I just love this girl. She is so intelligent and funny…. I wish I knew her.
Sarah Silverman Interview On Larry King Live 04/20/2010
She and Larry both confess being agnostics at the end of the clip.
I have recently been enjoying a complimentary subscription to ‘The Week’ – (”All you need to know about everything that matters.”) It’s very well done. Similar to ‘The Economist’ but not so dry and boring. Anyway, the most recent issue had this piece:
Ireland: Our priests teach us how to lie
Such hairsplitting is repugnant even if the liar weren’t a priest, said Vincent Browne in The Sunday Business Post.
Vincent Browne
The Sunday Business Post
It’s official: We now have Catholic doctrine on how to lie, said Vincent Browne. A damning government report on sexual abuse by the clergy shows that Archbishop Desmond Connell covered up for the abusive priests under his authority, even lying to investigators. But Connell claims that these lies were not really lies because he had a “mental reservation” about what he was saying.
As he put it, “You can use an ambiguous expression, realizing that the person who you are talking to will accept an untrue version of whatever it may be.” So, for example, when asked whether he had paid off a victim of one of his abusive priests, Connell answered that diocese funds “are not used” for that purpose. By using the present tense, he reasons, he wasn’t excluding the possibility that diocesan funds had been used for such a purpose in the past. It’s the same defense Bill Clinton used when he invoked the definition of “is.” Similarly, when a female victim complained that Connell was lying when he said he had cooperated in the investigation of her case, he countered that he never stipulated that he had cooperated “fully.”
Such hairsplitting is repugnant even if the liar weren’t a priest. “And these guys presume to lecture the rest of us on morality?”
A longer version of his column is here:
Vatican cannot escape blame in abuse scandal
06 December 2009
By Vincent Browne
The cynical indifference by Irish Catholic bishops to the sexual abuse of children perpetrated by their brother priests is not the full story, by any means. The culpability of the leadership of the Catholic Church at the Vatican is part of that fuller story, as I hope to demonstrate.
Clerical child sex abuse is only a small part of the scarifying phenomenon of child sex abuse in Ireland.
However, let’s examine the culpability of the Vatican authorities and its indifference to the welfare of children. Desmond Connell became Catholic archbishop of Dublin in 1988. Twelve years later he was singled out to hold the second-most prestigious position in the Catholic Church, that of cardinal.
It is not believable that, from 1988 to 2000, when Connell was appointed cardinal, the Church authorities in Rome had no idea how he handled (or rather, mishandled) clerical sex abuses cases here, and how he had lied about at least one of these cases.
The case in which clearly he lied concerned the courageous victim Andrew Madden, and the priest, Ivan Payne.
Payne was a serial child abuser who abused at least 31 people.
Madden made a complaint about Payne in 1981, claiming that Payne had sexually abused him for five years. The Church authorities knew of the abuse from 1981 onwards but, essentially, nothing was done.
In 1989, Madden repeated his complaint, this time to an auxiliary bishop, and asked why Payne had been moved to another parish where he might well abuse again.
Neither this auxiliary bishop nor Connell made any effort to enquire into the grounds of the complaint to determine whether Payne remained a danger to children.
Madden threatened legal proceedings against Payne in March 1992. Madden wrote to Connell in April 1993 complaining about the delay in settling the case. Connell instructed the diocesan solicitors to offer Payne financial assistance to settle the case. A settlement was reached the following month.
In 1994, Madden went to the media, first on the Gay Byrne radio programme. The case got widespread publicity.
Connell went on radio in May 1995 and said, in relation to the handling of clerical child sex abuse cases: ‘‘I have compensated nobody, I have paid nobody.” He went onto say that the finances of the diocese ‘‘are not used in any way’’ to make settlements in civil actions concerning clerical child abuse. Madden exposed this claim as a lie.
