I remember

Her name was Mrs. Hoare. She looked about 90 and she taught First Class (Grade 1). Now who'd forget a name like that?

I was six. Fresh out of the country and into a suburban school in Cork. An old national school once part of a village until urban sprawl had incorporated it. A smelly old school. Thick walls, uncertain heating system, we were always cold. Even in the spring.

We'd practise hymns. We were all getting ready for our First Communion and the RC church ran the schools, the hospitals, the orphanages, the old age homes and us.

Six. And we sang of hell fire and redemption and saints who died for Jesus.

And one of the girls, in a class of about 40, vomited all over the floor as we stood there singing.

And Mrs. Hoare?

Well, she flew into a rage. The priest was expected shortly to examine us all and make sure we were fit to confess our dreadful sins and be accepted, in our bridal dresses and veils, into the kingdom of the parish and thereafter heaven, if we did what we were told. You may laugh at the Taliban but Ireland is, was, and always will be a trendsetter in that regard.

And Geraldine Barry had the gall, the brazen brass of her, to throw up all over the wooden floor.

And Mrs. Hoare said we were all going to make up for this unforgiveable sin in the eyes of Jesus. We would all suffer along with Geraldine and stare at that filthy floor all day and learn of our mistakes, our evil natures. With the priest coming.

And he did. And the smell in that room was appalling. And little Geraldine, her freckles stood out like raindrops on her little white face. She hung on to the desk with her eyes downcast, tears trickling off her chin and on to her shoes. I can still see her page-bob hair, she had lovely bangs, we called it a fringe back then. None of the rest of us had fringes, they were too expensive to maintain. Good haircuts cost money and fathers made you look like a boy if you let them loose on your head with your brothers' hair trimming equipment.

When the priest saw the mess on the floor, he left the room, the smell was pretty bad then, permeating everything. I remember using all my energy to battle the rising bile in my stomach, biting my lower lip down so hard my teeth left marks.

He came back with a bucket of sawdust and threw it all over the mess. We were all still standing there shaking, as our mothers had bought our First Communion dresses. My mother had made mine. She got a gift of cream silk damask from a priest who still loved her but now lived in Egypt. I didn't know that story until I was old enough to talk unrequited love with her but he sent me a pendant in the post too, a non-Catholic one with a little hinged door on the front of it where I put my Granny's sixpence.

So what would happen if Father Sheehan now punished us by cancelling our big First Communion Day? Our mothers would be raging.

He chatted briefly with Mrs. Hoare and muttered something about her good job in teaching us all a valuable lesson in respect for property.

He fired off a couple of solid questions at us along the lines of: Who made the world? And we all chanted back at him: God made the world, fadder. And then he left us all to our vomit and sawdust.

And one month later little Geraldine of the perfect fringe and freckles was dead. Of meningitis.

The first funeral I was ever at.

She wore her gorgeous First Communion Dress as she lay in her white casket.

Black and White and Denial All Over - Part 3

See Part 1 here
See Part 2 here

And why was my country of birth ripe for such abuses? The GreatPotato FamineHolocaust in Ireland in the 1840s where up to 4 million people were deliberately starved or forced to emigrate - often on so-called coffin ships which drowned them anyway - changing the very landscape of Ireland utterly and forever in many, many ways.

All of the Irish born people I know and have known, including my own large indirect and direct relatives can't tell you how their families survived this "famine". There is a huge sense of shame some historians have it, and also PTSD. The survivors of this "famine" were ripe for further traumatization by the RC church and strict moral guidelines were laid down. Much of this was based on Jansenism a rigid form of Catholicism with firm rules on sexual behaviour. I remember one of my more open-minded teachers interpreting (scoffingly) the procedure for marital sexual intercourse: no removal of clothing, thou shalt not see the naked body of thy spouse and encouraging the denigration of the products of unsacramented coitus as the "spawn of the devil" to be shunned and despised.

There were 250,000 women and children over a 40 year period processed through the Magdalene Laundries, Industrial Schools, Mother & Baby Homes and “orphanages” and "reformatories" - a total of 72 RC church run institutions across the country.

