FATHER MC CAMLEY SENT AWAY

FATHER EAMON MC CAMLEY  who featured on this blog a week or two ago for masturbating on line on a site called CAFFMOS has been removed by Amy as PP of Keady and sent to an unknown location.

One Armagh priest has informed me that Fr McCamley has been sent to the same clinic in the USA that Rory Coyle was sent to?

If you look at the Armagh website you will see Fr McCamley's new address:

KEADY PARISH PERSONNEL:

Amy's problem is that there are least SIX more Armagh priests in the same position as Fathers Coyle and McCamley"!

HOW LOW CAN THE BCATHOLIC CHURCH STOOP?

With a long history of crimes against humanity, Garry Otton wonders if there is any limit to how much Catholic adherents will put up with. 

As much as Scotland’s fourth estate might try to paper over the cracks with whatever the Scottish Catholic Media Office might throw at it, there are no escaping calls from the Scottish Secular Society for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and the Vatican State to face charges for Crimes Against Humanity in the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

Prior to Herr Ratzinger’s (Pope Benedict XVI) ‘state’ visit to Scotland – at considerable cost to taxpayers, involving the raiding of funds set aside for overseas aid and coinciding with news of 13 suicides of former victims of priestly abuse in Belgium – former Cardinal Keith O’Brien was pictured in the press laughing, smiling and saying that he would be “happy” if the Pope didn’t apologise for the child abuse. Apparently, there wasn’t very much in Scotland anyway. Oh, really? That was before victims of Fort Augustus Abbey School announced they were launching a lawsuit for compensation for the abuse they suffered at the hands of monks.

Homosexuals; the sixties; ephebophiles, a greater prevalence of incidences in other institutions and secularism have all been trotted out as excuses and deflections for the rot within the Church. Catholic apologists continue to do what they can to lay the blame at someone else’s door. Can they afford to do so any longer following a damning report from the United Nation’s?

Scotland should not forget the allegations against the Poor Sisters of Nazareth filed in the High Court in Aberdeen against Sister Alphonso, alias Marie Docherty. Former children from the orphanage lined up to provide testimonies of daily beatings, sexual abuse from visiting priests, the force-feeding of a little girl with her own vomit, the wrapping of bed-wetters in their urine-soaked sheets, the forcing of a wee girl into a cold bath in the middle of an epileptic fit which Sister Alphonso was supposed to have described as “the work of the devil”, lads being dropped into scalding baths and the ‘cleansing’ of menstruating girls by immersing them in baths filled with Jeyes disinfectant. One woman claimed Sister Alphonso had dragged her by her hair and beat it against a wall so hard it broke her front teeth leaving only the stumps. Helen Cuister told a court that when she began menstruating, Sister Alphonso told her that it was ‘God’s punishment’ for girls who did not behave and that her punishment would go on until midnight when she would die for being so dirty. Louise Clark told the same court how she had been beaten mercilessly simply for not attending church. In defence, Sister Alphonso told the court how, as a child she had pulled down her knickers and asked her father to hit her and, when as a sister in the Aberdeen home, she had given the girls a good talking to after she caught them watching forbidden TV programme, ‘Top of the Pops’. The church stood by Sister Alphonso. A Scottish Catholic Church source told the press: “The view within the church is that she deserves sympathy, not more punishment. The church will rally round her.” And it did. The Catholic Church appointed a team of leading lawyers, including former Solicitor General Paul Cullen, QC and the Rt Rev Mario Conti, the Catholic Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney, later the Archbishop of Glasgow, who stepped in as chief apologist, explaining: “Some practices which, today seem excessive and even cruel, would not have been viewed in this light years ago. These convictions do not, moreover, invalidate the great good, which was done by the Sisters of Nazareth, including Sister Marie, in caring competently and appropriately for many thousands of children over the last 100 years”. Still dressed in her nun’s habit, Marie Docherty was found guilty of just four counts of cruelty and unnatural practices. Former care assistant Helen Howie, 75 was angry that she was not called as a witness. “She has made all these children out to be liars”, she was reported saying, “but everything they said was true. A couple of times when my husband came to collect me from his work he had to pull her off to stop her beating the children. I called him many a time to take her away from the children”. Docherty’s age, state of health, lack of previous convictions and the time that had passed since the crimes took place were all taken into consideration. After whispering a polite ‘thank you’ to Sheriff Colin Harris, Marie Theresa Docherty was free to walk away.

