BishopAccountability.org
	Church Sex Abuse Socialist Worker March 6, 2010 http://www.swp.ie/index.php?page=760&dept=News&title=Church+sex+abuse Denis Brennan, the Bishop of Fern recently addressed his parishioners in Enniscorthy in a bid to help raise funds to pay for child sex abuse claims. The legal bills arising from clerical child sexual abuse has reached ˆ10.5 million and Dr Denis is looking for ˆ200, 000 to settle the bill. The bishop said that the perpetrators' actions combined with mismanagement, poor understanding and/or a lack of resolve had caused, what he called, 'this tragedy'. He said the diocese had spent over ˆ8m settling 48 civil actions and that another 13 lawsuits were pending. Some litigants were abused over 60 years ago. Over ˆ750,000 had been spent treating offenders, which Dr Brennan called a long-term investment in protecting children. Almost ˆ1.5m had been paid recently for legal work on the State's Ferns Inquiry. Dr Brennan thanked the Irish bishops' Stewardship Fund for paying over half of Ferns' total abuse bill. His finance officer said insurance had paid another one-seventh but that, so far, the diocese had spent ˆ3.5m partly by running down its savings and, more recently, by raising a ˆ1.8m loan. Bishop Brennan said one-fifth of 'the road to justice remained to be travelled and that to complete it, he would have to seek funding from parishes.” It is interesting to ponder the similarity between the Catholic Church and the Irish government. Both say they made mistakes but we have to pay from our hard earned cash to help them. The church was caught red handed in abuses, greed and cover-up but they don’t want to pay up. Their greed knows no bounds and but they don’t understand that we are no longer going to be threatened by a jaded book of faith. Even though the Vatican has finally acknowledged the problem, it will not put their hands in their pockets. ( catholic church is worth hundred of billions). The bishop is now asking the sheep (Irish churchgoers) to pay the legal bill generated by the (sheppard) priests’ abuses while they (the pope and cardinals) keep billions in the coffers for when Jesus come back on earth to claim it. Not so long ago the church used to make us believe that we could salvage our soul and go to heaven by giving expensive donations to vanquish our sins. Today they have been proven guilty of the worse crime and yet they will not show grace and reverence to us. In 2010, we have reached the apotheoses of a capitalist world which is copied and perpetrated by corporations, churches and governments. The victims are always the same: the tax payers you and me. The more we as a society stay silence and don’t show our displeasure by going in the streets, the more we will be burdened with their mess. The Brian Cowen, Denis Brennan and Peter Sutherlands of this world are getting away with murder and we still treat the news with nonchalance and lethargy. We need to take control of those corporations, churches and government because enough is enough. Changes are going to come through our actions as a collective group against this government, those wealthy speculators and chancers who are destroying the country for generations to come.
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