And as of now, all of this shameful history is not taught in the schools. These girls/women/children/babies are deleted and forgotten. Revisionism at its most extreme. Why? Because the RC church still controls the curricula in schools. And embraces the notion that the Irish should remain ignorant of the horrific crimes committed by those who offer them salvation in the hereafter. The twisted mindsets around these shameful betrayals remain and are continually encouraged. Many of my friends and relatives still participate and donate to this abusive cult. Much like victims of the Stockholm syndrome.

Compare this to the school curricula in Germany where students there learn about Hitler and the shame and degradation of the extermination camps and the propaganda of Hitler. So that it doesn't happen again.

In Ireland the swelling of Catholic coffers continues and very little restitution has been paid to the many, many victims of its crimes against humanity - and absolutely no one is addressing the multi-generational effect of the original crimes: the secret sales of children with no official records maintained, the life-long slavery and near starvation of "unwed" mothers and the traumatization of babies and mothers torn apart, along with the deceitful and self-justifying lies told to both the sold babies and the devastated mothers. It was all about the selling price of the children and the capitation grants given to these institutions by the government, subsequently funnelled to the Vatican, one of the wealthiest entities in the world.

To be continued.

The Fighting Irish

I sometimes go into things expecting huge battles. I don't know where I get this girding-my-loins-for-a-war mentality. Perhaps in childhood. Girl children in my time in the Catholic Ireland I grew up in had to choose their fights carefully. We had outlets on the camogie front, of course, and if you think camogie is like field hockey, think again. if you ever saw a hurling match you'd get the picture.

Camogie was the female version of hurling. Back then, in my time: No protective gear, no fancy sports bras, think thin black plimsolls, skirts (yeah skirts - and underneath regulation bloomers) and best of all? Black nylon stockings! It was a viciously tough game, where ankles were shredded and fights broke out at every game. We did not repress our rage. We took it out on the opposing team in camogie. Of course now they've fancied it all up with helmets and knee pads and ankle protectors and elbow protectors. Not in my time I can assure you. I had a foot broken and a finger broken. Others had teeth smashed, ribs shattered, one girl had two casts simultaneously on her arm and her leg. We raised Irish women right tough in Ireland back then. We came by it well through Cumann Na mBan the Irish women's military organization formed in 1914.

I was all girded up, in my recently new position, to go to battle for a new town hall, a performance space, a meeting place, a community party room. The old space was commandeered by the RC church. Even though the land was originally donated to the RC diocese by their parishioners and the old hall was built free of charge, etc., etc. All over Canada (and I'm sure in other countries too) the RC church is selling off 'their' properties and paying off lawsuits brought by the victims of the heinous perversions and horrors inflicted by those in their employ on innocent children. This whole reactive process by the church makes my lobes explode. Now the seniors, who contributed so much over the years to the support of their local churches, are unceremoniously turfed out of their card games and little tea dances, etc., and have nowhere to meet courtesy of these very same churches. Bloodsuckers. Don't get me started. Well, I have, haven't I? I'll stop now.

So here I am fighting for a space for my wee town so that we could have a non-denominational meeting hall, small, granted, but enough.

I get an estimate to convert an existing building into a wee village hall - the space will be lovely, light and airy - and now - and I'm really over the moon about this - the powers that be approved it tonight.

It turns out I was the only one in this anticipated battle.

Colour me ungirded.

A Reluctant Farewell

I wouldn't call him a friend, exactly. But he was more than an acquaintance or a ship passing in the night. I wonder why there isn't a word for those in between relationships.

He helped me a few times with research in the library. I was looking into the Blue Puttees - a Newfoundland regiment that fought in Beaumont Hamel in France in WW1 to an enormous loss of life and devastating effect on this island - a whole generation of young men wiped out and sacrificed for nothing. We'd meet frequently at cards and engage with each other relentlessly. A sort of semi-flirtatious repartee. Tall and quite handsome with a full head of silver hair, he was a life long bachelor with an obsequiousness for all things Catholic.

He reminded me greatly of the old Catholics I was surrounded by in Ireland. The sanctimonious ones who would lodge in one ear while renting out the other one.

The most peculiar thing he'd do would be staggering around on Good Friday up the road outside the church with a cross on his back, atoning for his sins.

He struck me as always being terrified. I'd heard he'd had a nervous breakdown way back in the day and was forced to retire early from teaching. He filled his long retirement years manning a volunteer library which he kept stocked and sorted and indexed. He opened it up two afternoons a week but you had to call first to make sure his opening the library was worth his while.