But there was also the allegations a decade ago by 11 former pupils in the Court of Session in Edinburgh who claimed to have been brutalised by an order of Catholic monks. Their solicitor, Cameron Fyfe claimed he was handling the biggest abuse case Scotland had ever seen. Allegations from former pupils of St Ninian’s List D School in Gartmore, Stirlingshire described electric shocks administered from a device described as a type of generator kept in a boot room where boys had to hold on to a pair of wires leading from the machine. Central Scotland Police were involved in compiling a report for the Procurator Fiscal that also included complaints of regular thrashings, being forced to eat vomit, sexual fondling and serious physical abuse.

The Big Issue in Scotland at the time reported a particularly harrowing tale by resident John McCorry of the behaviour of the nuns from the Smyllum Park Orphanage near Lanark. “They warped our sexualities. We were told that the toilet – and even using the word toilet – was evil. We couldn’t refer to any part of our body between the neck and knees as anything other than ‘our front’. But as a result kids would get beaten for talking about their fronts. We would get beaten for asking to go to the toilet. It was institutionalised insanity… Boys who wet the bed were beaten all the time… They were forced to drink Epsom salts over and over again. But that ended up making them doubly incontinent. Most of the boys who suffered this ended up soiling themselves a few hours later. The most disgraceful thing I ever saw was one boy who was forced to walk up and down all day in the dining hall with his wet sheet under his arm. The sister who made him do this was shouting at us, saying, ‘Why aren’t you laughing at him?’ There was the sound of forced laughter everywhere. The boy was crying. It was sadistic, sick, mental torture”. The Catholic Church’s spokesman had his secretary explain to The Big Issue: “It’s nothing to do with us any longer”.

But this is just Scotland. Some of the crimes around the world committed in this religion’s name have been horrific. A few years ago in Brazil the Catholic Church was in a pitched battle with the State after a 9-year old girl was admitted to a hospital complaining of stomach pains. Doctors quickly determined that the child, a victim of rape, was pregnant with twins and that her undeveloped uterus did not have the ability to contain one foetus, let alone two. They prescribed an abortion in order to save the little girl’s life. That’s when the Catholic Church stepped in to try and stop it. Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, told journalists that God’s Law was above all human law and that anyone involved in or aiding the abortion would be subject to excommunication from the Church. And so they did.

I want to remind myself of the Catholic Church’s own rule about the Pope’s – the ‘successors of Peter’ – all being culpable. That must include the ones guilty of nepotism, murder, sexual debauchery and general depravity, none of whom the Church has officially condemned. There are the ones who took lovers, mistresses, girls or boys, married, had illegitimate children; housing and promoting their ‘nephews’. Many Pope’s had children. And Pope Julius III hardly made much of a secret about the teenage boy he picked up in the street. First he was his ‘monkey keeper’ and then he was made a Cardinal.

Then there is this Church’s historical hatred of Jews; passing laws that closed professions to them, locking them up in ghettos and forcing them to wear yellow identification. Read about the inquisitions, enforced conversions, slave trading and operations of torture and you are left either needing counselling or wondering what kind of twisted mind would ever want to associate itself with such a poisonous institution. The most obvious explanation has been ‘cognitive dissonance’.

