While everyone was watching MTP this morning, I was watching this

[CatWoman]

The broadcast version was on CBS.

Damn, and double damn.

Anyone seeing this country heading here, with all the religious idiots in charge:

How Ireland Hid Its Own Dirty Laundry
By MARY GORDON


NE of the most ancient and thriving products of Irish industry isn't mentioned in the tourist brochures, or the guidebooks, or the economic histories. I don't mean linen, tweed or Jameson's. What I have in mind is shame.

"The Magdalene Sisters," by the Scottish director Peter Mullan, which opened Friday, is a fictional rendering of a historical situation that could only take place in a culture of shame. The film follows three young Irish girls who are sent to one of the Magdalene Asylums, institutions run by nuns, primarily in Ireland, to house girls who got pregnant outside of marriage, or who were considered too sexual, too flirtatious or even too attractive. They were incarcerated in these asylums, which doubled as laundries, where they worked, unpaid, seven days a week, 364 days a year, with only Christmas day off.

http://nytimes.com/2003/08/03/movies/03GORD.html

[Clete]

1. Yes, I did,

but I already knew about this from Irish friends. This is how people, and especially women, can be treated because of "sins" they supposedly committed in a country where religion has too much power. This is why we can't allow Bush and his religious right wingers inject themselves into our government.

And anyone who thinks I am trashing religion, get real. I am only advocating that we really need to keep church and state separate to prevent abuses like this becoming institutionalized.

Thanks for putting this up Midori. I was going to later, myself.

[CatWoman]

2. Anytime, Clete

:hi:

What got me is how no one (the nuns especially) wanted to talk about it. They actually RAN from the cameras.

I guess they feel like if they keep denying it happened, it actually didn't.

[Gin]

3. I am a recovering catholic....they won't get another penny of mine.

gin

[Clete]

4. Yes, it was also

heartbreaking about the babies that were put in orphanages sometimes on the same grounds and the mothers weren't allowed to have anything to do with them although, they might see their children everyday.

[searchingforlight]

5. I didn't see this. Is it suppose to be on again soon?

I don't doubt the sincerity of the Catholics and the faith. I do wonder though how they can know and have seen these things happen and not admit the fallability of the Pope and the hierarchy that they follow so devotedly.

Aren't they outraged?

I can remember going to mass on a Sunday morning and being a little late and being called to the front of the church and forced to sit on the front row.

I can remember a nun slapping my son at the bus stop for standing in the wrong line (3rd grade).

I have heard so many stories of abuse at the hands of nuns and priests and seen so many stories of voluntary blindness at the higher levels.

How do you support this?

[Clete]

6. I have an idea.

In my senior year of Catholic High School, we had a nun who was particular sadistic and very inconsistent in handing out penances or punishment. No matter how much we complained to our parents, when they went to see her about this, she turned into this sweet, dear person that couldn't harm a fly.

Needless to say, to a one, every one of our parents told us that as far as they were concerned, sister was right. And if she had done what we said she did, we must have deserved it and asked for it. I think this thinking by parents and others is what allows these abuses to be perpetrated because no one puts the person in their place who is abusing their authority.

Years later I ran into one of my teachers (also a nun) at a flower show. Out of the blue she said that Sister so and so was no longer teaching as the order had finally deemed her unfit and reassigned her. I asked her why the other nuns hadn't spoken up and she replied it was because of their vow of obedience and the Sister Superior had forbidden them to speak about the matter.

[searchingforlight]

7. This is the part that bothers me.

I don't understand the tolerance for this. Is everyone pushing for martyrdom?

[Clete]

8. It's a medieval institution, not a Demcratic one.

This is probably why few are entering the religious life anymore. But it is only in the last decade that the abuses that festered for centuries have seen the light of day.

The worst part is, that most Catholic clergy and religious really do enter the life because they want to practice Christian virtues. The few who perpetrate the abuses though have a perfect set up to get away with it.

[searchingforlight]

9. I believe that most have good intentions.

However, I have a hard time believing that they are not aware of the abuses (Cardinal Law) and that they don't feel obligated to police themselves.

In my opinion, this makes them as guilty as the abusers.