We bonded over books, though he was easily scandalized by any "unmoral" writings which forced me to tease him mercilessly. I did try desperately to be kind but the sight of him blushing and sweating would encourage me in the other direction. Though a small part of me still insists he enjoyed being scandalized.

He drove around to my side of the bay and brought me green peppers from his garden one year which I made into green pepper soup and froze. But he would never come into my house as he was terrified of dogs and didn't know why anyone would have one in the house where people ate and slept.

According to local lore, he was a savage gossip and just about ran the local church, the right hand man of the priest who was on the right hand of God himself. Inwardly, I referred to him as "priesty man".

I am saddened at his passing yesterday. Suddenly. He never travelled off the island and admitted to me the thought of leaving it made him "sick." He would laugh long and hard and inappropriately at something that confused him which could irritate those in his company.

I feel I could have done more for him. Been kinder and more welcoming when he'd stop his car when I was out road- training. He'd ask me if I was coming to the library soon or could I drop by for a cup of tea at his brown house across the bay.

I never did.

One Sunday Morning in Youghal - Part 2 of 2

Some of the family with progeny from that time in Youghal (babies missing presumably with other mothers)

See Part 1 here.

You'll know later why this whole day is so vivid in my head. It's hard to believe today, but the mothers would line up all those pushchairs (strollers and prams) outside the church door so any mewling infants or gurgling toddlers strapped into them wouldn't disturb the holy faithful inside.

Then we all trouped in to the vast, incensed, candle-lit space. The men were all on the left of the church. Us women and boys younger than five? six? sat on the right. My first introduction to segregation of the genders.

The organ thumped, the voices of the choir soared above us, the altar was packed with clergy: monsignors, curates, priests, altar boys, swanning about in lace and damask and gold embroidered vestments. The children on the women's side were restless, holding their whinging selves in, while mothers frowned alarmingly at them, picking the younger ones up and holding them tightly like a strait-jacket if their behaviour looked like it might escalate into an embarrassment.

Toys and entertainment or food were not allowed to distract them. And off-site child pens unheard of. We were in the presence of Holy God and all his angels here below. And you needed to learn young, and fast, that Hell awaited any misbehaviour in His eyes.

All those men crowded fetchingly on the altar of The Lord, crashing their thuribles, loaded with incense, and their aspergills, loaded with holy water to be sprinkled on the unclean. I knew the names of everything. I was one of those “Why” children whom my father indulged. Endlessly. In church, I would recite the long complicated names of everything holy to myself along with their definitions. Today I would be called a geek. It kept me amused through those long bouts of endless Catholic liturgies.

When the ninety minutes were up, the last gospel read, the last blessing in that strange language of Latin bestowed upon all our sinful heads and the last collection taken up by the solemn men of the Holy Confraternity we were free to go. We could hardly wait. All restraint was gone, us children plunged from the church in a mass of arms and legs and whoops, leaving our parents to pull up the rear with some snoring or fretful toddlers in their arms and now rocking the abandoned babies in pushchairs and prams crying outside the church doors.

We raced down the steps of the church, shouting, landing on the footpath, some of us turning to wait for the parents who had promised us ice creams for behaving ourselves in the presence of Holy God who watched us all the time and never got bored.

What did we hear first? The terrible thumps, the screeching of brakes, the screams from the top of the steps, too many screams to count. I turned back to the road. And it was just for a moment but I saw. A pair of legs underneath the front of the car with lace trimmed ankle socks and black patent shoes. And behind the driver's side another pair of legs with grey knee high socks and sturdy boy's oxfords. The legs were very still. The driver's head was on the steering wheel, his hands locked in place on each side. He looked frozen. There was blood, there was lots of blood. On the car, in the road. I felt my own blood leave my head and my legs went weak. A strong arm went around me, a hand covered my eyes.

“Come away, come away now,” my father dragged me off, still covering my eyes. His voice sounded strange, strangled, “ I want you to forget all about this. And remember you have to look both ways before you cross the road. Always.”

Years later, I asked him about it. He was upset I had remembered it. He had tried to protect me. Yes, both children, a brother and sister had died. Apparently they had spotted their grandmother across the road from the church and ran to meet her. They were 12 and 10 years old.

On the previous day, the dead boy had shown my little brother how to do cartwheels on the strand.

