I’m not a Roman Catholic but I am sure that any RC who is currently listening to the Nicky Campbell “Big Question” on BBC1 will be outraged at the deliberate manner in which the Church is being demonised following the revelations of abuse carried out by priests in Ireland. The child abuse in the Irish Republic is, of course, utterly appalling but let’s be clear about it – the BBC is jumping on this one in it’s ..shall we call it a crusade? … to marginalise all forms of the Christian faith. I look forward to Nicky Campbell running an item on Islam’s paedophile origins and it’s continued abuse of boys and girls. That should be a must watch programme.
DEMONISING ROMAN CATHOLICISM..
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The churh does deserve to be demonised. Not just for the abuse.
What is wrong is the BBC trying to disacociate the abuse of young boys from the large numbers of homosexual pederast priests.
Ron,
As I say, I am not a Roman Catholic and view the abuse revealed as shocking. But I reckon the BBC has another agenda in play – secualism uber alles and marginalise Christianity. Clearly anyone who abuses children is in no way a Christian.
They have however been giving the chief sky pixie and all round lefty weirdy beardy, a good airing.
However, to redress the balance of their ‘news’, perhaps one of their crack journalists might like to count up the excessive number of labour mps on the list of top twenty troughers – just a hint boys.
TWENTY HIGHEST EXPENSES CLAIMANTS
Total claims 2005-08 (excluding travel)
Liam Byrne £ 478,536 LABOUR
Joan Ryan £ 469,893 LABOUR
Dan Norris £ 450,985 LABOUR
Shahid Malik £ 446,314 LABOUR
Charlotte Atkins £ 443,244 LABOUR
David Wilshire £ 438,377 TORY
Tom Levitt £ 436,686 LABOUR
Diana Johnson £ 436,632 LABOUR
Fabian Hamilton £ 435,999 LABOUR
Jacqui Smith £ 434,909 LABOUR
Margaret Moran £ 434,456 LABOUR
Ian Austin £ 434,409 LABOUR
A. Rosindell £ 434,149 TORY
Andrew George £ 434,062 LIBDEM
Dawn Butler £ 433,865 LABOUR
Roger Godsiff £ 433,298 LABOUR
Tim Farron £ 433,260 LABOUR
Peter Hain £ 431,905 LABOUR
Norman Lamb £ 431,683 LIBDEM
S. Hesford £ 431,527 LABOUR
Source: The Sunday Times 17.05/09
Don’t confuse the BBC with facts. The BBC doesn’t deal in facts; justs “truths” and “feelings”.
david
m a big fan of yours, but on this subject at least you are way off.
the catholic church is completly to blame foe this. from the lowest brother, to the pope, they are all guilty.
this is a church that should be banned andhave its money and properties seized.
on a tangent i think this scandel shows up the lie that ulster protestants are bigoted against catholics,. EVERYONE shouldbe against this sickening religion. it is a debased and currupted church and only its dismanteling will be enough.
ngg
ngg,
I guess my point is not so much to do with Roman Catholicism per se and more to do with attacking the Christian faith in the generality. For example, after the item on child abuse, the BBC discussed “Do Animals go to heaven?” and used am Anglican cleric to suggest they did. It’s demonising an trivialising in equal part. I am certain the BBC despises the Christian faith and this motivation lies behind so many stories.
call it a crusade? … to marginalise all forms of the Christian faith.
Exactly DV. Catholicism is merely a catch-all to slime Christians in general.
Of course, we never hear about Muslim child-abuser and peodophiles. Such as Yasser Arafat. One of the most famous child rapists of recent times to win the Nobel “Peace” Prize.
Seeing that it is legal in Islam for a full=grown man to “marry” a child, I suspect there may be a small problem for the Mohammedans.
Oh — I hear the Islamo-apologists shriek, how dare you malign an entire religion based on the vile actions of a “few”.
To which I reply, oh you mean the way the BBC tries to malign an entire faith — etc, etc.
Headlining some gay Anglican too – we’re all gay secularists now. Hmm – typical. I think the outrage at MPs expenses will now turn to the BBC – how on earth can it be justifiable to pay £92k to read a freakin’ autocue? That’s 3 nurses, 3 teachers, 3 coppers, social workers, etc etc.
Time to destroy the BBC – sink or swim.
The point is not a defence of Roman Catholicism, but that branches of the Muslim faith execute young woman, advocate child brides, organise honour killings, stoning to death, mutilations, mass executions, destry schools that dare to educte girls…a whole long list of really nasty stuff.
Yet while the BBC turnes over every stone and gives space to critics of the RC church, there is never the same scrutiny of Muslim human abuses.
