The Catholic Church is definitely not to blame for this!

[Imran Siddiqui]

It was intended to be the start of a a series of troll posts until people who should know better decided to jump in.

Saying idiotic things and then claiming one is trolling is Ben's area of expertise.

You suck at trolling.

[rah]

Gotta agree with Imran here. I usually expect better from you. (even if we don't always agree)

[N35t0r]

Obviously it's a bit more complicated in a non-pluralistic society such as (I assume) Ireland in the mid-twentieth century. Be that as it may, the Irish Church was still the creature of Irish society, made up of and supported by individual Irish people. To shift all the blame onto the Church itself is to effectively deny all those people moral agency. To say that they were drones, or zombies, who could not look at the situation and see the many things wrong with it, and take some action.

The thing is, most of the time, those most wronged by the system are those who have the least power to change it. And those who have the most power tend to prefer the status quo, for obvious reasons.

[molly bloom]

Christ, moron.

I'm not familiar with that title- Christ Pantocrator, yes. Is Christ Moron your favoured form of your deity ? Must be, from the way you argue your case.

Yes, because Thoreau is representative of the average homeless person cast out of an institution.

In case you weren't reading with your comprehension glasses on, Sister Dimwit, inmates wanted to escape from these religious institutions, but were brought back by agents of the civil power, who were in collusion with the Church.

Missed that, didja ?

[Elok]

The thing is, most of the time, those most wronged by the system are those who have the least power to change it. And those who have the most power tend to prefer the status quo, for obvious reasons.

They still have the power of individual choice; the individual father can still say, "to hell with you, my daughter can stay and work my farm, and her boy, too, when he's old enough." Maybe he'll starve, but he won't throw his child to the wolves. He can cite plenty of scriptural precedent, if he's a Bible-reading man. It won't shut the neighbors up, but what would?

That's how societies change, when enough people have the guts to do different. Ken's the one who brought up the Nazis, but the Nuremberg defense doesn't work any better for Irishmen than it did for Germans. We don't get to blame churches, or governments, or corporations, or anybody else for our individual moral failings.

[DinoDoc]

Gotta agree with Imran here. I usually expect better from you.

Why?

[molly bloom]

I'm not even Catholic, fumbduck. Let alone Irish Catholic. .

And I am the son of Irish Catholics, with a cousin who is well up in the Irish church's hierarchy. The Irish state was complicit in covering up the abuses of the Irish church and its officers throughout its history.

Who exactly of these abused people could muster the resources to combat church and state ? As for Irish 'society' being complicit- who ran the schools Elok ? Who ran the hospitals and laundries ?

Not a child abuse scandal for once :

The son that he fathered to Annie Murphy in 1974 when he was bishop of Kerry is now nearly 40 years old and living in the United States. Yet still the punishment continues.

The Casey scandal, revealed in 1992, happened at a time in Irish history when we now know that many priests were not alone predatory pedophiles, but were also being protected by their superiors by being moved from parish to parish and even from country to country.

Casey's offense involved a passionate affair with a consenting adult female and, later, allegations of using church funds to help support his son. There was no question of little altar boys and girls or other innocent children being involved.

http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/others/its-time-for-the-catholic-church-to-forgive-disgraced-bishop-eamon-casey-190180841-238169381.html

[molly bloom]

You neatly dodged Elok's point on Bastards. Most societies treated their bastards the same way, Christian or no.

In mediaeval times they were called 'the Pope's children'- because so many were fathered by priests and monks and friars.

[kentonio]

Look, I don't really want to get into discussing the history of anti-semitism in particular. Just saying "it was all the Church's fault" is simplistic and stupid for almost any subject.

Of course you don't want to discuss it, because the truth is that it really is very simplistic and easy. The fault for the anti-semitism that cursed Europe for two millennium lies squarely at the feet of the Christian church.

Churches do not exist in a vacuum. They are deeply embedded in their societies, and responsive to those societies' wishes. Hence the loathsome "Prosperity Gospel" of modern America--taking the most repugnant and toxic portions of the American Dream, and putting them in Jesus's mouth. Those churches still represent religious authority to their parishioners, but it'd be idiotic to say "well, it's not their fault, the church told them that God hates poor people!" Yes, but they supported their church, didn't they? They chose to be active in it, they gave it their money, they encouraged Pastor Big-Hair and his message of Yacht Heaven. It's a two-way street.

People are stupid and easily led. Blaming it on the people for being misled is like standing and shouting at the sea for coming in and then going out again every day. It's worse in fact, because it gives a free pass to the people who set out to deceive and corrupt. I actually agree that you should also make people be responsible for their decisions, but that in no way offers any kind of shield to the ones doing the corrupting.

