The reaction to the paedophile priest scandal is as guilty of scaremongering, illiberalism and elitism as the Catholic Church has ever been.I don't agree with everything in the article but he makes some good points about the effects of the "new atheism". See: Why humanists shouldn’t join in this Catholic-bashing
3 comments:
I am glad he mentioned the Ryan Report and how it has been blown out of all proportion. David Quinn, who attended the Commission's hearings, and also reported them for the Irish Independent, wrote a good article on the Report in Studies magazine, having realized that most journalists had not read more than the summary:
http://www.studiesirishreview.ie/j/page712
"[...]As mentioned, a total of 1,090 former residents of the institutions reported to the Ryan Commission. Between them, they named 800 alleged abusers in over 200 institutions. But there was very wide variation from institution to institution in terms of the amount of abuse taking place in each of them, something that the executive summary of the Ryan Report, which is what most journalists will have read, did not make clear. For example, fully 50 per cent of physical abuse reports and 64 per cent of the sex abuse reports heard by the Commission that involved boys, related to four of the boys institutions. The same applies to the girls’ institutions. Three schools account for almost 40 per cent of the physical abuse reports, or 48 reports each, while 19 schools had an average of 2.5 reports each.
Sexual abuse was also far worse in the boys’ institution than in the girls’, which is probably to be expected. In the girls’ institutions, sex abuse was normally perpetrated by outside workmen, or by visiting priests or religious, or by foster families, with whom the girls occasionally stayed.
A relative handful of individuals accounted for a disproportionate share of the complaints. For example: a total of 241 female religious were named as physical abusers. However, four of these were named by 125 witnesses, and 156 Sisters were named by one witness each. In total, of the 800 religious and others named as abusers, half were named by only one person.
It is also worth noting that an institution only received a special chapter in the Ryan Report if it was the subject of more than 20 complaints of abuse. Sixteen institutions, out of the dozens run by the orders, had more than 20 complaints made against them.
When I first reported the above figures in the Irish Catholic and the Irish Independent, I was accused by a handful of people (fewer than I had expected) of ‘playing the numbers game’. But surely numbers matter immensely? If they do not, then why did numbers feature so heavily in the Ryan Report and in the subsequent media coverage of it, and in the debates about it? In the North, for example, it is not immaterial whether 300 or 3,000 people died in the ‘Troubles’.
If I were a member of an order that ran those institutions that were relatively better run than some of the others, I would want people to know this. I would regard it as particularly unfair and unjust if every institution was universally regarded as being as terrible as the very worst of the institutions.[...]"
Shane
I have never seen such negative hateful and even vicious media reporting on a Papal liturgical function than yesterday's Palm Sunday celebration.
I think the use of the old Papal throne and liturgical vestments, even to the use of the elaborate Palm the Pope carries, right down to his "Prada" shoes, is driving them furious, his very person seems to infuriate them.
He has incurred their wrath right from day one - God's rottweiler etc.
Then there were the "revelations" about his "Nazi past". Funnily enough these accusations of Nazism have never surfaced in France or Germany where they're particularly sensitive about that kind of thing.
In addition to being anti-Catholic the gutter press in this country have always played up to anti-German feeling. Benedict's election was the ideal confluence of events for them to stir up old prejudices.
Oremus pro beatissimo Papa nostro Benedicto.
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