On October 4, 1995, I wrote in a newspaper column, in reference to Connell’s statements quoted above: ‘‘We now know that each of these statements is essentially misleading. Archbishop Connell provided £27,000 to compensate a clerical child abuser victim and, in doing so, the finances of the diocese were used in a particular way to make a settlement.
‘‘But not just that. We also know that Archbishop Connell failed to report the commission of a crime to the Garda, in spite of a legal obligation to do so. Connell knew that a crime had been committed because he had made £27,000 available to the priest to make a settlement for the crime.
‘‘We also know that the priest in question was given some form of therapeutic assistance, after which he was proclaimed fit to resume pastoral work.
‘‘If no crime had been committed, then what was this therapy for and, if it was for something unconnected with the crime, why was it mentioned in this connection?”
I do not claim any special insight.
My purpose in quoting myself is simply to show how there was widespread appreciation at the time that Connell had failed to report a crime to the Garda and had lied about making funds available to compensate a victim of clerical abuse and had failed quickly to move a priest from a parish, who he had every reason to believe was a child sex abuser.
If I and several others, including the dogs in the street, knew about this at the time, is it believable that the Vatican did not know about it?
Neither is it believable that they knew nothing about any of the other cases which he mishandled during that period from 1988 to 2000.
When the proposal arose – I assume some time in early 2000 – of appointing Connell to the College of Cardinals, one assumes rudimentary checks were made to determine the suitability of the appointment.
One assumes the Papal Nuncio – and perhaps some other bishops in Ireland – would have been consulted.
Is it plausible that none of them would have mentioned to the Vatican anything about the Payne case and the lie which Connell told in that connection?
Assuming that such mention was made, isn’t it likely that further enquiries would have been made into how Connell had handled other clerical sex abuses cases since his appointment as archbishop in 1988?
If the Papal Nuncio made no such report and not a single bishop did so, doesn’t that in itself say something about the institutional Catholic Church?
More likely, the Vatican was aware all along about the ‘‘mental reservation’’ and the cover-ups, and saw absolutely no reason why that should disbar Connell from the College of Cardinals, because the sexual abuse of a few children is a trifling matter in the panoply of power and importance of the church.
One final reflection. This quite proper outrage over the bishops and the cover-ups and the lies disguises a larger phenomenon.
The incidence of child sex abuse in Ireland is enormous.
According to that Sexual Abuse and Violence in Ireland (SAVI) report of 2002, around 320,000 people were raped in childhood, and there is little reason to believe the incidence of child rape has diminished.
The incidence of child rape among the clergy is certainly greater than among the population at large, but only about 4 per cent of child rapes have been perpetrated by the clergy.
The government shows no interest at all, aside from the odd photo opportunity.
sbpost@iol.ie
I would guess this is about par for the last couple of thousand years.
The Naked Pastor posted these random thoughts the other day…
1. People don’t change their minds. Only rarely. Transformation is not a desirable option to our brains. It seems to require trauma, the threat of imminent death, to provoke real change of mind and bring about true transformation. Is it possible to enter death and be transformed while we are alive?
2. The greatest enemy of community is fantasy… visionary and wishful thinking. The lack of gratitude for what is, the unwillingness to appreciate what is, or the disdain for what is, erodes the fabric of community. Can we love unconditionally without coercion?
3. Our gross naiveté about the principalities and powers and their persistent desire and ability to enslave groups and individuals perpetuates the abuses institutions, including the church, are notorious for. Can all people be free?
4. Avoid naysayers as well as yes-men. You can always find complainers to agree with you. You can always find encouragers to agree with you. Can we find the courage to form our own minds independently, wisely, and compassionately?
I thought, hey… I like him. He’s is talking about deconversion in #1, because that’s what it was like for me to step away from faith. Constant bombardment with strange teachings in the Baptist church forced me to reevaluate the world we live in.
THEN, in #2 he nails it with typical religious thinking about the fantasy of a higher power vs. just appreciating this temporal gift of life on Earth, not just mine, but the whole human experience. We just got here (relatively speaking), and the Earth will be here long after we have faded to extinction. I already love unconditionally without coercion and don’t know how else you could.