And then there has been the gun-running, the financial wheeling and dealing, the laundering of illegal funds and the Magdalene laundries where women were incarcerated and kept as slaves. Then there has been the denial of rights to women and LGBT people, the latter including boys who were physically castrated in Dutch Catholic institutions in the sixties. Then there were the concordats with South American dictators; the deals with the Mafia (Pope Paul VI’s financial advisor, Sicilian tax lawyer, Michele Sindona recycled proceeds from Mafia heroin sales through the Vatican bank and helped the Vatican evade tax by transferring the bulk of its financial and investment assets overseas). And let’s never forget the Catholic Church’s administration of Nazi rat-runs. Oh, yes… You didn’t even need to be a Catholic to get Vatican help here: Just a Nazi. After the war, funded by Nazi gold, twenty Catholic agencies helped spirit away the likes of the commander of Treblinka, Franz Strangl who murdered 900,000 people; deputy commander of Sobibor, Gustav Wagner who murdered 250,000 Jews and Adolf Eichmann. One of the beneficiaries was most probably Dr Carl Vaernet who performed the most horrible experiments on Jewish homosexuals in the Buchanwald concentration camp in an attempt to cure homosexuals. All this before you get to the endless cases of sexual, physical and mental torture it put children through before the Vatican tried to cover it up, often blackmailing its victims into silence or moving priests to different areas where they could go on abusing more children.

The Catholic Church appears to be an institution that can get away with murder. Literally.

400 CHILDREN DIED IN SCOTTISH CONVENT AND BURIED IN A MASS GRAVE

THE TELEGRAPH 10 SEPTEMBER 2017

Up to 400 children died at a Scottish orphanage run by nuns and were buried in a single unmarked grave, new research has revealed.

The Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul, which ran the Smyllum Park orphanage in Lanarkshire, has previously acknowledged that 158 children were buried in compartments at a nearby cemetery.

But there have long been suspicions that the real figure was far higher.

Now research carried out by BBC Radio 4's File on Four programme and the Sunday Post newspaper, including a trawl of more than 15,000 official records, has revealed hundreds of children died at Smyllum - far more than the charity that ran it has admitted.

The investigation into Smyllum Park orphanage reveals 402 babies, toddlers and children died there between 1864 and when it closed its doors in 1981.

Most of the children sent to live at the orphanage who died were buried in an unmarked mass grave at St Mary's Cemetery.

Children at the infants' school at Smyllum orphanage, which was opened in 1864

Headstones mark the graves of the nuns and staff members buried nearby but no stone or memorial has ever recorded the names of the lost children.

The revelation that up to 400 youngsters - and some adults - are buried there has provoked calls for Scotland's ongoing Child Abuse Inquiry to investigate.

Former First Minister, Jack McConnell, who, on behalf of the Scottish Government, apologized to victims of care home abuse in 2004, said it was shameful they were still waiting for truth and justice. He said: "It is heartbreaking to discover so many children may have been buried in these unmarked graves. After so many years of silence, we must now know the truth of what happened here."

Former residents have accused the nuns and staff who ran the home of beating and neglecting some of the children in their care.

 Smyllum Park orphanage in Lanarkshire which operated between 1864 and 1981

Their allegations formed part of the campaign that inspired the ongoing Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry. The charity that ran Smyllum has already given evidence to the abuse inquiry, claiming earlier this year that abuse allegations were a "mystery" with "no evidence" of mistreatment.

The care given at Smyllum will be scrutinized during the second phase of the inquiry starting in November.

The latest revelations have provoked calls for those sessions to include an attempt to detail the children who died at Smyllum and discover exactly how many are buried in the graveyard at St Mary's.

Relatives of children who died at Smyllum are also calling for an immediate ground investigation at the cemetery using ground-penetrating radar to establish how many bodies are buried there.

The new probe involved scrutiny of thousands of death certificates. 

In 2003, burial records given to campaigners by Smyllum bosses suggested 120 children had been buried at St Mary's but relatives believed the figure was too low. The latest figures come after 402 death certificates listing Smyllum as the place of death or normal residence was found in archives.

No details are recorded of the children's lives, apart from their names, date of birth and when they died. Causes of death include accidents and diseases such as tuberculosis, flu and scarlet fever. Some died of malnutrition. The research was carried out by Janet Bishop, of the Association of Scottish Genealogists And Researchers In Archives. She trawled through more than 15,000 official records. Most of the deaths occurred between 1870 and 1930. 

It is believed most of the children, without parents or families able to pay for funerals, are buried at St Mary's.

Checks with surrounding cemeteries and local authorities found only two of the 402 laid to rest elsewhere.

11,601 children passed through Smyllum Park between 1864 and 1981, according to evidence given at the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry.

The Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul declined several requests for the interview.

But, in a statement, it said: "We are Core Participants in the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry and are co-operating fully with that inquiry.

"We remain of the view that this inquiry is the most appropriate forum for such investigations.

"Given the ongoing work of the inquiry we do not wish to provide any interviews.

"We wish to again make clear that, as Daughters of Charity, our values are totally against any form of abuse and thus, we offer our most sincere and heartfelt apology to anyone who suffered any form of abuse whilst in our care."

The Scottish Government said, as Smyllum is part of the inquiry, it would be inappropriate to comment.

Six-year-old boy 'killed by nun at orphanage in 1960s'

Police said they found no evidence of foul play in Sammy Carr's death.

A boy was killed by a nun at a Scottish orphanage, a former resident has claimed.

Sammy Carr died in 1964 while under the care of the Smyllum Park in Lanark, South Lanarkshire.

Police Scotland investigated the claims made by a former resident and said they found no evidence of criminality.

But the sisters of six-year-old Sammy are now convinced he was attacked before he died.

Symllum Park has long been the subject of allegations that some of its young residents suffered physical and psychological abuse. The orphanage was run by the Poor Sisters of Charity, now known as the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent De Paul.

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry is investigating the facility and four other residential care establishments run by the same order.

When Sammy died, his sisters said they were told he had fallen ill after playing with a dead rat.

The youngster was buried in St Mary's Cemetery in Lanark, where more than 150 children from Smyllum lie in unmarked graves. They died from disease or accidents between 1864 and the 1960s.

Now a 63-year-old great grandmother, Sammy's sister Ann Marie Carr said: "The nuns told us he'd died from a tumour in his brain. Something to do with the rat poison through his

They accepted that explanation until 2015, when another former resident told the authorities he witnessed Sammy being assaulted by a nun at the institution shortly before his death.

The 59-year-old now lives in England and has asked for his surname not to be publicised. David agreed to talk to STV News about his claims after Sammy's family gave him their consent.

He told how he and Sammy were playing with matches at the orphanage when they were caught by one of the nuns.

"Sammy was on the floor curled up in a ball and she was just kicking into him, kicking into his back, into his head," said David, who was the same age as Sammy at the time.

"It was proper kicks. I went over and laid on top of Sammy's upper half of his body....I just said, 'Sister, please don't hurt Sammy'."

David said Sammy fell ill after the attack: "It would have to be within days, if not a day. There's no doubt in my heart, she killed him. She didn't kill him there and then but he died days later, or a week later. She definitely killed him."

Sammy's death certificate records him as having died from a brain haemorrhage. David's allegations were investigated by the police. A detective phoned to tell him the results of their inquiry.

"She says we've put Sammy's autopsy report in front of a panel of four people. They've no reasons to suspect foul play. Sammy died of malnutrition and bleeding to the back of the head. I couldn't say anything. My head just emptied....bleeding to the back of the head. Kicking the life out of him. You don't have to be a detective to work that out."

Police Scotland told STV News they had carried out "a robust and thorough investigation and found no evidence of criminality."

Both David and Ms Carr said the police told them the nun involved had died in 2014.

David said: "All I can hope is someone sees this, because there were other kids there, and they remember it, and they come forward and back me up. They're not backing me up, they're backing Sammy up. You're doing what's right."

Asked if she believed her brother had been assaulted, Ms Carr said she was beaten at the orphanage by the same woman: "I got some doings, I got some doings so I do believe it. I got punched, kicked.

"I can't understand why a person at that age, carrying it all this time, would come to the family and say that. They would have just left it and let us believe what we were told."

Of the regime at Smyllum, she stated: "If it wasn't me, it would be somebody else, and you could hear the screams coming out of them, and there wasn't a thing any of us could do about it cause if we tried to do something we got punished as well. "

In a statement, the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul said they were "shocked to learn of the accusations made in relation to the tragic death of Samuel Carr, and have always co-operated fully with any requests for information from the relevant authorities, and will continue to do so.

"In particular, full co-operation was given to the police and following their investigation they found no evidence of criminality.