Funny tha BBC never mentions that the prophet Mohammed was little more than a child rapist, shagging the arse off an 8 year old girl.
It would be nice (and I use the word advisedly) to hear a parallel program on Islam, some dreadful things go off with them.
A lady I’m currently escorting has in recent years (though not currently) worked with young people in care and some the stories she’s told me about imans and what happens with young teen girls and how they are allowed within the Muslim comunity to often get away with it just made me shudder.
I won’t hold my breath though…
“I look forward to Nicky Campbell running an item on Islam’s paedophile origins “
Fat chance. Try to mention this fact in any of their blogs and you get a “your posting has been removed” message.
i'm afraid i have to agree with others. the rc church is entirely to blame for widespread, systematic rape and torture of children over many years. these were not isolated cases, & the rc's church's culture facilitated and covered up the abuse. as an institution, it's a fair target on this one, & arch nichols remarks were way off-beam
We have a post today on this very subject: The Leader Column – Love the Sinner Not the Sin. I’m surprised at the BBC joining the mob.
This one’s from a series on the wonderful gogglebox: WOTONTELLYIS, A POLISH VIEW.
Nobody is denying that the Catholic Church deserve a bloody hard kicking and more for this horrific systematic abuse over the years. The whole business is just downright evil
But what’s being pointed out is that the way the BBC geefully use it as yet another stick to denigrate christianity generally, regardless of denomination, while sticking it’s collective fingers in it’s ears about what goes on in Islam
Meanwhile, when the Church of England advises people not to vote for parties sowing division and racism (ie don’t vote BNP) from whom does BBC TV seek an interview to comment upon this development ? A churchman ? A spokesman for the BNP ? No. The spokesman for the “British Humanist Association” one P. Toynbee (what her again ?- Ed) who gets about five uninterrupted minutes to bang on about how we should have bishops in the House of Lords. What has this to do with the C of E’s views on the BNP ? Nothing at all.
Sorry – mistype. That should have read :
P. Toynbee (what her again ?- Ed) who gets about five uninterrupted minutes to bang on about how we should NOT have bishops in the House of Lords
I am a catholic and like most left footers am incredibly shamed by what has gone on in our priesthood and religious orders however i feel its important to point out that the vast majority of the allegations are of physical not sexual mistreatment. Any abuse is wrong but it seems funny to me that when the report complains of systematic physical and sexual abuse the Beeb drop the physical bit because they know how incendiary paedophilia is as a subject.
The other question you have to ask is why a scandal in a foreign country leads the bbc news. I didnt on ITV channel 4 or Sky. Is it perhaps a convenient smoke screen for the onging expenses debacle.
Regarding the physical abuse the complaints were mostly from 40 yrs ago when corporal punishment was common practice in most schools. I personally think corporal punishment is abhorrent but it is important ot put the complaints into context.
Any abusive priests either physical perpetrators of sexual should be defrocked and punished but dont condemn a whole religion because of a relative few people.
A while back channel 4 had a series called queer as folk. One of its main characters was a 15 yr old boy. He fell in love with a 30 something bloke. The climax of one story line was when this older man came to the boys school and took him away in a sort of officer and a gentleman moment. This episode was the one they showed at award ceremonies. It won many luvvie style awards. Why was this not pointed out as paedophilia. It seems when the media is dealing with lefy trendy stereotypes its romantic and yet when its a fallen priest its ‘string em up’
Condemn my religion all you want but first look at why the islington glitterati are jumping on this band wagon.
ngg
“this is a church that should be banned and have its money and properties seized.”
Did we not do that before ?
Doesn’t seem to have worked too well .
Paddy
I’m glad I didn’t see the programme you refer to . A clear case of paedophilia which exposes the revolting leftie agenda .
I agree with the premise here, the BBCs explorations often seems to miss the real innate problem with the structures involved that could allow such abuse, and fall into to the tempting, lazy, easy territory of scoring points against their ideological foes, that is to say here, western Christianity.
That is why The “Head Druid” behaves as he does. He is fearfully pandering to this powerful contempt.
The irony about this though is that the effete social work mentality structures that are bent on scoring points with this kind of thinking are the very ones who find it far too difficult to notice that they support structures that essentially allow children to be literally be killed in front of their eyes, as we have seen in the case of Baby P.
In hindsight they can leisurely use their powerful infrastructure to rearrange the meaning of these events to make themselves feel better.
We’ll never hear about Muslim sexual abuses now we have a Muslim as heid bummer in the Religion and Ethics division at the BBC.