Obviously it's a bit more complicated in a non-pluralistic society such as (I assume) Ireland in the mid-twentieth century. Be that as it may, the Irish Church was still the creature of Irish society, made up of and supported by individual Irish people. To shift all the blame onto the Church itself is to effectively deny all those people moral agency. To say that they were drones, or zombies, who could not look at the situation and see the many things wrong with it, and take some action.

What freedom of agency did people in Ireland have exactly when they grew up in a society where breaching the established church morality could lead to your complete social stigmatization? A society where the word of a bishop carried more weight than that of a judge or a politician or a policeman?

[kentonio]

Saying idiotic things and then claiming one is trolling is Ben's area of expertise.

You suck at trolling.

Gotta agree with Imran here. I usually expect better from you. (even if we don't always agree)

It was due to get quite funny about 3-4 posts later. Thanks for the spoiler fun-killers!

[molly bloom]

Of course, just saying "antisemitism was The Church's fault" is exactly the same lazy cop-out. .

This is the same Roman Catholic Church which conferred a crusade status upon the Reconquista in Spain, the first place in Europe to confer the status of racial pollution on the Jews of Europe. Previously the pollution had been religious- Spain's approach made it genetic. Probably because those two 'great' Roman Catholics of the Reconquista, Torquemada and Ferdinand, had Jewish ancestry.

On the other hand, Eugenius IV (1431-47) passed anti-Jewish legislation in the Council of Constance.

During the Reformation, in 1555, Pope Paul IV decreed that all Jews must be segregated into their own quarters (ghettos), and they were forbidden to leave their home during the night, were banned from all but the most strenuous occupations and had to wear a distinctive badge — a yellow hat.

These anti-Jewish laws were similar to those imposed by Nazi Germany on the Jews during World War II.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Rome.html

[N35t0r]

They still have the power of individual choice; the individual father can still say, "to hell with you, my daughter can stay and work my farm, and her boy, too, when he's old enough." Maybe he'll starve, but he won't throw his child to the wolves. He can cite plenty of scriptural precedent, if he's a Bible-reading man. It won't shut the neighbors up, but what would?

Yeah, he could pretty much choose to go to hell instead. Impressive choice.

[MRT144]

Yeah, he could pretty much choose to go to hell instead. Impressive choice.

Maybe god was pulling an Abraham but got distracted 800 or so times.

Seriously, the choice for religious people is clear - you either do things that you question morally as a testament to your faith or you're an apostate.

[dannubis]

They still have the power of individual choice; the individual father can still say, "to hell with you, my daughter can stay and work my farm, and her boy, too, when he's old enough." Maybe he'll starve, but he won't throw his child to the wolves. He can cite plenty of scriptural precedent, if he's a Bible-reading man. It won't shut the neighbors up, but what would?

'throwing to the wolves' is an interesting way of decribing the act of putting your child in the care of the entity that is supposed to provide moral guidance

[Elok]

Of course you don't want to discuss it, because the truth is that it really is very simplistic and easy. The fault for the anti-semitism that cursed Europe for two millennium lies squarely at the feet of the Christian church.

If you want simple answers, you should probably just stay out of history entirely. As early as the High Middle Ages the Church had already lost control of the monster. In Spain, as Molly notes, it took on a racial character and was used by the nobles for class-warfare purposes. The pogroms during the first couple of Crusades were spontaneous mob actions the Church had to shut down. Not that they did it terribly decisively, but still. The Church was only where it started.

Also, stop being a smug ****. Yes, I can handle the truth. I have my big boy diapers and everything. Sheesh.

People are stupid and easily led. Blaming it on the people for being misled is like standing and shouting at the sea for coming in and then going out again every day. It's worse in fact, because it gives a free pass to the people who set out to deceive and corrupt. I actually agree that you should also make people be responsible for their decisions, but that in no way offers any kind of shield to the ones doing the corrupting.

People are stupid . . . does that include you? What gives you the right to deny moral responsibility to the whole human race? A church, or any other organization, is an abstraction, a conglomerate. It still comes down to individual people, individual decisions. And those ****ers don't get to dodge their guilt.

What freedom of agency did people in Ireland have exactly when they grew up in a society where breaching the established church morality could lead to your complete social stigmatization? A society where the word of a bishop carried more weight than that of a judge or a politician or a policeman?

Well, the ones who were judges, bishops, policemen or politicians could have done any number of little things. As could the whole society who were doing the stigmatization. Maybe give a hand to the poor neighbor girl, give her a place to stay for a while? Refuse to join the gossip circle? Write angry letters? Vote for the politician who was just a teensy bit less judgmental than the other guy? There was always some action, no matter how small, they could have taken. The collective guilt falls on all of them--some much more heavily than others.