IRELAND to go to the IMF

[Mega]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9edae672-b...nclick_check=1

Mike

[LargoWinch]

Re: IRELAND to go to the IMF

They forgot how to hit the "print" key?

[Diarmuid]

Re: IRELAND to go to the IMF

They forgot how to hit the "print" key?

Nope - they have no access to the pint key - and they are run by a bunch of thieving self serving political, bureaucratic and corporate ignorami. Patsies to more sophisticated thieves.

"But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And pray to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone."

W. B. Yeats

[Diarmuid]

Re: IRELAND to go to the IMF

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9edae672-b...nclick_check=1

Mike

meanwhile....

http://www.independent.ie/national-n...a-1916691.html
Economy may screw you but God won't, says priest as thousands flock to novena


By Elaine Keogh

Saturday October 17 2009

A CHURCH has had to lay on extra seating to cope with the huge number of people flocking back to God.
More than 10,000 people turned up every day this week to attend the annual novena to St Gerard at the Redemptorist church in Dundalk, Co Louth.
And organisers believe the massive crowds are a direct result of the recession.
"The economy may screw you but God won't -- He is always there," said Fr Michael Cusack, who is the director of the novena which ended yesterday.
"We had 10 sessions a day and averaged around 1,100 at each with 1,500 coming in the evening one."
The main church holds 800 people and to cope with the crowds, the priests had to set up CCTV cameras and relay the services to the parlours and corridors around the church.
"People who don't know where to turn to are turning to God as He is faithful; when you are desperate you grasp and grab," he said.
People have travelled from Armagh, Co Down, as well as the border counties of Cavan and Monaghan to attend the services.
Recently qualified nurse Fiona McGeough was amongst them. "I think a lot of people are turning to their faith in these difficult times. It is tough out there at the moment."
Ms McGeough has three children and recently returned to college for further training in nursing. She now works as an agency nurse, but she is looking for a permanent job.
Fr Cusack said the huge numbers reflected the devotion to St Gerard and acknowledged that they were far from the weekly figures for church attendances.

[SuitablyIronic]

Re: IRELAND to go to the IMF

Nope - they have no access to the pint key - and they are run by a bunch of thieving self serving political, bureaucratic and corporate ignorami. Patsies to more sophisticated thieves.

Ireland has been run by the Guinness Company for over a hundred years - so maybe they do have access to the "pint" key ;-)

[cjppjc]

Re: IRELAND to go to the IMF

. "I think a lot of people are turning to their faith in these difficult times. It is tough out there at the moment."

For sure there will be a pickup in all kinds of searches for meaning. This dovetails nicely with the piece Don posted a while ago reagrding single woman and their search. It can only grow.

[BigBagel]

Re: IRELAND to go to the IMF

I spent a year in an Irish Christian Brother school in Ireland in 1964-65. Their violent behavior was a part of everyday life at the school. If the Church brings some solace to those people in the article more power to them but today's Sunday and you won't find me looking for meaning in a church pew. Hopefully their spirituality won't lessen their ambition to deal effectively what's facing them economically.

[jiimbergin]

Re: IRELAND to go to the IMF

I spent a year in an Irish Christian Brother school in Ireland in 1964-65. Their violent behavior was a part of everyday life at the school. If the Church brings some solace to those people in the article more power to them but today's Sunday and you won't find me looking for meaning in a church pew. Hopefully their spirituality won't lessen their ambition to deal effectively what's facing them economically.

Well I did spend my morning in church. And my faith is the most important thing in my life.

[Diarmuid]

Re: IRELAND to go to the IMF

I spent a year in an Irish Christian Brother school in Ireland in 1964-65. Their violent behavior was a part of everyday life at the school. If the Church brings some solace to those people in the article more power to them but today's Sunday and you won't find me looking for meaning in a church pew. Hopefully their spirituality won't lessen their ambition to deal effectively what's facing them economically.

BigBagel, my own experience with the Catholic schools in Ireland has been the same, dogma and authoritarian snake oil peddlers, (the past and recent scandals are testimonial to that) rather then spiritual or intellectual growth, lets see if in the "new" Ireland, there is a reversion to such darkness or something different - I won't hold my breath.

It continues to baffles me how the core message of Christ or any other religion for that matter, can become so twisted, the level of dissonance required to hold the dogma and the core message at the same time, without registering the conflict.

One of my favourite short stories for its wit and readability is Frank O Connors The First Confession provides a nice humorous illustration :-).

"Then, to crown my misfortunes, I had to make my first confession and communion. It was an old woman called Ryan who prepared us for these. She was about the one age with Gran; she was well-to-do, lived in a big house on Montenotte, wore a black cloak and bonnet, and came every day to school at three o'clock when we should have been going home, and talked to us of hell. She may have mentioned the other place as well, but that could only have been by accident, for hell had the first place in her heart. She lit a candle, took out a new half-crown, and offered it to the first boy who would hold one finger, only one finger! - in the flame for five minutes by the school clock. Being always very ambitious I was tempted to volunteer, but I thought it might look greedy. Then she asked were we afraid of holding one finger-only one finger! - in a little candle flame for five minutes and not afraid of burning all over in roasting hot furnaces for all eternity. "All eternity! Just think of that! A whole lifetime goes by and it's nothing, not even a drop in the ocean of your sufferings." The woman was really interesting about hell, but my attention was all fixed on the half-crown. At the end of the lesson she put it back in her purse. It was a great disappointment; a religious woman like that, you wouldn't think she'd bother about a thing like a half-crown."


http://www.ireland-information.com/firstconfession.htm

[BigBagel]

Re: IRELAND to go to the IMF

Well I did spend my morning in church. And my faith is the most important thing in my life.

and I'm happy for you.