"The order is also co-operating fully with the ongoing Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry. It would be inappropriate to make any further comment."

PAT SAYS:

Another horror story of the Catholic Church's abuse of innocent little children.

400 children buried in an unmarked grave and one child murdered by a nun and all of them buried with less dignity than a family pet!

This reminds us that these are NOT one off cases but rather a sign of abuse and cruelty that was ENDEMIC and SYSTEMATIC in Catholicism.

Not many years ago I went to say Mass at the grave of a young boy who had been murdered by a Christian Brother in Tralee in Kerry.

The local Catholic doctor provided the Christian Brothers at the time with a death certificate saying the 14-year-old died of "DEMENTIA"!

You can talk about "all the good" done by some people in the Catholic Church until the cows come home.

But there is no getting away from the fact that this is an EVIL INSTITUTION that has perpetrated serious crimes against humanity.

Jesus himself said that a good tree cannot produce bad fruit.

Quite simply we are dealing with the same forest that produced trees like Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin - the forest of EVIL!

Ian Paisley Jnr faces questions on €100,000 holidays in Sri Lanka

• Irish Independent
 
• Claire Newell, Edward Malnick and Nicola Smith

Holidays: Ian Paisley Jnr

IAN Paisley Jnr faces questions over holidays worth more than €100,000 he accepted from a country he is now helping to secure a post-Brexit trade deal.

The prominent Democratic Unionist Party MP accepted two all-expenses-paid trips from the Sri Lankan government, according to documents seen by the ‘Daily Telegraph’.

Mr Paisley took his wife and four children to the country, according to the reports. They flew business class, stayed in fine hotels and were provided with a chauffeur-driven Mercedes.

However, the trips were never disclosed in the House of Commons register of interests.

Mr Paisley is one of 10 DUP members relied on by Prime Minister Theresa May to prop up her government.

Shortly after the holidays Mr Paisley spoke in Parliament and suggested Queen Elizabeth could visit Sri Lanka to aid the peace process there.

This week, Mr Paisley posted a picture of himself with Amari Wijewardene, the Sri Lankan high commissioner, outside the Houses of Parliament captioned: “With Sri Lanka high commissioner to discuss NI-Sri Lanka trade deal after Brexit.”

Two days after the meeting in Parliament, Mr Paisley posted a picture of himself alongside Liam Fox, Britain’s International Trade Secretary. It was captioned: “With Liam Fox discussing our trade agreements post Brexit.”

The Sri Lankan high commission in London said yesterday that Mr Paisley was considered to be in a good position to help “enhance trade relations between Sri Lanka and UK” given the DUP’s role supporting Mrs May’s government.

The trips, which took place in 2013, have also raised questions given Sri Lanka’s questionable human rights record. Later that year, Conservative MPs were banned from accepting trips funded by the Sri Lankan government due to concern about the regime’s lobbying tactics.

The two trips took place in March and July 2013. On the first, he stayed for 10 days and took his entire family. On the second, he stayed for seven days and took his wife, Fiona, and two of their children.

The Sri Lankan ministry of external affairs is understood to have paid for business-class flights for the couple and their children, costing about €17,000, and arranged six hotels across the two trips, picking up the bill for their meals at the hotels.

The government also paid for helicopters to shuttle Mr Paisley and his family around, at a cost of €12,500 for one of the trips, with its defence ministry clearing space for them to land.

During their stays, they were taken to attractions including an elephant sanctuary, a national park and a Buddhist temple, with the costs of the excursions covered by the government.

By failing to declare his trips, Mr Paisley appears to be in breach of parliamentary rules – as funded trips that cost more than £300 (€320) must be declared.

Mr Paisley has been a vocal supporter of the Sri Lankan government in recent years, calling for “positive trading opportunities” between Britain and the island, as well as highlighting how human rights abuses may have been committed by Tamils as well as the government.

Mr Paisley declined to answer questions from ‘The Telegraph’ about his trips to Sri Lanka, and his subsequent discussions with the high commissioner on a post-Brexit trade deal. (© Daily Telegraph, London)

PAT SAYS:

Ian Paisley's hiding of his gifts from the Sri Lankans is another chapter in a long list of political dishonesty and hiding.

