Body, play some of the roles of the priest, in teaching, etc., as we have studied. But none of them are under obligation to be celibate in marriage.

Bottom line. It's a demon inspiration to forbid to marry (I Tim 4:1-3). It is also against the scriptures, to, once married, to deprive one's spouse of the marital due. (I Corinthians 7:1-5) That scripture notably says that this admonition was because of "the prevalance of fornication".

Any time when people disregard God's law, they will see bad consequences. History shows nuns having abortions, with the babies' skeletons buried under convent walls. There have been priests with defiled consciences due to fornication while under this unfair and unscriptural vow to not marry, trying to lead parishes in spiritual activity, knowing that they are not doing what they promised to do. And, now, we have this recently unearthed plague of pedophile priests.

When Jehovah's Witnesses found that there were sexual improprieties against children and others going on in the congregations a few years ago, they took care of business, by appointing and sending out regional judicial committees to review cases, and calling the police on those who told the victims not to, while reaffirming that everyone has the right to do so, and by otherwise working to effect justice for those who were harmed, because we have the rules in place that come from the Bible to deal with those who did not comply with what they learned and agreed to obey.