Taint

taint


/tānt/

Noun

A trace of a bad or undesirable quality or substance: "the taint of corruption".

Verb

Contaminate or pollute (something).

Synonyms


noun.

stain - blemish - blot - spot - smirch - smear - smudge

verb.

contaminate - pollute - spoil - corrupt - foul - infect

I was posting a link on FB to an article I wrote years ago. About Easter and Tenebrae and the old Irish traditions around this time, like my granny looking at the sun reflected in a mirror in an eastern window of her house to tell the future.

All the awe and mystery and ceremonies and darkness of Easter week. Like my mother hauling me outside on Easter Sunday to watch the sun dance 3 times, even it was only in our imaginations.

And now I find it is all tainted (the only word that came to my mind) with the shadowed abuses and perversions that were taking place just about everywhere the Catholic Church had stretched its obscene tentacles.

And I can't help but imagine what was going on behind the scenes in all the churches and convents and cathedrals and schools and hospitals and orphanages I was in, so many children suffering with no one to hear their anguish apart from their paedophiliac abusers.

Thank you RC church. For destroying my memories and those of so many others. And the lives of all you abused and tried to conceal with the help of your Vatican Overlords. May you all rot in hell, if there`s such a place, which I doubt, you corrupt, evil and perverted institution.

The Famine and the Laundries

I had a long, long conversation with a good friend in Ireland yesterday about the Ireland we grew up in, the Ireland of shame, guilt and sorrow.

I can't have conversations like these except with "one of my own." One who was brought up with the almighty grip of the Catholic Church running the lives of all around us. A grip that despised women and hated their children even worse. Where sex was a filthy word and if you had a "flirtatious" personality and were incested by your father or uncle or brother or raped by the parish priest you could be committed to an institution that would work you from dawn to dusk. Slavery by another name. Tiny children imprisoned and working their fingers to the bone. The government was complicit in these incarcerations. No surprise at all. Fear was a constant companion. An innocent walk with a father would result in him pointing out some of these grim gray buildings with barred windows in the middle of the country where "bad" boys and girls, some as young as 5, could be thrown, never to see their families again.

My friends, you have no idea. I'm just giving you the very spit of it, a wee taste.

To read more of it go to Bock the Robber's blog today. He connects the Famine (a genocide actually) and the Laundries in a way I've thought of but could never articulate as well as he has. He does it beautifully. Savagely. And succintly.

Excerpt:

Crushed. Demoralised. Three to four million native Irish speakers removed at a stroke. Its culture eviscerated by emigration, starvation and disease, thanks to a government in London that believed in tooth-and-claw laissez faire economics. A government whose only interest was the wealthy merchant classes, and the devil take the hindmost.

This is an Ireland far, far removed from those travel posters and paddywackery.

And the horror percolates downwards through all generations of my country.

Ask anyone there, ask me, what their families did to survive the famine and you will get a blank stare. We just don't know.

One of my family members ran one of those laundries.

And my highschool mini-choir would go to the institutions to sing for the unfortunates. But we were forbidden to speak to them and they to us.

And we knew our fate if we stepped out of line.

It's All In The Name

I was thinking about names. A friend became a first time grandparent today and her granddaughter has been given a trendy name. You know how that goes. The Conors and the Taylors and the Bethanys and the Jacobs.

In my time, in Ireland, the all-powerful Catholic church had an incredible influence on naming one's child. Always after a saint, sometimes after a holy nun or a holy priest (the adjective 'holy' was always attached to these sainted clerics, along with "Holy God" and "Holy Mary" - God's baby mama.)

Suggestions were made by the clerics and were enforced. The baby was often dragged away to the church as the mother lay recovering from the labour and her wishes disregarded as the priest pronounced his preference over the child's freshly baptized wet head. Seriously. That was so in my case. I joined a multitude of same-names, identified for years by our surnames in schools and offices. Individuality was not encouraged.

Those of unusual names (Olive, Celine, Violet, et al) were mocked by the nuns as being almost Protestant - " Was your mother not of the faith?", "Is your father a West Briton?".

Yanks (Americans) were mocked for naming the boys "Junior" after the father. "Did they not care enough about him to give him his own saintly name?"