Many politicians will try and get away with this if they can.

Maybe a tougher declaration requirement should be introduced and serious penalties for breaking them?

Big Ian was into his religion but I imaging he had a bob or two also.

Little Ian has proven he is weak when it comes to making money and gifts.

In fact, I met him one day a few years ago with the Sri Lankan High Commissioner. The meeting was not planned. Our paths crosed in the Galgorm Hotel and Spa. 

I was there with friends and Ian came in with the High Commissioner.

He introduced me to the Sri Lankan diplomat as: "One of our most famous Northern Ireland priests".

So Ian and the High Commissioner have a longstanding friendship.

The incident shows that politics, as well as power corrupts.

'Agnostic' Corbyn upsets Catholics by taking Communion

 Gordon Rayner THE TELEGRAPH


Jeremy Corbyn has been accused of "disrespecting the Catholic faith" after he took Holy Communion despite his apparent agnosticism.

The Labour leader, who has never practiced Catholicism, took wine and wafers during the funeral of the former GMB Union president Mary Turner, who died in July.

The Diocese of Westminster, which is responsible for the church Mr Corbyn was attending at the time, responded by saying that it expected celebrants to be "in full communion with the Catholic Church" in order to receive Communion.

The left-wing New Statesman magazine reports that Mr Corbyn queued for Communion with his Mexican wife Laura Alvarez during the service at Sacred Heart Church in Kilburn, north London.

He is not the only Labour leader to be criticised for taking Communion: in 1996 the late Cardinal Basil Hume wrote to Tony Blair asking him to refrain from taking Communion when he was attending Mass with his family.

Mr Blair was at the time a practicing Anglican, and replied: "I wonder what Jesus would have made of it."

Mr Corbyn's office declined to comment on his taking Communion, but a Labour source said the Labour leader had spoken at the funeral and "paid his respects to her family and Mary's memory".

Clare Bowskill of the Latin Mass Society said: "Most Catholics would think that was disrespecting the faith quite considerably. Even Anglicans are normally told at Mass that they are welcome to come up for a blessing but they do not take Communion."

The Eucharist is considered the most important of the seven sacraments, and Catholic Church guidelines state that non-Christians cannot receive it. According to the book of Corinthians, "any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself".

Sacred Heart is part of the Diocese of Westminster, which said in a statement: "To receive Holy Communion in the Catholic Church, a person is expected to be in full communion with the Catholic Church.  Normally, a priest would presume this is the case, unless he has clear knowledge or indication that this is not the case."

Mr Corbyn has always refused to be drawn on whether he has any religious beliefs, though Labour confirmed today that he is not a Catholic and did not convert to Catholicism to marry his current wife.

In 2015 he said: “I respect all faiths, I probably spend more time going to religious services than most people, of all types. I go to synagogues, I go to mosques, I go to temples, I go to churches, and I have many humanistic friends and I have many atheist friends. I respect them all."

Asked if it would be accurate to describe him as an atheist, he said: “There are so many things about me written that are unfair, unjust and ill-searched that it would be wrong. I’m not going any further than that, belief is a private thing.”

Mr Corbyn's church visits have got him into trouble in the past. Shortly after becoming Labour leader he was roundly criticised when he refused to sing the National Anthem at a Battle of Britain memorial service in St Paul's Cathedral.

PAT SAYS:

I don't see any problem with Jeremy Corbyn receiving Holy Communion at the funeral of his friend.

Of course it against of the teaching and discipline of the RC Church for a non-Catholic to receive Communion.

It is also against its teaching for a Catholic who is not "in good standing" or in "mortal sin" to take Communion.

I do not like Tony Blair or much that he says. But he was quite correct to respond in the way he did to being told he should not have taken Communion when he was not Catholic - "I WONDER WHAT JESUS WOULD HAVE MADE OF IT".

Of course, Jesus when he first made Communion available was a JEW!

And the first people who received Holy Communion were also JEWS!

Can you imagine Jesus presiding over a Eucharist and REFUSING ANYONE PRESENT Communion?

