Protesters outside the principal Catholic church in Britain today called for the Pope's resignation over the Church's sex abuse. They carried placards saying, Sex Abuse Cover Up - Pope Must Resign' , 'Pope Protects Paedophile Priests. Demonstrators confronted the congregation of Catholics, as they left Westminster Cathedral. They claim that Pope Benedict XVI was involved in hiding priests accused of child rape and sex abuse from prosecution.
Many object to the pontiff's planned state visit to Britain in September, while Catholics fear he will be shot or assassinated because of the depth of the anger. Human rights activist Peter Tatchell was among the demonstrators. He said that the Pope 'bears personal responsibility for the cover up'.
Catholics now fear many people will protest when the Pope arrives for a state visit in September. The Archbishop of Westminster, yesterday said in a defiant response: 'The Pope won't resign".
The Pontiff's Sunday address today was the beginning of Holy Week, the Roman Catholic's Church's special seven days which culminate with Easter Sunday. In preaching today, he spoke of how man can sometimes 'fall to the lowest, vulgar levels' and 'sink into the swamp of sin and dishonesty', which people say is a bit rich coming from someone involved in cover up of child rape.
In the last few days the Pope has himself been accused in the scandals, with claims that he knew about Father Lawrence Murphy, an American paedophile priest, along with a German, Father Peter Hullerman. Both cases the Vatican has denied cover ups, despite considerable evidence against the Pontiff. The Vatican's official newspaper L'Osservatore Romano says, the abuse allegations were part of an 'ignoble attempt to strike at Pope Benedict XVI and his closest collaborators at any cost'.
Oh Little Boy Black and Blue,
Who was it that did this to you?
Who raised a hand at innocence?
Did they proclaim their eminence-
At a child's expense?
Is this your beloved mother's psalm,
This stormy song beneath your calm?
The one who nourished you from birth.
Were you more trouble then you were worth?
Oh was it her who did this to you,
Little Boy Black and Blue?
Was it your father, that loving soul?
Did the alcohol cause him to lose control?
Was his patience tried and taunted-
By the boy he never wanted?
Oh was it him that did this to you,
Little Boy Black and Blue?
Oh Little Boy Black and Blue,
The autopsy confirms it was true.
You were sodomized and strangled.
You were beaten, broken, mangled.
You must've screamed in agony,
As bloodstained hands brought you more misery.
Oh was it someone you never even knew,
Little Boy Black and Blue?
A Roman Catholic Irish bishop in charge of a diocese in Ireland, plagued by sex abuse and rape of children scandals, followed by cover-ups by the Catholic Church, community, police, social services and politicians, has asked parishioners to pay the compensation awarded the victims, it was confirmed today. Dr Denis Brennan from Co Wexford, said the appeal was not about sharing the blame but asking for help to meet their monetary responsibilities. He said the child abuse scandals and cover-ups to protect dangerous clergymen were caused by paedophile priests, mismanagement and poor understanding.
“This particular tragedy is not viewed by the diocese as a problem to be solved,” the bishop claimed. “More accurately, people who suffered abuse are not the cause of our problems, the actions of individual perpetrators, along with mismanagement, poor understanding and/or lack of resolve are.”
An inquiry into paedophile priests in Ferns, uncovered an appalling catalogue of abuse from the 1960s to 2005. Bishop Brendan Comiskey, who resigned in 2002, was branded negligent while the Vatican was aware of complaints but failed to act, the report found. Diocesan authorities have paid out more than €8m in 48 settlements to child abuse survivors. There are 13 civil actions pending. It also cost another €2.1m towards investigations and €836,000 towards the medical treatment of paedophile priests.
“The settlements made to date are necessary and represent the diocese’s desire to take responsibility for hurts caused, hurts which date back several generations, as far back as the 1940s in cases,” Bishop Brennan said. He made the appeal for funding at the diocesan AGM in Enniscorthy on Monday night. He said, “Funding sought is not about sharing the blame, it is about asking for help to fulfil a God-given responsibility,” he said.
“’That I did not cause the problem’ is not the response of the Christian, ’that I would like to help in the work of justice, healing, reconciliation, a safer environment for children in the future, proper financial stewardship and overall good economic health’ is.
I would be grateful for whatever ways you might be able to help me and the diocese to complete a road on which it has been necessary to travel, a road that will hopefully go beyond the requirements of justice and grow in terms of the reconciliation with which we are currently engaged and may be further permitted, or invited, in the future.”
Meanwhile Ireland's best known politician Gerry Adams, admits covering up similar crimes that he believes his brother to be guilty of while actively working for his political party and in youth clubs in irish republican areas for 22 years. While Adams the politician helped cover it up in the same manner as the Irish bishops, he still refuses to resign as did the five Irish bishops for precisely the same crime. He is supported in his denial of responsibility by his colleague Martin McGuinness who is also accused of spying for the British occupation forces, by a retired British intelligence officer.
