The Pope

No "Chinese whispers" here; I personally witnessed it every week for years: my best friend was from a devoutly Catholic family. Every Friday teatime, Father called to collect his money, which was put into an envelope for him). Whilst he was there he was given a glass of sherry, that was bought and kept, for him alone (the bottle was actually kept "in Father O'Brien's cupboard). My friend was one of 7 children and they were so poor that she had her school uniform out of the "lost property box" in the classroom. Even as a child of, I was at this. The Catholic church isn't the wealthiest in the world by accident.

Anniebach I'm not disagreeing with your posts. I'm quite sure they are true. As are mine.

Rosieroe: the problem/crime of hidden child abuse IS being faced by Pope Francis constantly. If you follow the news about him - or if you listened to his first speech in Ireland, you would realise this.

I don’t know if the problem is being ‘faced’ giulia. Lots of words but no action.

In the real world historic child abusers are being named and charged. Even some who has died are being shamed when the evidence is overwhelming. The clergy, especially the Catholic clergy, lived in an insular world protected by their community (and this included some nuns) because, in their ignorance, they couldn’t or wouldn’t believe what some were capable of. Children knew they wouldn’t be believed so were easy prey.

The rotten underbelly of this brand of Catholicism has been exposed at last.

The pope can’t right the wrongs that have been committed over the decades he cannot say anything that can take away the ruined lives, all he can do is to try to make it harder for it to happen in the future and any LIVING priest or nun known to have sexually abused a child should be charged immediately and any proven dead abusers have their titles taken from them
You cannot apologise for someone else’s crimes they belong only to the person
Churches hold too much power, the priests hold too much power... all religions (not just Catholic) con people into believing if they are ‘good’ and look after the priests nuns vicars rabbis and buildings etc and give money and lives they will be rewarded in heaven Muslims are just the same that’s why they kill the enemy of Allah to gain a Reward in the afterlife
Formal religion always becomes tainted by money and power surely each person should live their life treating others as they want to be treated themselves, isn’t it that simple

The Pope needs to hand over all the information he has in his possession

Good post BlueBelle. IMO the world would be a better place if we all treated others the way we would wish to be treated. I think that formal religion does more harm than good although the Ten Commandments make sense.

From the Guardian

“The scandals now lead to routine expressions of sorrow from the Vatican and other Catholic outposts. But this is not enough. Victims, Catholic laity, and indeed innocent clerics viewed as possible miscreants by a cynical public need action to be taken to at last root out the abusers, work out the causes and enact reforms.

This is not, of course, a contemporary problem of Francis’s own making. The vast majority of the cases coming to the fore are historical. The pope has inherited not only a backlog but a church which for decades was reluctant to act – and all too often run by a hierarchy keen to hide scandals, as the movie Spotlight, about the Boston paedophile priest scandal, so vividly portrayed.”

And for those who think it’s all historical from the same source..

“The scandal has grown from being, as the church once claimed, about a few bad apples, to a global disaster, revealing not only cover-ups by bishops of priests’ behaviour but accusations against archbishops and cardinals, the princes of the church. So bad is the situation that it has edged ever closer to the pope himself, with two of the members of his C9 group of cardinal advisers now tainted by abuse scandals. (It should be noted that the C9 members involved dispute the claims.)

In recent days the Catholic church has also been rocked by accusations against one of the most respected cardinals of recent times, the retired archbishop of Washington DC, Theodore McCarrick. The Vatican has ordered him to cease public ministry. McCarrick, 88, was a confidant of presidents and popes, including Francis.”

These claims need to be investigated or these words of apology and ‘disappointment’ mean absolutely nothing.

Bluebelle, good post.

I came across Lesley Pearse's book by accident. The cover look like chick lit but 'Trust me' is a fascinating book about British children taken from home and sent to Australia where they had a dreadful time in a Catholic home. It is many years since I read this but it has stayed with me. I hope I remember correctly but I think it was based on a true happening. 'Remember Me' was also good.

I am wondering whether to delete this rather than post as I have entered the competition for Lesley Peare's new book!

I've just been listening to Sunday on Radio 4 - seems many victims think it's not enough for the Pope to sympathise and say sorry, they expect some sort of action. Well I don't envy him that world-wide task.

However the government of Ireland could directly address the situation whereby women are denied sterilisation in some publicly-funded hospitals as they are 'Catholic' hospitals. Governments needs to take action and not wait for the Vatican.

Why did the British government send those children to a RC Children’s home?

Anniebach, I can't do a link from the chromebook but there is a good Guardian article from lasy year 'Britain's child migrant programme: why 130,000 children were shipped abroad'. If you google it, it is easy to find. Some of the children were told they were orphans and a social worker has been trying to reunite some of these people with their families.

I just remembered Gordon Brown made an apology to the many children sent to the colonies, looked it up, 1920 to 1970, 130,000 children.

My great uncle was sent to a farm in Canada as his mum died his father married very quickly and he kept running away from the step mother to his Nans house so at the ripe old age of 10 or 12 he was shipped right away as punishment He had a very hard life for the rest of his childhood but made good in the end married locally and never saw his father or his much loved Nan again

The "good" ones all knew about the bad'uns! It was common knowledge and institutionally wide spread. They all have to shoulder the blame especially the pope.

We need to accept there was and is child abuse within the church and within families , why? Priests, council children’s homes, teachers, parents , wish we could discuss this calmly

Anniebach, I think we are all shocked and horrified that things like this can happen. These people with their evil thoughts seem to manage to get into responsible positions where they have access to victims.

I am not clever enough to know how to stop it. I suppose the more that decent people are aware of it, the better.

Liz, I am horrified to, i was deeply shocked when a girl in the village I lived in , a small country village, was sexually abused by her father. Spoke to victims in the North Wales Home child abuse case.

There was a film a few years ago called "Sunshine and Oranges" starring Emily Watson that dealt with the subject of child emigres from care homes in post war Britain who suffered abuse when they were shipped to institutionalised work in Australia. The first time I ever heard about such placements was in a tv drama, quite a while ago, called something like "Leaving Liverpool" Again, the subject was post war children in orphanages being sent out to our former colonies for supposedly a better life but ending up in miserable circumstances and abused by those who were supposed to be caring for them which blighted their entire lives. It made a big impression on me at the time. I think some of these children were temporarily in care because of financial difficulties within the family and I'm not sure their actual parents knew or gave consent for their removal. These were times when countries such as Australia were under populated and needed young workers for many of the farms etc. Some of the children were very young, not much more than babies
Very upsetting.

I read the book and watched the film Terri , some children were told their parents were dead. This is why I said I wish child abuse could be discussed calmly , but accept it isn’t possible because ?

As a teenager in the 60s I had Irish catholic friends who had moved to London who told me about the priests coming to their homes regularly to eat/drink and the expectation of being given money even if the family could not afford it. They lived in fear of them describing how their parents tried to shush the children and pretend they weren’t at home and I remember all these years later how shocked I was at the power these priests seemed to wield.
Obviously there are good and bad but this is what I heard and had no reason to disbelieve it.

Wonder why collecting money happened in some parishes and not others.

I'm wondering too Annie. I have heard of it so I believe it, but it never happened in my parish to my knowledge when I was growing up in Surrey, maybe they got more in the collection plate, mine was an affluent town, although most of us like myself came from ordinary backgrounds there were nevertheless plenty of wealthy people at my church. Who knows!