As to us, the same-named girls, we mocked the Assumptas and the Conceptas and the Immaculatas - named for the various life stages of the above-mentioned Holy Mary and more infrequently for the great-aunt nuns who had some influence over the family naming.

My late dear M-I-L approved of the names I had chosen for her grandchildren but could be heard pitifully bleating over the choice made by her other D-I-L.

"Brooke?" she said to me, almost weeping into her afternoon sherry, "What kind of person names her child after a stream, tell me that."

I wanted to quote Bob Dylan and his Times They Are A-Changin' but just clucked in sympathy as I poured us another.

I've known a few who changed their names. I'd always wanted to but didn't have the guts. Tried to in Italy back in the day but was met with derision when I attempted the shift at home so reverted.

It's too late now. Plus I really have grown into it.

For Sale: 300,000 Babies

I was processing some papers for a dear Irish friend the other day. As I was reviewing the documentation in her file, I was struck once again by how the Irish government (and people) handed over all responsibility for medicine, education, registering of marriages and even the methodology of births (see here for my post on that) to the Catholic church. Shame on my government, shame on the brainwashed people who believed so unquestioningly in this cult. That abused everyone around them through massive cover-ups of their paedophilia and their funnelling of billions of wealth gained from such government-funded enterprises to their leader in the Vatican. And don't get me started on their tax-exempt status around the world.

And if you tell me about missionary work I will tell you that the poor unfortunate children in Africa and other Third World countries do not have access to lawyers or to courts that will hear them.

I am exhausted from all the exposed corruption in the last while as are the rest of you, I am sure. But this latest about Catholic priests, nuns and doctors stealing and selling as many as 300,000 babies in Spain for eager adoptive couples made my already sickened heart retch again. For those sad deceived mothers (shown the same frozen infant's body over and over again to convince them their baby had died) and for those lost babies, growing up outside their country, cultures and families.

Is there no depth to the depravity to which this wretched and corrupt organization won't sink?

Read more about it here.

Sidetracked!

Placentia

I'm writing this on the Atlantic Vision, the wonderful ferry running between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia and which is even better than before as it now has highspeed.

Well, ahem, we're a day late. And, ahem, there was a slight problem in that I thought we were sailing on Monday 29th, when in actual fact, ahem, it was Tuesday 30th. Says so right on the ticket. The ticket that Grandgirl and I failed to look at until the security guard pointed it out to us at the gate to the empty ferry terminal.

So no, we didn't skulk the 200K back to home (something about waving goodbye to all and sundry as we left and then showing up on the evening of the same day with a red face). We stayed in Placentia. At Harold Hotel. A most fortuitous decision as it turns out.

We went for a wonderful walk on the Placentia boardwalk after dinner. The dregs of Irene were all around us, unseasonable heat, raging wind and the ocean beating off the rocks below us. Magnificent.

Today we visited the old graveyard, some of it early 18th century. The old caretaker was shattered to hear I was of the lapsed catholic variety. I regretted telling him as soon as the words were out of my mouth as he took it so personally. He insisted on showing me a grave that held a Margaret O'Brien whose epitaph read "She died as she lived in God's Grace." And told me to think about that. I too could live like that, it wasn't too late.

"Maybe I already am in the grace?" I said to him and he shook his head sadly muttering about the one true church.

After the attempted conversion, we went for another long walk, this time by the wonderful river with the boats tied up and the sun splitting the rocks.

Meanwhile I ran into the president of the historical society whom I had met a few times at conferences and took the opportunity to talk about my play. We popped into a gorgeous new cafe recommended to me by a friend. Stunning. Home cooking and patisserie and the old general store beautifully renovated with floors and walls restored to their former glory. The owner and her husband are currently living upstairs but plan to eventually transform this space into an art gallery for her work.

She owns one of the inns in the area and in chatting it turned out she was looking for an accountant.

Well, duh, bingo. I have a new client. A most fortuitous misreading of tickets. All is not lost and Grandma is not destined for the home or a minder. Just yet.

Guilty, sez Lahey

Do you ever wonder, like I do, when these former princes of the Catholic Church admit to limited paedophilia charges as the former Bishop Raymond Lahey has done, and so quickly, as to what deeper and more horrific crimes against children are not being admitted?

As if by this very admission there is a huge cover-up? And then this is followed up by maybe a slap on the wrist of a year's incarceration?

