PRIESTS RUINED IRELAND

The crimes of the Church in Ireland have been mainly:

enabling the lies of the Church and the dangers of them. If more priests were honest enough to tell people that the religion is nonsense it would be for the best. People would listen. Priests are the chief facilitators and enablers of the evils of the Church.

though the Bible Jesus and God and apostles and writers use floridly offensive language against sin and sinners, the priests turn on the charm. Catholics end up devoted to their Church not because it is good or true, but because the priest charms them. It is alarming that a Catholic turns against the Church faster if he or she gets a telling off from the priest about his or her morals and lukewarmness and heresy than if he or she reads in the paper that Church doctrine is being decisively refuted. The Church gets money and prestige and power

many priests care not about what they believe to be right but about social gain and a sense of importance in society. As Jesus warned, if you are a true Christian you will be tripping over your enemies.

safe sex is such an important message that the Catholic Church's refusal to put people first and their doctrine which bans it second is intolerable. The priests bleat, "But it is not our job." Community Centres and other public entities could say that too but they don't as the matter is so serious and there is no excuse. Faith is no excuse. Meanwhile gay men die. The Church is often a man's only link with a community outside of his own rural or village community. They are not told that anal sex is dangerous unless condoms are used, replaced carefully after a few minutes, lots of lube is used, that even then ejaculation inside the other person is not advisable in case the condom has ruptures or bursts etc. It has been known for men using the rules carefully to get checked out after being with lots of partners and being declared free from STI's. Do not use the insulting excuse that it is up to these men to inform themselves for some don't know where to look and as the Catholic Church claims that social interest is part of its mission the blame squarely lies with it. And even worse when it is told the truth it still won't help.

the priest has the sneakiest self-aggrandizement scheme imaginable - seen as another Christ and as a conduit between God and man. Like tyrants they believe in charm and good manners to achieve and build up their glory. Even the priests getting a chunk out of the pensions of vulnerable old people at Christmas as a gift (not right for the gift is given on the dubious basis that the priests are really authorised by God and teach his truth) is ignored by the Church in its wish to make their sacerdotal glory shine. Most people seem to see through the priests these days.

the warping of peoples minds and emotions so that they fail to react badly when they hear of terrible doctrines such as, "We are to love God totally and so we love our neighbour as ourselves then SOLELY BECAUSE HE COMMANDS IT." Real love is not about obeying a command. Love your neighbour as yourself is the same as always treat others as you would like them to treat you. Thus it is impersonal and is not based on true value for the person for if you value a person you will value them and whether there is a God or not will bear no relevance to that.

the illicit reign of bigoted autocrat Archbishop John Charles McQuaid over the nation.

teaching a form of lying called mental reservation and inspiring its bishops and political allies to engage in it.

an undue influence over the law which was used to form a Christian constitution. This is a violation of the rights of secularists and non-Christians and Protestants.

a hypocrisy which condemned heavy drinking while publicans and their barpersons were never called upon to repent for giving people too much drink and were regarded as Catholics in good standing.

through influencing and tolerating the Catholics of Fianna Fail and the Department of Justice to refuse on religious anti-Semitic grounds to admit a few Jewish refugees from the Nazis into the country in the thirties

blatantly lying about an apparition having taken place at Knock to make money and build a shrine. The Church even misrepresented the accounts so that people would not know that the alleged witnesses of the vision only saw statues.

a culture of censorship and fear in which the people were brainwashed to believe.

an example of a superficially convincing love - for example, if a man said, "My girlfriend dresses like a tart for me and I find it embarrassing in public." The right response is that he is an ungrateful misery guts and that you hope she finds somebody who appreciates her better. The priest would have to praise him for having standards of Christian modesty. People do sense that the priests are superficial for they do not exactly wear down the priest's doorstep looking for somebody to talk to.

stopping and restricting the right to contraceptives.

the honesty to admit that Jesus Christ claimed he would sentence unrepentant serious sinners to everlasting fire in Matthew 25:41 as opposed to the more modern lie that he doesn't but that we go to that punishment symbolised by fire and won't turn to him and he breaks his heart about our awful choice.

