More State money for the Catholic church
By Primal Sneeze ~ February 13th, 2009. Filed under: Immigration, Politicians, Religion, Travellers.
Mary Hanafin, Minister for Social and Family Affairs, loves making press releases.
Last week she considered making two lousy PDF files available for download worthy of a press release.
On Monday, she said the current economic situation was putting “new stresses on family life” and duly allotted €7.8 million to counselling services. Who gets the lion’s share? ACCORD. Almost €3.5 is going to a Catholic organisation that aims to promote a deeper understanding of Christian marriage. Their words, not mine.
Almost half the money will be spent promoting a religion. The same religion whose priests raped the children of this country and whose victims Bertie Ahern made sure the taxpayer would pay the bulk of the compensation to.
On Wednesday she announced the publication of a report commissioned by the Office for Social Inclusion. She said “access to healthcare, housing and education may be a particular concern for migrants and members of ethnic minorities”.
No mention of counselling there. As non-Catholics, many of these migrants and ethnic minorities are fucked anyway because ACCORD is the outfit garnering the divvies. Not that it’s any of her department’s business anyway – the same press release makes it very clear that “responsibility for the progression of anti-racism policies now rests within the Office of the Minister for Integration”.
She did make special mention of the Travelling community.
What are you saying, Mary? The Travellers are Irish and Catholic – you’re willing to address their needs and to hell with the rest?
Yep, she loves her press releases does Mary. Pity that so many contain nothing of worth and those that do, contradict each other.
Bit of a rant there, Primal.
Some exaggeration too. Some priests raped children – but the proportion was/is smaller than the proportion of child rapists in the community as a whole. The Church did royally fuck up – by failing to address the fact that they were giving people like that an opportunity. And some of that was due to listening to medical and legal experts. Slowly, the Church is getting its house in order on this.
But I fail to see what that has to do with marriage/family counselling anyway. Accord has years of experience in that, and as far as I know are open to listening to/talking to/helping anybody that asks them, regardless of religion. Its a counselling service, not a missionary society. OK, they will likely not suggest divorce as a solution – but then, that is hardly the solution somebody looking to patch up their marriage wants anyway.
End of counter rant.
Aonghus — Would you have a link to those studies demonstrating that priests are less likely to rape children? I’d be interested to read them.
Not off the top of my head.
But I’m sure if you did some digging you would come up with the facts as well.
Here is one data point:
http://www.oneinfour.org/press/pressreleases2008/oneinfourrpt2007/
The fact that forty odd years worth of filth was released all at once gives a false impression of the prevalence among priests.
Aonghus — Sorry. I misunderstood your comment. I thought you were stating it as a fact, rather than an opinion.
OK, maybe I overstated my case.
I can’t find studies online, except on catholic sites, which I’m accepting that you won’t accept.
But to reduce the catholic church to the minority of priests who were sex offenders is unjust to the very many priests who are not, and to the very many people in the church who do good work – such as the people in Accord, which brings us back to the original subject.
Sex offenders are in the minority throughout society.
However, those who actively protect, screen and shelter abusers are equally complicit. We have seen what went on in Ferns, and in the Dublin archdiocese. The Catholic church has had to be dragged kicking and screaming into giving up its abusers, with Cloyne being the most recent example, though it is far from the only one.
On a purely monetary point, clerical sexual abuse in church-run residential institutions has so far cost the State €1.2 billion, thanks to a deal done with Dr Michael Woods. That’s as much as the pensions levy is projected to realise for the exchequer. The cost to the church? That was imited to €128 million, no matter how much the State eventually has to pay.
Now that beats the hell out of giving €3.5 million to a Catholic counselling group.
So much for patriotic duty.
Agreed. And the church is moving – slowly I concede – to address that.
And I hold no brief for that curious financial arrangement. The state had some liability – it failed in putting people in institutions it knew were (at least) overstretched and therefore open to abusers. But the financial arrangement was bizarre and wrong.
We’re finding a measure of agreement which is always good.
The arrrangement was more than bizarre though. It was driven by Woods’s membership of Opus Dei and Bertie Ahern’s relationship with the Sisters of Mercy in Eccles Street.
Did you know that the church’s negotiator, Sr Helena O Donoghue, vetoed the Attorney General’s attendance at the final two meetings, and that this demand was agreed to by Woods and Ahern?
Did you also know that Ahern used to work for Helena O Donoghue?
I know very little about the negotiations.
But I don’t see the relevance to Accord.
The relevance to Accord is that this State is constitutionally forbidden to endow any religion and yet, in times of extreme fiscal hardship, is giving a huge amount of money to a denominational group which describes itself as a Catholic organisation that aims to promote a deeper understanding of Christian marriage.
That is Accord’s only stated aim.
You lads are working away grand there on your own, but I thought I’d just nip for a second to say I would have done more research prior to posting had I the time.
One of my suspicions was that Accord was not the sole religious group to benefit. Another was the Family Life Centre in Mayo.
While it claims to disregard “religious belief” it has a distinct Catholic bias. The director is a Catholic priest; it receives funding from the diocese; it hosts courses by Accord; it advocates the Galilee Community run by a religious order, Bock’s friends, the Sisters of Mercy; it promotes special masses for couples celebrating wedding anniversaries; even the graphics it uses on its web site and brochures are distinctly Catholic/Christian.
I’m suspect other recipients have links with the Catholic church too. That would make the payout greater than I originally calculated.
Rumours persist about Mary Hanafin’s relations with Opus Dei, either as a member or as a co-operator – a non-member who aids and facilitates the Opus Dei agenda.
The proprietorial control of state-funded education and social services by Catholic organisations runs counter to principles of good government, since the funding confers a degree of liability on the state for services it has little or no authority over – as proven in the wholesale abuse of children in institutional care.
We’re going around in circles here.
Are you saying that catholics are not entitled to counselling sympathetic to their beliefs? Because you don’t share them?
What deserving organisations are not getting funds?
The vast majority in this country are still Catholic
http://beyond2020.cso.ie/Census/TableViewer/tableView.aspx?ReportId=74644
Of course I’m not saying that. All religions and creeds thereof are entitled these services as citizens – but not where it is funded by the State and where the organisation offering it has a particular bias.
To answer your second question, The Brewer’s Droop Support Group.
We’ll have to agree to differ so.
I don’t believe there is such a thing as “unbiased relationships counselling”. Any such counselling is going to have a built in bias – and I’d far rather that that bias or assumption is clearly stated up front.
I’d agree with you if other organisations were being excluded because they didn’t fit the departments bias – but I don’t believe that is the case.
@Conan Drumm – I see what you’re saying. The State hands over the dosh and has no say in how it’s used. Seems the way the bank-bailout thing is going too.