This deviant so-called human being was caught importing images, videos and texts involving male children, some estimated to be as young as 8, on his laptop. I wouldn't call him an animal, because I have yet to hear of any animal raping the young of its own species. He was caught by Canadian Customs and promptly reported to the police after the images were discovered upon his return from a trip to Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, noted so called "sex-tourism" destinations. Though sex is hardly a term I would want to use. Predation, paedophilia and child rape destinations, surely?

So little regard ever given by the Catholic Church to these little children, used, abused and possibly subsequently killed. Certainly maimed for life. To satisfy some brief, casual lust of some high-ranking deviant cleric who quickly moves on to the next unfortunate child, blithely unfeeling as to the pain and damage he is causing to his God's creatures.

Anyone I know of who has been a child victim of such predations, has not sued and has no intention of it due to the machinations and onus of proof and years of legal wrangling involved. We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

Suffer little children indeed.

Is this how you interpret the gospels, sir?

Benny and Maggie

Ladies and Gentlemen:




On one hand I give you Margaret Atwood, esteemed author, who today suggested that Canada should set up a dictat-o-meter.

While Atwood delivered her dictat-o-meter suggestion with humour, it was only after she warned: “The tools for repression and control are multiplying very quickly. Our government: What happened to ‘open and accountable?’ … What happened to democracy?”

and

And she did not spare the current government any pointed criticism, saying they had turned into one that’s all about “airplanes and jails. “The airplanes are useless against the real foes we face, which are scarcity and inequality.”

As for the jails, who will fill them? she asked. “Is it a case of build it and they will come?”

She suspects what they’ll do to fill those jails is just lower the criminal bar so they will have enough people to fill the jails. And then they can say, we told you so.

“Is the big idea really to bankrupt the social welfare system … by spending all of our money on planes and jails?”

Read more here.




And then we have wee Benny. Ah Benny. Dealing with the really serious issues of our time.
Finally, finally, endorsing, OMG, condoms. CONDOMS!!!

Oh. But only for male hookers? Male hookers.

Pope Benedict says condom use may be justified in some specific cases, such as when a male prostitute is trying to prevent HIV infection, in a new interview that has the pontiff deviating from the Catholic Church's line on contraception.

There is such a richness of comedy in this proclamation that I simply can't add any more.

Oh the humanity.

And who would you rather have dinner with?

Thanks for the Enlightenment, Joey!

With the appalling upsurge in the suicides of TGBLT youth in the states, it is comforting to know that the Catholic Church is opening the arms of understanding, compassion and sympathy as per the doctrine of its Invisible Cosmic Housekeeper channeled through Joey's writing on the topic long before he was a made man.

"To choose someone of the same sex for one's sexual activity is to annul the rich symbolism and meaning, not to mention the goals, of the Creator's sexual design. Homosexual activity is not a complementary union, able to transmit life; and so it thwarts the call to a life of that form of self-giving which the Gospel says is the essence of Christian living. This does not mean that homosexual persons are not often generous and giving of themselves; but when they engage in homosexual activity they confirm within themselves a disordered sexual inclination which is essentially self-indulgent".

"As in every moral disorder, homosexual activity prevents one's own fulfillment and happiness by acting contrary to the creative wisdom of God. The Church, in rejecting erroneous opinions regarding homosexuality, does not limit but rather defends personal freedom and dignity realistically and authentically understood."

To be totally simplistic here:

I love the part about the Invisible Cosmic Housekeeper's Sexual Design. Logic says: If (S)he made TGBLT
naughty bits, surely (S)he would want one to use them?

AND as to "disordered sexual inclination" - personally I would be more inclined to apply that to the paedophiliac proclivities of the RC clergy themselves, wouldn't you?

Rumination

I was thinking. I do a lot of that. I'm over-analytical by nature. Not necessarily a good thing. Well a good thing when it comes to work and earning capacity I suppose. But a poor thing indeed when it comes to relationships.

I get argumentative, I get self righteous. I clamber on to the podium and while not going to the extent of pounding a finger into your chest I mouth off. A bit too much. I could excuse it and tell you I came from an autocratic household of origin where opinions outside of those of the patriarch were not tolerated and often were punished.

But that is a very fragile little hook on which to hang my request for your tolerance. Surely, you'd mutter, with the years of therapy you've had you'd be a little more tolerant of the opinions of others?