Retired British undercover intelligence officers have admitted publicly, that the British used the crimes of paedophiles, as material to blackmail Irish politicians into a pro British agenda. Twenty two years after the alleged crimes of Adams were reported by his daughter, who accused her father of rape, since she was 4 years of age, the accused has still not been arrested by the British police. It is still not clear if members of Adam's party will pay for any compensation of the child rape crimes Mr Adams believes happened. While decent members of his constituency in Belfast are outraged and demand his resignation, it appears the majority of Catholics in Belfast remain in denial and will allow the crime of child rape to be overlooked, as a result of the British controlling the Irish media and putting a pro Adams spin on the events surrounding the child rape and cover-ups.
The justification by the British who have embedded agents in editorial positions controlling the Irish media with pro British censorship is that they need Adams and McGuinness, to sell a fake peace process to a population craving peace and justice. Irish children being the most vulnerable and defenseless part of population are the principal losers in the process. large swathes of the Catholic population are still in denial about the seriousness of child rape, abuse and its enablers as a result of a systemic corrupt and brutal society. Child rape, incest, alcoholism and informers are common characteristics of the exploited slaves of Imperialism. Apparently Ireland which is still occupied by the British is no different.
Please Post comments at IrishBlog in IrishFreedomNews forum as there is a fault in the comments section of Google's blogger design.
I will not write a lengthy article in the hope that I will not be censored in certain Irish quarters like Indy media Ireland for example(What a sick joke, Indymedia Ireland my with a BBC logo and a brit agenda) perhaps this can serve discussion purposes. I just wish to state from Child abuse, Child rape to emigration, Ireland has failed so many of its children and youth. Whilst the British Empire and remnants of the Roman Empire are responsible for a lot of it, the general heartless response of the community to hardship in it midst, has a lot to answer for. Right now personally, post the Child Abuse Commission report and L'Adamsgate I am really angry with my own country.
A few brave genuine people have shouldered a liberation effort in Ireland for so long and been abused by their own. Catholic Ireland has been mostly opportunistic in its approach to its problems many self-inflicted and we would have been liberated decades ago, were it not for our own duplicity and lack of solidarity.
I have spent a large part of my life travelling and being an activist, always proud of my irish origins, particularly as a country that generally was popular, without a history of colonial aggression. I now find my sadness with recent revelations in Ireland turning to extreme anger and shame, with our population's general non-caring attitude to such rampant horrific crime in its midst.
Ireland is beginning to appear very similar to Israel, who also has a horrific holocaust past, forgotten where it has come from and become an indiscriminate abuser itself. Right now I am ashamed, very sad and very angry at Ireland in general.
Below is the a link to todays Sunday tribune articles.
Where Lagan stream sings lullaby
There blows a lily fair
The twilight gleam is in her eye
The night is on her hair
And like a love-sick lennan-shee
She has my heart in thrall
Nor life I owe nor liberty
For love is lord of all.
Her father sails a running-barge
'Twixt Leamh-beag and The Druim;
And on the lonely river-marge
She clears his hearth for him.
When she was only fairy-high
Her gentle mother died;
But dew-Love keeps her memory
Green on the Lagan side.
And often when the beetle's horn
Hath lulled the eve to sleep
I steal unto her shieling lorn
And thru the dooring peep.
There on the cricket's singing stone,
She spares the bogwood fire,
And hums in sad sweet undertone
The songs of heart's desire
Her welcome, like her love for me,
Is from her heart within:
Her warm kiss is felicity
That knows no taint of sin.
And, when I stir my foot to go,
'Tis leaving Love and light
To feel the wind of longing blow
From out the dark of night.
Where Lagan stream sings lullaby
There blows a lily fair
The twilight gleam is in her eye
The night is on her hair
And like a love-sick lennan-shee
She has my heart in thrall
Nor life I owe nor liberty
For love is lord of all.
In Scottish Gaelic a "leannan-sidhe" is a Faery Lover. This type of Faery Lover
often takes a person's love and then leaves. He or she goes back where they came
from leaving the human pining for their lost love. The poor
mortals in the tales of leannan sidhe often died of sorrow.
The song was first published in "Songs of Uladh" in Belfast.
Hughes' preface says: "I made this collection while on holiday in
North Dun-na-n Gall in August of last year." "I got this from Proinseas mac Suibhne who played it for meon the fidil. He had it from his father Seaghan mac Suibhne. It was
sung to a ballad called the "Belfast Maid," now forgotten in Cill-mac-nEnain."
Lambeg is a village between Lisburn and Belfast and the Drum is the site of a
bridge across the river and the canal that was made beside it, which eventually
diverged from the river and entered Lough Neagh. There
for the sake of scansion! " - JM
To quote from Mary O'Hara's notes on this song, from her book "A Song For
Ireland", - "The leánan sídhe (fairy mistress) mentioned in the song is a
malicious figure who frequently crops up in Gaelic love stories. One could call
her the femme fatale of Gaelic folklore. She sought the love of men; if they
refused, she became their slave, but if they consented, they became her slaves
and could only escape by finding another to take their place. She fed off them
so her lovers gradually wasted away - a common enough theme in Gaelic medieval
poetry, which often saw love as a kind of sickness. Most Gaelic poets in the
past had their leanán sídhe to give them inspiration. This malignant fairy was
for them a sort of Gaelic muse. On the other hand, the crickets mentioned in the
song are a sign of good luck and their sound on the hearth a good omen. It was
the custom of newly-married couples about to set up home to bring crickets from
the hearths of their parents' house.
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