The BBC loves nothing better than to attack the Catholic Church and here they found a perfect opportunity, though as someone pointed out, these particular events happened in another country.
I will mention that similar things have happened in the English (CE) church and been hushed up in a similar way in the past. Also in local authority children’s homes, educational and other institutions where there are children and young people. Again, such things have usually been hushed up.
This is not to excuse what happened in the Catholic Church, which is horrendous, but to note that the BBC programme did not acknowledge the wider occurrence even in passing and chose not to address a general question why physical or sexual abuse happens in institutions and what might be done to prevent it.
In the way it did choose to frame this programme, it could be seen to be demonising a favourite target. It chose a more sensationalist approach which neatly enabled it to avoid acknowledging much deeper and more troublesome questions. I noticed the sudden anxiety expressed within the discussion when the notion of homosexuality being involved was raised. There was no such equivalent anxiety expressed about smearing and generalising to the Catholic Church in total. Why not?
As soon as they started on the animals going to heaven, I switched off in disgust. They can’t resist the juvenile and trivialising tendency, any more than the sensationalising one, can they?
I used to notice on the Big Questions a while back that “Asians” made up at least fifty per cent of the four people on the podium. I always wondered at this disproportion. They weren’t there today, though. Perhaps they have a new policy nowadays.
Isn’t it true that it was mainly boys who were “abused”? Now I wonder why the BBC do not question this – is there no link to homosexuality? I know that I will probably be labeled a “homophobe” for mentioning this, but it should be asked.
The BBC advocates for the reformation of Catholicism quite often. Last month Tony Blair said that the Pope had it wrong about homosexuality and it was time for the Church to rethink its position. There’s a bit of Benedict-bashing in the piece, because the Beeboids don’t like him. The new Pope has done a lot to reform the system that was shuffling paedo-priests around and sweeping their problems under the rug, and removing priests who were active homosexuals. That’s why the Beeboids don’t like him. Because he’s not Muslim, he’s an open target for them.
The BBC always comes at this from the perspective that this is all anti-homosexual prejudice, and the Church dogma is wrong. They never consider that the really important problem is that the actively homosexual behavior caused the Church to fail in their duty to the parishoners. The Beeboids don’t care that the local priest in Bornem has to spread himself over several parishes because there just aren’t enough qualified clergy to do mass. They don’t care that Catholic schools and churches in Harlem have to close because more money has to be spent on the legal defense fund. As always, the innocent churchgoers suffer the most. But the BBC doesn’t care about their rights or needs. Instead, they care about homosexual rights in a religious institution, and get involved way beyond their remit.
Traditional Christianity of any kind is viewed negatively by most on-air talent, and Catholicism gets it almost as bad as certain US Christians. Just the other day, Robert Pigott had an with the new Archbishop of Westminster. The Narrative begins with the title in the link to the right of and a bit below Blair’s picture in the above article:
Canny Catholic? New Archbishop promotes virtue, but not always reason
Even before one gets to the article, he’s placed in a negative context. Then the second paragraph gives it away entirely:
There was something almost medieval about the way the new archbishop knelt humbly at the west door of Westminster Cathedral before appearing before the congregation of 2,000 – including 700 clergy – waiting for him inside.
When was the last time you heard Pigott – or any Beeboid – using the words “Muslim” and “medieval” in the same sentence? Other than when talking about how great their society was back then, I mean.
Some Catholics allegedly worry that the new ArchB of W is going to be too outspoken about faith matter. Although:
Others suspect he will be a stern guardian of Catholic orthodoxy, when a flexible approach is called for in leading a Church that needs to move forward in step with the times.
Maintaining the faith, you see, is a negative. Or just “fundamental.”
After the service, the archbishop chatted to priests drinking wine in the courtyard beside the cathedral, and gave a clue as to how he will try to sell a fundamental view of Christianity to a sceptical public in an age of doubt.
Then, the poor Archbishop was foolish enough to say this to a Beeboid about the expenses scandal and the banking crisis:
He said the revelations about expenses and the activities of the markets showed rules alone could not make a society work. He insisted they showed that some sense of “virtue” – such as that offered by Christianity – was also needed.
In other words, a sense of decency and not screwing the public is the “virtue” which was presented as the antithesis of reason in the link title. Either Pigott doesn’t get it, or he’s being deliberately misleading.
The archbishop warned that society sometimes treated religion with contempt, insisting that it lacked reason.
The closing shows that Pigott is coming from a secular, non-religious perspective. The BBC will not approve of the Church until it conforms to their in-house PC policies. Until then, any other viewpoint will be presented in a negative context.
