Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Priests trapped in unforgiving system

Vincent Browne's piece in today's Irish Times is an important moment in Irish journalism.

His topic is Marie Keenan's book, Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church: Gender, Power and Organisational Culture.

He refers to it as a revealing book that argues that dominant Catholic culture excludes and isolates clergy with devastating results.

5 comments:

Póló said...

He is quite right. I must read that book.

There is a big difference between sublimation resulting from internal conviction and repression resulting from external edict. The Church seems to think they are only dealing with the former because nobody is forced to become a priest.

They do not see that one can have a vocation to be a priest but that not just the celibacy but the hermetic bubble does not suit everyone and that the compromise involved for some in deciding to become priests is, and proves to be, unrealisable.

Not exactly rocket science.

.

Michael Commane said...

May one ask who Póló is?

Póló said...

One may.

PólÓ Duibhir anseo.

Michael Commane said...

Go raibh maith agat. Interested to know how you discovered the blog.
Hope you enjoy reading it and thank you for your comments.

Póló said...

Can't remember how I discovered the blog although it was only very recently. Perhaps you or someone tweeted.

Enjoy your posts, sane but not strident.

Interesting generally to see some grass roots challenging of the official church, at least across limited areas.

The Eucharistic Congress will be very interesting in reflecting the attitude of the church in a number of areas, and also the reaction of the flock.

.

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