banning divorce. The Church actually allows divorce when one partner in a marriage is unbaptised. It is pro-divorce when its for religious reasons but against divorce for humanitarian reasons.

claiming respect for marriage when it pretends that people who are married are not really married at all - annulments are worse than divorce for they are dishonest

women who needed Caesarians being refused by Catholic hospitals which resorted to breaking their bones to get the baby out the normal way. Many women were maimed and incontinent for life. Women were forced to deliver babies that could not live though they would have preferred an abortion. The Church has no obligation to run and control hospitals. Therefore, for the Church to claim the right to force its beliefs on women in hospital makes no sense. It makes a religious freedom matter of it when it isn't.

keeping Ireland unscientific to the degree that vicious and outmoded methods of treatment were administered to so-called lunatics in asylums.

keeping Ireland unscientific and giving most people a good religious education but a poor secular education thus leading to recession. Primary schools spent an inordinate amount of time on religious doctrine and devotion and its concern about ethics was merely to batter submission into the children. The cruelty of Irish schools in the past is well documented and they were under the iron rule of the priest.

scaring people into covering up suicides - a unique way of ensuring the stigma did not deter people.

causing the collapse of Albert Reynold's government over the Father Brendan Smith debacle - things could have been different for Ireland had this not happened.

its interesting that you don't see Satanists trying to run schools and foment wars of religion in the name of the Devil but you do see Catholics and Muslims doing it but in the name of their God.

taking away from people the only principle that can help them become truly good or better people - the principle that we have the here and now to be good and this life alone matters for there will be no Heaven.

controlling the education system to prevent children from hearing how wrong Catholic teaching is.

giving bogus treatments for our immoral and violent propensities (The Catholic church priesthood is a con for it gives treatment for our evil inclinations that does not work. That is worse than any pretended healer. The long-term damage is terrible. The fruit is war and lies. They are the malefactors not the evil forces and demons they allegedly disperse with their rites and prayers.)

having no financial controls in place to stop priests from embezzling the Sunday Collection.

priests getting away with stealing parish funds.

opposition to the right to change religion. The Church paid lip service to Religious Freedom at Vatican 2. It was careful to make it a pastoral policy in light of the fact that there are state penalties for forcing people into religion and keeping them in it and not a change in moral policy.

using force and hatred to intimidate the population to attend Mass on Sundays.

taking money off poor people for masses and old women in particular tend to give the priest money when he visits them

using the threat of eternal damnation to get the people to pay their dues to the Church. Paying is one of the major commands of the Church. The priests take a salary out of the money paid. Nobody has the right to take money for religious and spiritual services unless they can give adequate evidence that their services really work. Would you give money to the local witchdoctor who says that he can remove your sins if you do?

priests visiting poor families to take their money despite knowing the children could go hungry.

forcing Catholics and non-Catholics not to work on Catholic feast days. In those poor times, the loss of earnings for one day was devastating.

telling people that a mere wafer is alive - it is Jesus. They were degraded by idolatry. They had the people worship a wafer instead of God. Idolaters adore things made by their own hands and say that they believe these things are gods. Thus the Catholic claim that the wafer is God and they intend to worship God not a wafer does not hold water. Intending to worship God does not mean you actually do it.

giving the people evil saints as role models and objects of veneration - Catholics in Ireland venerate terrorists like O Donovan Rossa. They venerate evil saints such as Thomas More and St Dominic.

giving the people false gods in the form of the saints. The excuse was that the saints were God's friends and since he made them what they are to honour them is really to celebrate what he has done and therefore to celebrate him. But this is very indirect. It shows a reluctance to think about God's goodness. To celebrate my painting is not as personal or intimate as celebrating me as an artist.

giving the people a goddess in the form of Mary. They said they did not worship her as divine. God is a personal being and he is good. He is not worshipped because he is a person but because he is good. Therefore to worship him as good is to treat him as divine. Mary is honoured for being good therefore Mary IS worshipped as divine. Also, if God helps us because Mary asked him to that means that God did not help us because he was good but because she asked him to. It is surely her choice if she is asked to pray for us. She might do it and she might not. An intercessor cannot be forced to intercede. To say that Mary's influence helps us and not God's love for us is extremely blasphemous. It suggests that we MUST pray to Mary. It's an obligation. That alone makes her divine.

