Dear Cardinal Brady

Dear Cardinal Brady,

Resign. Your position is untenable, unconscionable, incredible.  It is self-evident to any adult of common sense, but evidently less so to an episcopal canon lawyer.

If a person in a golf club became aware of the dangers posed to named children by a member of a golf club, do you honestly think it sufficient for any responsible adult merely to report the incident to the president of the golf club and not also tell the police and the parents of the endangered children? And then you lamely, limply, blame the president of the golf club for not curtailing the rape of children by the golf club member!

To say nothing of your involvement in a confidentiality agreement with an abused victim.

Your moral failure is remarkable, your lack of accountability extraordinary, your ‘reasoning’ as you defend the indefensible and cling to your power and position gob-smacking beyond words.  Shame on you.

And this shame will follow you to, and beyond, the grave into the annals of history; and will grow with every hour that you cling to your bankrupt episcopal authority.

Joe Armstrong

 

Outgrowing religion

I used to be a seminarian but now I have outgrown religion and, although I’m pushing 50 years of age, I’m still trying to unlearn the nonsense I picked up having been raised in a Catholic family, gone to a Catholic school, been born into what was in all but name a theocratic State, and having spent nine years of my life in a seminary.

I’m interested in education and especially in the need to teach children to think for themselves. This is impossible within any school which seeks to ‘inculcate’ (i.e., indoctrinate) faith. By definition, they are not teaching children to think for themselves. They are presenting the party-line and hoping it will stick.

Having been abused myself as a child by a Christian Brother in school, I find Cardinal Brady’s remaining in his post unconscionable, given that he failed to act like an adult and report abuse to the civil authorities and that he hides behind it not being his call. Of course it was his call. He is, and was at the time, an adult. But then again, an adult who believes that Mary was a virgin before, during and after the conception of Jesus, which, let’s face it, isn’t exactly an adult belief to maintain. However whacko the ‘before’ bit, how exactly can a baby be born without breaking his mother’s hymen? And yet that is what, as a Cardinal of his Church, he is obliged to believe. It being a dogma of his Church, one gathers he believes it too.

I am appalled at the emotional abuse of children in Catholic schools, or any faith school for that matter. Rather than teaching children that today is all we have, they peddle lies to children. They inculcate fear and obedience in nonsensical beliefs. They insist on the ‘right’ of indoctrinating children because they know that most adults of sound mind would never for a second believe the gibberish they teach.

I’m angry as hell about the Church, to be honest. Their dogmas are loopy. Why are they afforded such ‘respect’? Historically, they controlled what people could think and say. They usurped rationality. They burned people who didn’t fit in. They laid down, and still lay down, heavy burdens on those they claim to serve. As a recent poster I saw said: ‘Jesus, protect us from your followers.’

If I die without this said my life has been in vain, so let me say it. I do not believe in ‘god’. Today is all we have. Live this day to the full. I abhor that the civil authorities permit people of religious faith to indoctrinate young minds. In time to come, and I hope sooner rather than later, it will be considered a crime to fool children into the lie of any religious doctrine. When I think of the years I wasted, nine years in a seminary, trying to believe the incredible. And the nonsense that somehow those who didn’t believe were morally inferior. Absolute hogwash! I remember meeting a girl at university whom I used to know in a prayer group. She, good for her, had moved on. She no longer believed and it was manifestly obvious that she was in ever fibre of her being a person of conscience and moral courage. Her presence and goodness alone challenged me. Pity my lesson took so many more years before the penny dropped.

And when I think about the ghastly attempts to live celibacy during nine years in the seminary and how unnatural it was. And when I think about the so-called virtue of obedience when the real virtue is in obeying yourself. And when I think about the lie of religious poverty when, in fact, few millionaires enjoyed the financial security of being a priest or member of a religious order and the real poverty was the risk of leaving the congregation and having to find my way in the world. When I think of all that and then see little children today being indoctrinated into a heap of lies as I once was, yes, I get mad as hell.

Children: do not listen to your so-called ‘betters’ if they are trying to fool you to believe in a religious myth. They are not better than you. Most of them don’t really believe the bilge they try to ‘inculcate’/indoctrinate into you. And if they really do believe what they peddle, then protect yourself. Find someone of sound mind to support you. Someone who will tell you not to worry about going to Hell: it doesn’t exist. And not to waste your time praying before a box thinking that the creator of the universe is in it. Don’t let them fool you. Do not let them mangle your thinking with their potty views.

Religious people are quick to shout ‘blasphemy’ because they want to control you. They do not want to expose just how unutterably ridiculous their beliefs are, and how bankrupt their thinking is. They seek to control what people say because they don’t want it exposed in black and white for all the world to see. They are, par excellence, like the naked emperor who for so long has basked in the adulation of a controlled crowd and how dare anyone, young or old, yell that they are naked: unutterably nude, without a stitch of truth.

 

Cardinal Brady’s position untenable

It was fun on the streets of Kells, county Meath, this afternoon. I never saw so many people dressed as leprechauns in my life! The weather was mild. It didn’t rain. There was a happy, relaxed atmosphere. A pleasant way to spend an hour with young families. There were tractors aplenty – this is a world away from the Dublin parade, with its cultural themes. Here in Kells were presented all life, all clubs, all activities; and, of course, some commercial advertisements too. There was the swimming club, the scouts, the tennis club, the GAA clubs, the soccer club, the brass band, the Moynalty cycling club. I think I saw a grind school. There was the Cookstown dogs’ and cats’ kennels. St Patrick (a live one!) was held aloft on the front of  – what else but a tractor. There was a leprechaun cheili group. And well drilling vehicles. Old Beatles and a Cortina. Last year there was the actual car used in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

You meet people. You have a chat. You shout a greeting as someone you know in the passing parade. You buy ice creams. And within the hour you drift home or head off somewhere to drown the shamrock.

Meanwhile, I’ve checked a press release from the Catholic Communications Office of yesterday 16 March regarding Cardinal Brady which said:

‘Fr Brady was then a full-time teacher at St Patrick’s College, Cavan.  Because he held a doctorate in Canon Law, Fr Brady was asked to conduct this canonical enquiry; however he had no decision-making powers regarding the outcome of the enquiry.  Bishop McKiernan held this responsibility.’

I find that ‘no decision-making powers’ a striking phrase. Every responsible adult human being has decision-making powers. As the Catholic Church itself teaches, we must always follow our conscience. We must always follow our honest judgment. Indeed it is Church teaching that we must follow our conscience even if the pope orders us to do something against our conscience. Or if a process denies us a decision-making role. As a human being, we always have a decision-making power and we must always act in accordance with our conscience.

The press release continues:

‘At the end of both interviews, the boys were asked to confirm by oath the truthfulness of their statements and that they would preserve the confidentiality of the interview process. The intention of this oath was to avoid potential collusion in the gathering of the inquiry’s evidence and to ensure that the process was robust enough to withstand challenge by the perpetrator, Fr Brendan Smyth.’

Could the church not be honest enough to admit that the purpose of such an oath might also be to avoid scandal? Thank God that in the secular world justice is done and is seen to be done in public. Such secrecy led to the concealment of crimes against children and to perpetrators of child abuse, including the rape of children, being able to continue with their crimes.

If an individual has no decision-making powers regarding the outcome of an inquiry, he or she retains the human decision-making power to report a crime to the police, and so help prevent further crimes against children.

In my view, the Cardinal’s position is untenable. We need a situation in the Catholic Church where there is no place to hide for child abusers and where each and every allegation of child abuse must be reported immediately to the police, who are the sole organs for the investigation of alleged crimes.