Thousands turn out for protest over clerical abuse .... The Pope in Ireland

 

 

 

One of a large number of protests against clerical child sexual abuse and cover-up took place near Dublin Castle on Saturday morning.

The protest was organized by Margaret McGuckan, a survivor of historic child abuse who spent years in the Catholic run Nazareth House children’s home and helped campaign for the introduction of the Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry. Ms McGuckan said the protest was a symbolic gesture to the pope and the church that victims had not gone away.

She said: “The pope now needs to stand up, speak up and do something for the survivors. We need redress, we need the church to be held to account.

“We want the bishops, Christian Brothers, nuns and anyone else who was involved in the abuse of children or covering up the abuse of children brought before the courts.

“We need zero tolerance, they cannot be allowed to investigate themselves. It should be zero tolerance, nothing more and nothing less.

“It’s not just Ireland, look what has happened in America, people fall away from the church because they don’t practice what they preach.”

During her time in Nazareth House, Ms McGuckan says she was beaten, starved, neglected, emotionally, physically and mentally abused at the hands of nuns charged with her care.

Banners were unfurled at Dublin’s Dame Street demanding redress for victims and an end to what they see as a papal cover-up.

Many at the protest were from the global survivors network End Clergy Abuse who had baby shoes tied around their neck in protest for the children who died in the Mother and Baby Homes across Ireland.

 

 

Blue ribbons are tied to the Ha'Penny Bridge, Dublin, to remember the victims of clerical sex abuse ahead of the start of the visit to Ireland by Pope Francis.

 

Another protest took place on the Ha’penny Bridge over the River Liffey in central Dublin this morning as the plane carrying the pope touched down.

Blue ribbons were tied to railings in support of abuse survivors, rainbow flags waved in solidarity with LGBT people and purple umbrellas held in support of the ordination of female priests.

Minister for Health Simon Harris said it was  a weekend of mixed emotions.

 

On Friday night, images of clerical abuse survivors and activists were projected onto buildings across Dublin city on Friday night ahead of the papal visit, including Dublin’s Catholic Pro Cathedral and the Department of Education and Skills.

Organizers said the illuminations were a celebration of the “activists who were the first to speak out about abuse and shame, at a time when it was not safe to do so, and who brought to light, for the first time, the horrors inflicted by the Catholic Church on so many people in Ireland”.

The projections were organized as part of the ‘Stand for Truth’ event taking place on Sunday at 2.30pm at the Garden of Remembrance.

The event is “for everyone who has been harmed or abused by the institutional Roman Catholic Church, or who wishes to stand in solidarity with those harmed by its actions,” a statement on behalf of its organizers said.

Speaking ahead of the event, organizer Colm O’Gorman said: “We cannot stand by as the scale of the harm caused to countless children, women and vulnerable adults is dismissed or diminished.

“We are better than that. We will not allow the victims of the church’s brutal history to be marginalized...This week Pope Francis has begged for forgiveness, but it isn’t at all clear what he wants forgiveness for.”

If he wants forgiveness for covering up these monstrous crimes against children or for doing nothing to bring the perps to justice, then an apology is totally inadequate. If he wants forgiveness for treating the suffering, the pain and the trauma of the victims as unimportant, diminishing and marginalizing them, then an apology is inadequate. If he wants forgiveness for not helping the victims in any way, then an apology is inadequate. In fact he is inadequate to wear that mitre or carry that staff of office and should step down. He is not the symbol of Christianity he parades himself to be.
 It's no wonder that sexual abuse of children by the Catholic clergy has increased exponentially over the decades. Pedophiles and predators ears perked up when they heard that the church does not turn offenders over to the police, nor does it follow up with appropriate punishment within the church by laicization (de-frocking and expulsion from clerical state and church). Offences were routinely swept under the rug.
What a feast for predators. And how easy to intimidate children with a priest's authority and clerical vestments and a little bullshit about how the Lord disapproves of snitches. They were lining up to study theology. They were clamoring  to proclaim their calling to be God's servants.
The hierarchy of the Catholic Church not only summarily dismissed this horrifying situation.... They created it.