#3… tell me about it.
And, regarding #4, don’t “seek approval” for your point of view. Establish it intellectually, with reason, and knowledge of the world and your fellow man. You don’t need other people to tell you what you should believe.
Holy crap, this dude’s batting 1000 in my book so far… but then came #5:
5. Listen to what the atheists are saying about the unprovability of God; discern the Christ-Principle in all things; have compassion for all beings. Is it possible to see all things as being reconciled?
Wha?! I rarely discuss the “unprovability of god”, but since you brought it up, what exactly is the evidence for God? If you look at the sum total of the things the Christian God gets credit for in the Bible, why would you WANT to believe in him? He wasn’t a good or just god. Jesus tried to correct all that, but please… look at the “miracles” he performed. His teachings were in line with to Mohammad, Confucius, Buddha, Plato, etc. (borrowed, ex post facto, by reasonable men writing down “history” many years later). Other than these writings, what evidence is there for god? For everyone good work, “divine” occurrence, or saved soul you can conjure, I can cite a dozen horrific, sad, disgusting things about the world that a good and just god would not allow… even a passive creator (with any “heart”) would not have created such a chaotic place.
Also, how would I find the “Christ-Principles in all things”?” As I understand it, the Principles of Christ are roughly, first, Faith in the Jesus Christ; second, Repentance… it really doesn’t matter after that because I get hung up on the FIRST one. I have faith that the human race has been duped for several millenia, for sure. With regard to “sin”, seriously, Catholics (et al), get a grip and just be good people… forget about all the EXTRA rules and regulations that the church has piled on. It’s not a “sin” to eat meat… ever. Weird.
How about we all just skip ahead to “have compassion for all beings”? I can get on board with that… why make it sound like I need belief as a crutch. See “The Golden Rule“.
The last sentence is stupid… no, we can’t reconcile all things, particularly mystical belief with intellectual reason. They are incompatible. Even less likely, reconcile your Christian mythology with a Islamic stranger an ocean away. Good luck.
However, abandon your fantastical beliefs, and then living with your fellow man, particularly the ones not like you, becomes much easier. I guess his thoughts were pretty random after all.
I really enjoy listening to NPR and This American Life… I actually pick up TAL from the free podcast most of the time. I am currently listening to the latest episode where this poor woman named Trisha was moved by the good works of a decent man (who happens to be a Christian):
This past Christmas a story swept the internet about a football coach at a Christian high school in Texas who inspired his team’s fans to root for the opposition: a team from the local juvenile correctional facility. Among the thousands of emails that the coach received in response to his actions, one stood out to him. Trisha Sebastian mentioned her loss of faith, and coach Hogan got a message from God that he was meant to bring her back. We eavesdrop on their phone calls.
Problem is, she sent him an e-mail. She was not just moved, but moved to action. She had a friend that had died of colon cancer a few years earlier and never could reconcile this with her Catholic faith (”very lapsed Catholic”). She also made the mistake of saying that she is “borderline agnostic”… a big mistake. After this admission, there was a protracted exchange where God “moved his spirit” repeatedly to witness to her about “the idea of God”. His first e-mail response to her even included the admonishment “I expect to hear back from you, young lady”.
They spoke on the phone and with permission Trisha recorded the call. It really went off the rails when Coach Hogan dragged Hitler into the conversation in the context of “objective good” and “objective evil”:
Hogan: If you say “Good” is only people’s opinion it stems from our own… [stammer]… you define true for you and I define true for me then how do you reconcile that with Hitler saying it is true that if we can eliminate Jews and other people on the planet then it will be a better planet because we are a superior race? And he of course he gets his world view from Charles Darwin.
Sebastian: Right.. Wait. Wait Wait…
And that’s where he pretty much lost her. I’m sure there was plenty of nonsense and weirdness before this, but she took a GIANT step away from him when he went there. There are so many issues with that asinine statement, it’s difficult to know where to begin.