I cannot.

At our Oratory in Larne - ANYONE who presents for Communion receives it.

And that has included members of other Christian churches, Muslims, and members of the Parsee faith of India.

Communion is not a REWARD for being a Catholic or being GOOD.

Communion is spiritual food.

It is also a sign of community/communion among those present.

I have never - and will never refuse Communion to anyone.

It is God's gift. Who am I to refuse God's gift to anyone?

I have been refused Communion myself TWICE - once by traditionalist Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and once by Phonsie Cullinan in Waterford.

DUBLINS "SECRET" CHANGES

Diarmuid Martin seems to have taken to the habit of not publishing his clerical changes/ appointments whereas every other bishop in the country publishes his appointments on their websites a d in the mainstream media!

His second strategy in recent years seems to have been the dismantling of his personnel advisory panel in favour of him personally controlling the appointments.

I wonder what is behind this move on Diarmuid's part from collegiality to dictatorship?

Is he becoming like an aged and soon to be gone leader who is reacting to his forthcoming demise by pulling all powers to himself?

While Diarmuid is a media darling he has had a deteriorating relationship with his priests. Those few he "loves" he brings closely around him. Those he does not live he sends to the outer regions. And those he is indifferent to he plays chess with.

Very strange behaviour indeed!

And then there is his very clear affection for gay priests and semi seminarians. He keeps these close and protected. They are the "eggs" on which Diarmuid The Hen, roosts.

And then there is Dermo's baby, Georgeous. 

Some say he is gone. Others think that Dermo has him hidden away in some cosy roost and will produce his new 'chicken" at a surprise laying ceremony in November?

And The Mother Hen from the Pro Cathedral, it is rumoured has been removed and placed as a mere hospital chaplain. Hospital chaplains are very often young priests starting out or members of a religious order.

Administrators if the Pro are generally promoted to being a PP in a plum parish. But this one, we are told,  has fallen to a hospital chaplain - and a hospital chaplain not in Barcelona - but in South Dublin!

Was this move asked for or imposed? And Why?

But of course in the North Korea of Archbishops House it is another "secret".

I wonder if all of this strange behaviour is a serious case of No-Red-Hat-itis?

When Dermo appeared his star was bright and shining. Pasty McGarry & Co have done their best to keep the star polished with the Brasso of publicity and soundbites.

But alas the star is in decline and all the Brasso in the Irish Times will not restore it.

Looking back, and to keep up our hen/egg analogy, will Dermo's legacy be: ALL CACKLE AND NO EGG?

HEAVEN- ATHEISTS- BELIEVERS.

If there is a Heaven, and I believe 100% that there is - will believers have an advantage over atheists in getting into Heaven?

I am inclined to think not!

One of the most meaningful parts of the New Testament for me is where Jesus describes the exact questions people will be asked on arrival at the Pearly Gates:

1. Did you feed the hungry?
2. Did you give the thirsty a drink?
3. Did you clothe the naked?
4. Did you c are for the sick?
5. Did you visit the sick?
6. Did you welcome strangers?

He goes on to say that those who answer yes will go to Heaven and the others to eternal loss.

And of course, you don't have to have a religious faith to do all above.

In fact, some of the best people I've ever met were atheists and some of the most unkind were religious.

What is the point then in having a faith and a relationship with God?

The point of believing in God and having a relationship with him is Heaven begins for you in this world rather than having to wait until after you die. Excuse the technicalities but the theologians call it "realised eschatology" as opposed to "futuristic eschatology". You're Heaven begins here.

Heaven is not about marble palaces or big reunions.  It's about enjoying and experience intimacy with God. That can begin here - as many believers, saints and especially mystics have experienced.

What then about Hell- punishment for wrong and evil?

We  Christians believe in Hell because Jesus taught it. 

Traditionally Hell was thought of as eternal burning forever. 
But of course, Heaven and Hell exist in the spiritual realm and experiences there will be of a super spiritual nature that includes, exceeds and magnifies infinitely both our physical and spiritual experiences in the human realm.

That's why the Bible says "Eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, of the wonderful things that God has prepared for those who love him.