My understanding of what happened in the Church, in Ireland and the US specifically, is as follows.
The Vatican warned those national churches not to take men with homosexual tendencies into the priesthood.
However, enlightened as they were by the prevailing secular orthodoxies on human sexuality, they figured that homosexual men, not being called to the vocation of marriage, could legitimately be called to the service of priesthood.
This ignored the official line that homosexuality is a grave disorder and a tendency towards evil.
Of course, once in through the door, such individuals treated the church as a paedophile club, and many rose through the ranks.
Ironically, now that the current Pontiff has tried to crack down on homosexuals entering the priesthood, there is an outcry from the secular commentariat.
David P – excellent post
I was struck by this
“Others suspect he will be a stern guardian of Catholic orthodoxy, when a flexible approach is called for in leading a Church that needs to move forward in step with the times.”
Is this “flexible approach” the writers point or the “some others” – Its not really clear.
I suspect the BBC would like the Catholic church to go as far as the CofE and abandon all its core principles. The English part is certainly going that way by making an ex-Prime Minister who was openly pro-gay, pro-abortion and anti-christian into their flock.
There is an excellent debate on The Telegraph religion blogs
http://tinyurl.com/qlh78l
with a wide variety of views.
david
your quite right
last weeks now show had a full 15 mins of anti Christian jokes. nothing about islam nothing about jews, just Christians and Christ.
the bbc is desperate to remove Christianity from Britain.
but Christ is far removed from the catholic church.
ngg
John Horne Tooke said…9:45 PM, May 24, 2009
Isn’t it true that it was mainly boys who were “abused”?Availability of victims? Priests and monks are more likely to be in close proximity to vulnerable boys and nuns to vulnerable girls? Perhaps the problem, here, is one built-in to Catholicism – celibacy of the priesthood and a hostile attitude to sex that has been part of Christianity’s signature since Paul.
I don’t think that the BBC, as the national, tax-funded broadcaster has the ‘right’ to insult anyone’s religious beliefs and I accept the point so often made here that they have a double standard when it comes to Islam and the ‘religion’ of Atheism.
They did not invent that double standard. Attacking Christianity/Catholicism is almost a British tradition. For example, learn gravity – learn about Galileo’s excommunication.
Nevertheless given that Christianity, however nominal is the overwhelming religion of British citizens it is not unreasonable that is is the major target of the BBC.
Perhaps the best thing for this blog is to bring the discussion around to what the guidelines should be?
DeeGee,
maybe using the same grasp of history you can also include protestant witch burnings. The protestant UKs use of slavery. Sending kids up chimneys the systematic genocide of the tasmanian aboriginal.
Lets not get too picky with our history lessons or else people might mention what oliver cromwell did to Kilkenny.
I have beeen brought up in what i can proudly say is the most tolerant and sensible country in the world where in my whole life I have experienced anti catholic prejudice only a handful of times. The english are an amazingly kind accepting people. Even though my family are Irish i can proudly call myself English.
The beeb hate Christianity they hate anyone with strong morals because they possess none. The largest and easiest target are the papists because they know what we stand for.
I myself went o a monastery school in the 70s and contrary to your warped oppinion we weren’t all bending over servicing the monks everyday. The monks were on the whole good people. There were a few who were a little detached from the real world but what can you expect from people who devote their lives to focusing on their beliefs. We werent beaten or buggered.
A few bad priests have caused emence damage to the reputation of my church but dont let aunties thinly veiled anti catholic propaganda make you believe that all catholicism is flawed.
I too am full of bigotry towards protestants but I know that this is just an inate tribal response and is not a true picture of reality. I would like to praise all the english people for their tremendous ability to see beyond tribalism and their great acceptance of other ideas. I live as a catholic in a protestant country and I am proud of where i live. ( Sorry if the last bit sounded a bit arsey bit it was the only way i could express it properly. If you had to reach for the bucket i apologise)
I can’t recall the BBC making the same connection between child abuse and the evils of communism when the Rumanian orphanages scandal was uncovered 20 years ago that they are currently making between child abuse and the supposed evils of Catholicism. Whatever the evils of either the BBc cannot resist identifying the true villain of the piece when a reporter stated that the industrial schools in which the abuse had taken place “had been set up by the British”.
So there you have it. Whether it’s Sri Lanka, Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan or Irish child abuse the malign trail of British imperial conquest can be traced.
Of course, there’s another form of bias at work here. Free clue: naughty old Catholicism only seems to have caused trouble in certain parts of the island of Ireland:
http://tinyurl.com/r9xj76
Say, does that mean Ulster Unionists had a point after all?
deegee said…
John Horne Tooke said…9:45 PM, May 24, 2009
…
Perhaps the problem, here, is one built-in to Catholicism – celibacy of the priesthood and a hostile attitude to sex that has been part of Christianity’s signature since Paul.