I find that as I age I hit a form of crabbiness I used to condemn in others who were older. A thin layer of disrespect for the beliefs and opinions of those who would dare to have the unmitigated gall to disagree with me.

I found this undesirable trait in myself last night while in a conversation with others about the Catholic Church and its disposal of properties for the settlement of lawsuits brought by the victims of paedophilia.

Yeah, we're all sick and tired of that particular issue. But I couldn't leave it alone, I climbed up on the box and proceeded to vent my opinion on the pope preaching poverty and servility while he swans about in custom made red leather shoes and glittery dresses and lives in a palace.

To a bunch of practising Catholics.

Who politely listened while exchanging tiny glances with each other.

Who were tolerant enough of me not to rebut.

And I had the horrifying thought, later, that now I've reached the age where I'm becoming that batty old eccentric with a purple streak of crazy running down her middle.

Just ignore her.

She's loopy but lovable.

Ouch.

More Entertainment from the Vatican Vanities

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi announces the revised Catholic laws. Photograph: Andrew Medichini/AP

So now we have a further episode of women hatred from this sorry bunch of barnacle encrusted old patriarchs aka Roman Catholic Hierarchy.

They have now classified even an attempted ordination of a woman as equivalent to paedophilia and child rape along with the usual heresy charges (what ever that is - perhaps having the gall to break free of the brain-washing cult?) Yes, lump these women in with the thousands upon thousands of predatory paedophiles who destroyed countless children's lives!

But they are certainly clear on the fact that paedophiles are a cut far, far above females, being as they are still ordained and not ex-communicated.

This comes right on the heels of the announcement from the Church of England that they would be consecrating female bishops to bring C of E into full equality.

Co-incidence?

Perhaps they're hoping to catch the onslaught of exits by the misogynists of C of E?

What a perfectly vile institution it is. How any female can be a supporter of such hatred and contempt is beyond my reasoning capacity.

Symphysiotomy

I was out the other night with a dear friend and talk came around to a horrific procedure called a symphysiotomy that was performed on my mother in 1956. My DF had passed on my information in this blogpost (written in 2007) to a very well known author who has now published it in a book on Irish people's history in the past 100 years.

I read the post again when I got home and found myself still deeply affected. I truly believe I'm beyond anger and hate. Just totally sad at what happened to my mother and all the countless women of her era who suffered so much at the hands of the Catholic Church in Ireland.

Here is that post again.

Suffer the Little Children Chapter 9 Volume 1200

An eight year old child in Boston has been denied admittance to a Catholic School because his parents are *gasp* lesbians.

This was after the parents had paid the deposit and bought the uniforms.

‘We weren’t hiding our relationship,’ one of the boy’s mothers, who requested her anonymity be honored to protect the child, told the press. Both she and her partner had listed their names on their son’s admission forms. ‘I’m accustomed to discrimination, I suppose, at my age and my experience as a gay woman. But I didn’t expect it against my child.'

The saintly Fr. Rafferty

and the school’s principal Cynthia Duggan informed the third-grader’s parents that he would be denied admission because their relationship is in discord with church teaching

And that affects the child's admittance how, exactly? He's a lesbian too? He made them into lesbians?

Read all about it here.

I just despair of this wilfully ignorant,abusive, corrupt, misogynistic child hating
institution.

The Three Letter Word

I imagine we’re all pretty much immune to further shocks in the continuing saga of the Catholic Church and the systemic abuses which have been ongoing for centuries I would imagine with only the victims of the last fifty years coming forward to shout the truth.

We’ve all been reading the staggering but unsurprising revelation of the child abuse scandals in Germany one literally touching the pope with his brother, Georg Ratzinger, the choirmaster of a group of boys who have now alleged abuse.

Paedophilia charges against church officials continue to surface across Germany, and allegations have included the Regensburger Domspatzen boys choir, which was led for three decades by Rev. Georg Ratzinger, the Pope's brother.

Read more here

But a tiny word caught my eye in the latest church saga in Ireland. Cardinal Sean Brady is now implicated in the massive cover-up of the abuses – you can read about the Irish scandals in a previous post here.

Cardinal Sean Brady was a priest in 1975 when abuse allegations were raised against another priest, Brendan Smyth. At a meeting at that time, Brady asked two victims — boys aged 10 and 14 — to sign letters agreeing they would remain silent. The church did not share the information with police.