[razor edge]

Re: IRELAND to go to the IMF

I'm not convinced, either regarding the IMF or the mass (no pun intended) flocking back to mass. For all of the talk and cant about Catholic schools, I have to say that my experience was not so bad. I went to a christian brothers school, and yes, we did have a couple of psychos, but usually you could avoid them. The lay teachers could be just as likely to cuff you in the head with the hands. But there were also some very dedicated teachers, and some very solid teaching, on integrity, discipline and other old fashioned values. No doubt there were evilly disposed priests and brothers, tho' I was fortunate enough to have unwittingly avoided them. Yet the Catholic education which many generations of Irish people received, fitted many of them for very successful, and very happy lives. It is not all blackness, as those who jump on the negative bandwagon allege.

I sometimes think that we Irish imagine that we have had it worse than anyone else in the world. Think Mc Courts "Angela's Ashes". We have as long as I can remember, a great talent for whinging about our past, and painting that into our present. It's probably because we are an island nation, historically very insular.

As to the IMF? Well, I think that, if it is to happen at all, it is some ways down the road and not at all certain, and will probably depend of whether this NAMA (National Asset Management Agency) is as disastrous as appears likely. I think that the UK, and indeed the US could be candidates for the IMF too, except that will never happen. I think politicians are probably too busy to work out what has happened to the national and international economy over the last 10 years, especially since the repeal of Glass Steagall. They are dependent upon the very masters of the universe and banksters who got us into this mess to advise them. That in Irelands case in only a part of the problem. The real problem is a busted international economy, heading for deep depression and a shattering of the world order, with who knows what to follow?

[Diarmuid]

Re: IRELAND to go to the IMF

I have to say that my experience was not so bad. I went to a christian brothers school, and yes, we did have a couple of psychos, but usually you could avoid them.

Take the rose tinted glasses off - while there were good teachers, priests and lay people, maybe even for the most, and many escaped the worst of it, many did not, the abuse was institutionalized.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worl...ed-report.html

Revealed, six decades of 'ritual' child abuse: Catholic schools and orphanages damned in report

By Tom Kelly
Last updated at 2:33 PM on 21st May 2009

• Comments (34)
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• Abuse was 'endemic' in childrens' institutions
• Safety of children in general was not a consideration
• No abusers will be prosecuted
  
• Victims banned from launch of shocking report
  

Church leaders and government watchdogs covered up 'endemic' and 'ritualised' abuse of thousands of children in Roman Catholic schools and orphanages in the Irish Republic, a shocking report revealed yesterday.

For six decades, priests and nuns terrorised boys and girls in the workhouse-style schools with sexual, physical and mental abuse.
Enlarge Kevin Flannigan, right, and John Kelly, left, from the group Survivors of Child Abuse, protest at not being allowed into the launch of the long-awaited Child Abuse Commission report at the Conrad Hotel Dublin

But officials in Ireland's Catholic Church shielded paedophile staff from arrest to protect their own reputations despite knowing they were serial attackers, according to the 2,600-page report, which took nine years to complete.

Irish government inspectors also failed to stop the chronic beatings, rape and humiliation, it found.

Justice Sean Ryan launches the report at the Conrad Hotel in Dublin today - but refuses to take questions from journalists

About 35,000 children and teenagers who were orphans, petty thieves, truants, unmarried mothers or from dysfunctional families were sent to Ireland's network of 250 Church-run industrial schools, reformatories, orphanages and hostels from the 1930s up until the early 1990s.

The report by Ireland's Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse found 'a climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment, permeated most of the institutions and all those run for boys'.

It added: 'Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from.'

[cjppjc]

Re: IRELAND to go to the IMF

Certainly organized religion has done harm. Lots of harm even. Organized anything on a large scale does harm. It is the nature of human beings. Each person must begin his own search with a goal in mind. Asking questions along the way. Whatever aids in that goal should be cherished. Whatever hinders the goal should be abandoned. If an individual takes whatever is taught without verifing for themself it is almost useless. The way to spiritual growth is through questioning and verification. Always remembering the goal.

The above examples of cruelty are obviously people who have forgotten, or never really had a goal.

[MulaMan]

Re: IRELAND to go to the IMF

Catholics...kill off this 12th century absurdity, please once and for all.

[World Traveler]

Re: IRELAND to go to the IMF

Just to chime in... I have to say I never had any bad experiences with priests or nuns and I attended Catholic schools here is the US for 12 years in 1950's and 1960's. Worst that anyone ever got was a whack with a ruler (grammar school) and that was very infrequent. Mostly they called the parents if there were any discipline problems.

Most priests and nuns that I knew were were normal people with idealistic tendencies who had decided to dedicate their lives to a higher power in a way that was acceptable in that day and age. A few were truly inspiring for their kindness and concern for humanity. And probably there were a minority of bad apples that I just never met.

I'm not a Catholic now, but I believe that the majority of dedicated and basically good, decent priests and nuns that I knew should not be affected by the broad brush condemnations we see today. Most in my experience were ok.