Raping children is not a serious crime. Well, that seems to be the attitude
of the Irish state. With thousands of cases of reported child abuse by
clerics, and an admission by the Catholic Church all the way up to Cardinal
Connell, that they refused to report abusers to the gardaí, there has been
remarkably little action taken against them. There have been no raids on
the Archbishop's palace in search of the withheld complaints against
priests. There have been no arrests of priests and bishops who have
publicly admitted helping accused clerics to avoid prosecution. Given all
that we now know about the organised cover-up of what happened in Catholic
institutions, churches and hospitals it is fair to say that if any other
organised group were guilty of the same offences there would be charges
brought of "conspiracy to pervert the course of justice". The only excuse
put forward by the bishops is that they "did not understand" the
seriousness of raping children! These are the same guys who, with great
certainty, condemned multi-denominational education in the 1970s, who
opposed the legalisation of contraception and divorce, who call abortion
http://struggle.ws/wsm/abortion.html "murder". But when it came to
destroying the childhood of young children we are expected to believe that
they didn't realise it was a particularly bad thing! Bollocks. Of course
the state can hardly claim to be neutral. The majority of hospitals and the
vast majority of schools are owned by the Catholic Church. Yet the state
(with our tax money) pays the wages and pays 85% of the building costs. The
Church authorities are then given the power to hire and fire nurses and
teachers we pay for. The government even gives the main churches money to
promote their religion. Back in 1998 (March 25th) the Supreme Court
dismissed an application by the Campaign to Separate Church and State to
prevent the Minister for Education paying chaplains in community schools.
So, we have the absurd situation where people of minority religions and of
no religion at all see their tax money used to pay priests. It's just a
little reminiscent of the tithing system of Penal Law days whereby
Catholics and Presbyterians were forced to pay 10% of their income to the
Anglican clergy. Churches should have the right to worship their gods as
they see fit, to organise their own affairs as they see fit. They should
have the same rights as any other voluntary group but with no special
privileges. Anarchists are not out to stop anyone practicing their
religion, but we are determined to end the 'special position' of the
churches (supposedly abolished in the 1972 referendum). Anarchists will
continue to defend the weak and vulnerable, and will continue campaigning
to break the power of the bishops. Joe King See also Anarchism and Religion
http://struggle.ws/wsm/religion.html Anarchists traditionally have a
hostile attitude to religion, summed up by the slogan 'No Gods, No Masters'
================ This page is from the print version of the Irish Anarchist
paper 'Workers Solidarity' http://struggle.ws/worksol.html . We also
provide PDF http://struggle.ws/ws/pdf.html files of all our publications
for you to print out and distribute locally Print out the PDF file of this
issue http://struggle.ws/wsm/pdf/ws/73.html
http://www.ainfos.ca/ainfos14747.html
Perpslist.
http://www.pip.com.au/~chenderson/perplist.htm