proud people like to try and make themselves great by highlighting the failures or flaws of other people so that they can measure themselves against them and see how much better they are. That explains what the Church made up auricular confession for.

outlandish teachings such as that embryos not used in IVF should be kept alive as long as possible or adopted! Then the bizarre absence of the notion of baptising them to save them. And why no requirement to baptise menstrual blood in case there is a miscarriage in it?

claiming that women who abort will suffer for it afterwards through guilt and depression. Not necessarily. And as the woman struggled with an unwanted pregnancy, she was going to suffer if she continued it or not for an unwanted pregnancy is a source of trauma. And many come though the abortion untraumatised.

taking the money off the famine-stricken to build and maintain Churches and priestly comforts.

both clergy and the people covered up for acts of clerical child sexual abuse. The culture of silence and support for such abuse was so successful that not a single bishop in Ireland reported acts of abuse by his priests to the gardai. The Church has a better picture of the problem than any organisation can have of abuse within its ranks for the Church herself says she learns about souls and hearts when sinners come to her to confess their sins in confession. Thus child abuse in Catholicism is to be condemned with greater severity than in any other organisation.

hearing confession encourages paedophile priests. When people do something very bad or something that makes them feel terribly guilty, they like to learn about the crimes of others and hear about them. It makes them feel better. Hearing the confessions of men who molest or abuse children makes the paedophile priest feel better and more satisfied in his sin. It helps him to rationalise and excuse future attempts to get access to children to abuse them.

claiming that the taxpayer should pay for the Catholic schools just because most taxpayers are Catholic. They refuse to hold that as the people pay the Church's wages the Church should respect the fact that most payers want contraception allowed and go and permit it. How consistent!

forcing women both married and unmarried to resort to infanticide when they had an unwanted pregnancy.

telling the people that many go to Hell for God is so good that he gives them what in some way they want - everlasting exclusion from him and being left at the dubious mercies of evil. That vile doctrine is really saying that the damned do not want to be damned but in some indirect confused way they do. But that is like putting somebody in jail just because they have some vague confused desire to be there despite their having an unwillingness to be there. It's vindictive. Human motivation is complex and sometimes there is inconsistency in it.

telling the people that believing that Hell is where God torments the damned forever and that God is therefore a moral terrorist is okay and they can believe such a terrible evil thing and praise God for being so utterly vile and be welcome to communion. I'd rather worship Zeus. Yet the Church sits in judgement on the old paganism.

equality is the great ethical value of our day and is the driving force behind the success of secularism. Is it really right to support a religion that is in opposition to equality or that cherry-picks from it? Giving it money is only enabling the discrimination it engenders, practices and represents.

in 2012, the religious orders didn't want to get bankrupted through compensation claims for the abuse of children and vulnerable people and forced the state to pay over a billion to help with the bill. This billion is needed in a nation torn apart by austerity and the worst recession in Irish history. People are dying because the health care system cries out for that money and will never see it.

detaining women against their will in homes for fallen women.

taking the children of unmarried mothers by force to put them up for adoption or to use as slaves.

the Magdalen laundries...

Do not attend the Catholic Mass for estimations of the attendance at Mass is taken into account by the state and government officials. If hardly anybody went, those entities would have less interest in the views of the Church than they have. Attending and worshipping validates the nonsense taught by the Church for believers are encouraged by each other. Your presence implies support. Remember that though you can do heroic good and have terrible principles, you are still bad. For the sake of principles, keep away. Do not demean yourself for a system of religious guesses dressed up as truth. Let the people open their eyes and do not put obstacles in their sight. Then they would not for example be able to humour the pope who may wish to make a visit to the country that is subsidised by the state to the detriment of healthcare. The vast majority of the Irish went to Mass in the past and they obeyed the priests without question. As a result, the government assumed that the will of the Church was the will of the people and Ireland - for example - was left without contraceptive and divorce rights. Going to Mass is indicating that other people may do the same and that the faith should pollute politics if enough people do it. Don’t do it.