Tag Archives: Catholic child sex abuse

Bathwater, by Raúl Ilargi Meijer

The children are the be-all and end-all when they’re useful props, and when not, they’re ignored or forgotten. From Raúl Ilargi Meijer at theautomaticearth.com:

Let’s try a different angle. How about the world through the eyes of children’s? I don’t want to dwell on John McCain, too many people already do today, but I would suggest that your thoughts and prayers are with the souls of the hundreds of thousands of children that died because McCain advocated bombing them. Or, indeed, 50-odd years ago, were bombed by him personally. I wanted to leave him be altogether, don’t kick a man when he’s down, but I can’t get the image out of my head of him singing “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran”.

To remember that, perhaps the most vile and infamous thing he’s ever done (it’s in the top ten), and then see someone like Ocasio-Cortez say he was an “unparalleled example of human decency”, it’s almost comedy. But not as funny as when in the 2008 campaign the woman in the red dress asked him if Obama was an Arab, and he responded: “No, ma’am. No, ma’am. He’s a decent, family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign is all about”.

That is full-blown hilarious. And hardly a soul caught it, which makes it many times worse. It made him a decent man in the eyes of Americans to defend Obama by declaring that Arabs are per definition neither decent nor family men. Yeah, well, you might as well bomb them all then. But enough about McCain: it’s about the children, and their souls, not his.

The Pope is visiting Ireland this weekend. There is really just one subject on people’s minds, even though the ‘leaders’ say this is one of Ireland’s biggest events in 40 years. What’s on their minds is -child- sex abuse by Catholic clergy. And it’s been -and probably still is- rampant in the country. Like it’s been everywhere the Catholic church is an important force. Which is in many countries, there are 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide. The man claimed he was begging for God’s forgiveness. Not sure that will do it, there, Francis.

To continue reading: Bathwater

Someone Warned Us About Catholic Child Sex Abuse 26 Years Ago, but Nobody Listened, by Carey Wedler

Sinead O’Conner got nothing but abuse for trying to speak out against Catholic pedophilia on Saturday Night Live. She was early, but it turns out she was right. From Carey Wedler at theantimedia.org:

Musician Sinead O’Connor tried to warn the world of abuses within the Catholic church during an appearance on Saturday Night Live in 1992, but no one listened.

In a now-iconic gesture, the singer tore up a picture of then-Pope John Paul II while singing Bob Marley’s “War” and switching out lyrics about African apartheid to reference “’child abuse, yeah,’ repeated twice with spine-stiffening venom,” the Atlantic noted in a 2012 article acknowledging she was right. During that protest, she also said: “Fight the real enemy.”

That article noted that the media failed to make “use of the traditional tools of journalism: interviews, research, and textual analysis. Instead, most commentators seem to have consulted their own imaginations.

From a Rolling Stone article at the time:

“[I]s O’Connor’s aim to educate people about her point of view or to alienate them and insult their beliefs—as she did when she ripped up a picture of the pope on Saturday Night Live, ensuring that they will never take her seriously?”

In an interview with Time, she explicitly laid out her grievances with the Catholic church, clarifying her decision to rip up the pope’s picture:

“It’s not the man, obviously—it’s the office and the symbol of the organization that he represents… In Ireland we see our people are manifesting the highest incidence in Europe of child abuse. This is a direct result of the fact that they’re not in contact with their history as Irish people and the fact that in the schools, the priests have been beating the shit out of the children for years and sexually abusing them. This is the example that’s been set for the people of Ireland. They have been controlled by the church, the very people who authorized what was done to them, who gave permission for what was done to them.”

To continue reading: Someone Warned Us About Catholic Child Sex Abuse 26 Years Ago, but Nobody Listened