Cardinal Brady ASKED two abused children, victims of horrific paedophilia, aged 10 and 14, to sign letters agreeing they would remain silent about their abuse.

ASK, such a tiny word, such unconscionable implications.

Think about it, look at the definitions below.

(1)to make inquiry; inquire: to ask about a person.

(2)to request or petition (usually fol. by for): to ask for leniency; to ask for food

And ASK yourself if they were his equals. ASK yourself if they had a choice.

Separation of Church & State Much?

Moral high ground=Roman Catholic Church and it's now putting all its considerable bullying power into ensuring the citizens of the US are not all treated equally.

Well, Catholic laymen are treated equally as long as they’re heterosexual of course. The males of the cloth can be of either persuasion. Mainly homosexual as it appears that a higher than average percentage of them died from AIDS in the eighties. 4 times higher than the general population as a matter of fact. But lay Catholic homosexuals or LGBTs are not entitled to marriage or child adoptions or child fostering.

And as to female Catholics? Don’t get me started on the second class citizens who can’t participate fully in its machinations with not even rights to their own bodies. Whatsoever. Particularly when it comes to breeding. No matter how brutal and reprehensible the inpregnation or the age of the female. And the piece de resistance was the church’s threat of excommunication for all involved in supporting an abortion following the rape of a nine year old girl by her stepfather. It seems their hypocritical advocacy for the rights of children ceases when the child exits the birth canal.

And I haven’t even touched on the consistent and pernicious paedophilia which has been rampant in their ranks for centuries and is only now seeing the light of day.

By its very nature the church attracts the sexually dysfunctional and deviant. Who call the shots. Who hold sway over the legislation of the US government.

And no one is calling them out on it.

No, instead they wield enough influence to affect health care coverage for those deemed not quite human or equal. The poorest, most marginalized and most needy.

Whatever happened to “the meek shall inherit the earth’?

Whatever happened to the separation of church and state?

And hark! that faint, oh so faint whisper of "liberty and justice for all"?

PS I have previously posted on the Catholic Church here in these posts.

Cartoon of the Week

I posted about Raymond Lahey, Bishop and paedophile, here. It turns out that his associates (read priests and his superior - the archbishop) knew of his proclivities way back in 1989 right here in Newfoundland when he was a mere priest, and chose to do nothing about it. Along with a collection of child pornography in his home in Mount Pearl at that time, he entertained the boys of Mount Cashel. Yes, those boys. He was promoted to bishop soon after and skipped around to various parishes. As is the wont of the Catholic Church when it rewards its perverts.

As to Roman Polanski, much has been written. I am truly devastated at some of his supporters who have signed the petition urging his release and complete exoneration for child rape and as a fugitive from justice. These supporters I had long admired, but no longer.

Shame on you child rape apologists:

Whoopie Goldberg: (and aren't you glad it wasn't your grandchild this paedophile raped?)
Pedro Aldomar: No longer will I enjoy your movies.
Woody Allen: Q'uel suprise!
Martin Scorsese: And you the father of daughters!
Tilda Swinton: Tilda Swinton!
David Lynch: Wake up, man!

Etc.

It is completely disheartening. Lahey, at least, has now been isolated and ordered to have no contact with children or anyone under 18.

The Polanski paedophile, on the other hand, had access to his own vulnerable children for the past 30 years and many others, no doubt.

UPDATE

My friend Laurie at Three Dog Blog provided me with this link to Calvin Trillin at The Nation
and this marvellous poem:

A youthful error? Yes, perhaps.
But he's been punished for this lapse--
For decades exiled from LA
He knows, as he wakes up each day,
He'll miss the movers and the shakers.
He'll never get to see the Lakers.
For just one old and small mischance,
He has to live in Paris, France.
He's suffered slurs and other stuff.
Has he not suffered quite enough?
How can these people get so riled?
He only raped a single child.

Why make him into some Darth Vader
For sodomizing one eighth grader?
This man is brilliant, that's for sure--
Authentically, a film auteur.
He gets awards that are his due.
He knows important people, too--
Important people just like us.
And we know how to make a fuss.
Celebrities would just be fools
To play by little people's rules.
So Roman's banner we unfurl.
He only raped one little girl.