While Heaven is and will be the inexplicable experience of Divine intimacy Hell will be the inexplicable experience of being deprived of Divine Intimacy.

That may not sound like much of a deal now as on earth our capabilities of experience and deprivation are quite limited. 

It will be different in the eternal realm when our capabilities have been raised to a now unimaginable level.

Of course, God may never allow ANYONE to perish?

We speak of him as having infinite forgiveness and compassion.

We cannot hardly imagine infinite anything.

In 1994 I wrote a personal creed:

A PERSONAL CREED

Bishop Pat Buckley

I believe that in this world it is impossible to understand God.

I believe that God made this wonderful universe and all that exists.

I can find God in nature, in animals, in birds and the environment.

I believe that God made all men and women,

That He made them all equal,

And that He loves and cherishes them all equally.

I believe that the whole human race is the family of God.

I believe that there may be intelligent life on other planets

And if so, they too are part of God’s family.

I hold that religion and faith are two different things,

That religion can be both good and bad

And that it is spirituality that counts.

For me your religion is an accident of your birth

Or a gift of God’s great providential diversity.

There is no one true church.

All churches and all religions contain aspects of the truth.

But only God is truth.

No man is infallible.

A Buddhist or a good atheist is as acceptable to God as a good Catholic.

I believe that sex is good and so is the body.

The only sexual act that is sinful is the one that uses or abuses.

I believe in people, especially suffering people.

I believe in the power of weakness.

I believe that all men and women will be saved.

I believe in a packed Heaven and an empty Hell.

And even Satan might get another chance.

I believe in the freedom of God’s sons and daughters.

I believe that dogma is often evil.

I believe that life is a journey towards God

And that no one has the right to insist that you go a certain road.

I believe that God and reality are too big for my poor words.

I believe therefore that I am only at a beginning.

Only knocking at a door.

And I believe that the best is yet to come.

(1994)

In the meantime, both atheists and believers, for different reasons, and with different motivations, need to make the here and now as much like the here after as possible.

In that way, there are no losers - from the philosophical and spiritual perspectives.

ABORTION ON JIM JEFFRIES

As expected Jim Jeffries asked me my views on ABORTION.

I basically replied that like on most other topics I am not a dogmatist.

Am I pro-life or pro-choice?

In fact, I am both.

I am pro-life in the sense that I personally believe that human life is sacred from conception to death.

I am pro-choice in the sense that I believe that no church or religion has the right to foist it's teaching on the population of any country.

In that context, I believe that the only people who chose whether Ireland has an abortion, to whatever degree, is a choice for the Irish electorate, and not a choice for pressure groups, whether women's groups or clergy.

Abortion cannot be described as a GOOD THING.

In limited cases - to save the life of the mother, rape etc, you could describe it as THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS.

For instance, there is a massive moral difference a termination to save the mothers life and a termination for financial or materialistic reasons.

This is a very controversial subject.

It's a moral dilemma.

And a moral dilemma anyone involved in would struggle with.

SEAMUS HEANEY'S POEM: LIMBO

A poem about an Irish mother having to drown her baby because it was illegitimate

Fishermen at Ballyshannon
Netted an infant last night
Along with the salmon.
An illegitimate spawning,

A small one thrown back
To the waters. But I'm sure
As she stood in the shallows
Ducking him tenderly

Till the frozen knobs of her wrists
Were dead as the gravel,
He was a minnow with hooks
Tearing her open.

She waded in under
The sign of the cross.
He was hauled in with the fish.
Now limbo will be

A cold glitter of souls
Through some far briny zone.
Even Christ's palms, unhealed,
Smart and cannot fish there. 

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  Poet's Page
• PJIM JEFFRIES HIMSELF

The first thing to say is that I liked him as a person.

I personally have no problem with his controversial humour.

He swore during the interview as is his won't.

Obviously, I didn't as is my style.

I do not know how the edited version of the interview will appear. I have no control over that.

I spoke my mind and my truth.

I don't tell lies a d don't have to save my answers.

I believe we should be open to adventures, challenges and the new.

I am.

It keeps me young in mind and spirit.