Millie: Ah, when CE vicars sexually abuse children, do you say that it is a problem “in-built” to Protestantism? Most religious people whether Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian or CE, do not have a doctrine of evildoing and do not go around molesting children.
==========
I don’t think that the BBC, as the national, tax-funded broadcaster has the ‘right’ to insult anyone’s religious beliefs and I accept the point so often made here that they have a double standard when it comes to Islam and the ‘religion’ of Atheism.
They did not invent that double standard.
Millie:
Yes, they did when they decided not to treat Islam in the same way as they do any other religion.
=========
Attacking Christianity/Catholicism is almost a British tradition. …
Millie:
They don’t attack the CE in the way they do Catholicism. Nor do they attack Presbyterianism, for example.
==========
Nevertheless given that Christianity, however nominal is the overwhelming religion of British citizens it is not unreasonable that is is the major target of the BBC.
Millie:
That looks to me like a non sequitur or if not that, a piece of reasoning so obscure that it might as well be. I don’t see why that would follow at all.
=========
7:25 AM, May 25, 2009
Religious power certainly does very much deserve to be demonized. Although it is my view that they are demons working for demons. As so, they all collectively demonized themselves many thousands of years ago.
The BBC is not stupid, and so is extremely careful not to EVER go too far when mentioning the worlds national and international established power bases.
There are few, if any power bases more powerful, established or wide-spread then the Roman Empires Church.
There are few, if any media outlets more powerful, established or wide-spread then The BBC.
The later simply has to mention the former occasionally. Ignoring the greatest power on planet Earth, is not even something the BBC can do forever. The same of course could be said for the BBC and its relationship to The British Royal Family.
So what do we get from the BBC, with regards to these too great established powers.
A few Catholic Priests sexually abusing children, as if that were the worst thing that these chaps have ever got up to.
The Queen of England paying tax on her personal wealth, as if that really changed anything important, or was the real problem all along. Which it most certainly is not.
The BBC does not EVER throw stones at the establishments windows. All The BBC does is periodically feel the need to throw a few paper darts at the establishments reinforced concrete walls.
‘Just Keeping Up Appearances,’ one could say.
Reality and BBC reality, are very much worlds apart from each other.
If The BBC ever TRULY gained the freedom or collective will to take on ITS OWN ESTABLISHMENT. Which it never will be allowed to do, under any imaginable circumstances whatsoever. The BBC could cause a REAL revolution within this country within a month.
Which is precisely why the BBC is what it is. Which is a precious tool of The Worlds Establishment, from its very top to almost its very bottom. The BBC is this whether any of its employees know the BBC to be so, or not.
It is my guess that very few of the BBC’s employees have the slightest clue, as too what exactly they are working for.
If we earned BBC type wages, and worked under BBC type ‘working’ conditions. We would not care who exactly we were working for, or ask too many awkward questions of them, either. Most likely we would still take the Wages of Establishment Sin, and carry on telling lies as we are paid so very generously to do.
Atlas shrugged
Just to balance thisnd up a bit …
ndon.co.uk/news/article-23383308-details/A+foster+mother+pays+tribute+to+the+Archbishop+of+Canterbury%27s+compassion/article.do
The paedophilia is disgusting, sameful and an outrage.
Like David I’m no Catholic, but any one with a tiny brain can see that this was not official catholic policy but the actions of miscreant who could not be called true christians or even true catholics, that is a monstrous leap.
But I confess I’m a bit mystified, why do the BBC and some contributors here in this very thread refer to ‘the church’ and ‘the roman catholic church’ as if they are one and the same thing.
They most definitely are not.
Is there some conspiracy to announce the UK as catholic by the back door.
We should be told.
The greatest professional source of child abuse are teachers. It’s going to happen when you put large numbers of children and adults with authority together.
Having lived in 3 muslim countries, I can assure the BBC that a fearless investigation into paedophilia in Islam would give them plenty of footage, but this website is not the place to go in to detail !
You’re right David, the BBC should have ignored these victims of child abuse like everyone else did. This way they would have avoided any charge of being critical of the church or the Christian faith.
It can’t even be described as newsworthy, after all it happened so long ago. You must spend so much time thinking these things out, Vance for PM!
Not sure what it’s got to do with Islam, don’t think they were using state institutions in Ireland to abuse vunerable and disabled children but then any opportunity to attack Muslims should be welcomed, right?