It’s a shame that we have to live with the legacy of Darwin’s relative ignorance about the similarities of men. At the time (150 years ago), class, geographic isolation, religion, and extreme differences in culture and skin pigment contributed to the classification of people as coming from different races. While evolution certainly was responsible for the genetic variations Darwin and others observed, we know now that there is common ancestry of ALL humans less than 8,000 generations ago. It certainly wasn’t the Tower of Babel, The Great Flood, or some other cataclysm that caused our differences.
I wish I had more time, more energy, and more knowledge (I am only a laytheist, after all) with which to explain and debunk Christian bullshit, but there are so many angles… if you aren’t happy with scientific comparisons, just compare to other religions. That should be enough to convince anyone that religion was made up solely by men at different, overlapping times all over the world.
Why would one be better than the next?
Trisha, I’m so sorry about your friend. The truth is that she had a groups of cells in her colon malfunction and go bad. In what sounds like a fairly serious cell breakdown, the cancer was virilent enough to cause the rest of her body to ultimately lose. Now, do you really think that this is a mechanism that God put in place to eliminate some people for reasons we can’t know? If so, why are there so goddammed many mysterious ways for the body to break down and die? Wouldn’t two or three be adequate? Is suffering necessary? Why have we been able to permanently eliminate some previously fatal diseases and maladies? Doesn’t it make more sense that it’s a product of millions of years of evolution and change…? And that sometimes the shit just breaks?
I love my wife more than you Christians love yours because I am not conflicted about whom I should put first in my life.
In case you are curious, this is by no means the only account of Valentine’s Day’s origin, but it’s probably the most agreed upon by secularists and religious folk (secular version first):
Roman emperor Claudius II imposed a ban on marriages because too many young men were dodging the draft by getting married (only single men had to enter the army). A Christian priest named Valentinus ignored the ban and performed secret marriages. He was caught, of course, which meant that he was imprisoned and sentenced to death. While awaiting execution, young lovers visited him with notes about how much better love is than war — the first “valentines.”
As you might have already guessed, the execution occurred in 269 CE on Februrary 14th, the Roman day dedicated to celebrating love and fertility. After a couple of centuries (in 469, to be precise), Emperor Gelasius declared it a holy day in honor of Valentinus instead of the pagan god Lupercus. This allowed Christianity to take over some of the celebrations of love and fertility which had previously occurred in the context of paganism.
Another similar version (written by a Christian zealot):
The Emperor’s ban on marriage for his soldiers was soon lifted when it became impossible to enforce. But this story now takes an odd turn. A short time after the execution of Valentine, the Roman Church came under the leadership of a priest named Augustine. Strange as it may seem, he formulated a church doctrine on marriage that resembled the edict of the former emperor Claudius. As can be seen by his own writings, Augustine was a man tormented over the whole subject of human sexuality. He finally came to the conclusion that for a man to be truly a “good soldier of the Faith,” he must not be distracted by any “carnal thoughts” like marriage. He thus instituted a practice that is still observed today, called the celibacy of the priesthood. Predictably, as with the soldiers of Emperor Claudius, this rule of celibacy brought much trouble upon the church, and has been a violently debated topic down through history. But if the decision had been left up to old Saint Valentine, you can be sure what his verdict would have been. Had he known what the future held for his own church perhaps he could have warned them. It seems odd indeed, that though Valentine had given his life in protest of the injustice of forbidding marriage, becoming a martyr, and being proclaimed a “Saint” by the church for his courage to stand for what was right, only a hundred years later to again see that same prohibition imposed within that very church… and so goes the great love story of Valentine… The legend of Valentine is an interesting one, and gives us some valuable insights… In these confusing days we live in, we are looking for a new day when there can be a restoration of pure love relationships.
Step away from God and it becomes much, much easier to restore pure love to your relationships. I promise.
And the people replied…