Irish PM in unprecedented attack on Vatican

[Eugene]

Source: BBC

20 July 2011 Last updated at 14:42 GMT

Irish PM in unprecedented attack on Vatican

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny has launched an unprecedented attack on the Catholic Church in parliament.

He said the recent Cloyne Report into how allegations of sex abuse by priests in Cork had been covered up showed change was urgently needed.

Mr Kenny said the historic relationship between church and state in Ireland could not be the same again.

He said the report exposed the elitism, dysfunction, disconnection, and narcissism that dominated the Vatican.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-14224199

[edhopper]

1. At least there is one politician in the world

with balls.
We don't have any here in the US.

[rug]

2. He's not the only one.

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Archbishop-Martin-accuses-fellow-bishops-of--cover-up-of--more-damning-reports-125735123.html

[sinkingfeeling]

3. How can stating facts be an 'attack'?

[damntexdem]

4. Well, in addition to devotions to Saint Testosterone and Saint Bureaucracia ...

the Vatican, in its relations with Ireland, had a special devotion to Saint Nambla -- patron saint of pedophilia.

[onager]

7. And St. Nambla's personal priest is in Ireland...

They're still angry about that, and rightly so:

In 1993 (Father Oliver O'Grady) was convicted on four counts of "lewd and lascivious acts" on two minors, the brothers John and James Howard, and was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Attorney Jeff Anderson said O'Grady repeatedly molested the Howards between 1978 and 1991, from age three to 13. Anderson claimed church officials knew that O'Grady had abused children as early as 1976 and 1984 but had done nothing. Police had been informed of earlier charges and had declined to prosecute.

O'Grady was paroled from prison in 2000 after serving only seven years, and went to Ireland after being deported from the United States.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_O%27Grady

Good 2006 article on the decline of the One True Church in Ireland:

Before the pope's arrival (in 1979), they were entertained by two of the Irish church's most popular and charismatic leaders: Bishop Eamon Casey of Galway and Rev. Michael Cleary, Dublin's "singing priest," who had his own show on national radio.

A decade later, it would come to light that Casey was the father of a son by an American woman and had "borrowed" from church funds to silence them. Cleary, it was discovered, fathered two children and had an abusive relationship with a troubled young woman who worked as his housekeeper.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0607090342jul09,0,3397459.story

[dimbear]

5. God maintaining longstanding no comment policy. n/t

[trotsky]

6. LOL

:thumbsup: