Dublin's Blackrock College: 300 men say Catholic priests sexually assaulted them at popular boys' high school
The latest chapter in Ireland’s seemingly perpetual crisis of child abuse in religious institutions is now being written. We have cycled through abuse in orphanages, industrial schools and Magdalene Laundries, only to now contend with abuse at literally the highest order of all.
The name Blackrock College reeks of privilege and upper-class mores. The South Dublin institution was as close to the equivalent of the playing fields of Eton as you could get. Among its alumni are Eamon de Valera, founder of the 26-county Irish state who ruled over Ireland for decades, and Archbishop John Charles McQuade, who almost single-handedly imposed his puritanical control over the Irish church for decades.
But when 300 sexual abuse charges have now been made against different Spiritan priests who taught in Blackrock it becomes impossible to just look away. The Irish Times reported this week, “More than 300 people have made abuse allegations against at least 78 Spiritan priests, a spokesman for the religious congregation has said. He also said the latter figure may increase slightly when all recent contacts have been fully processed.”
Do not believe for a moment that Blackrock is the only highbrow education institution to have had abusive priests in Ireland. Now that the scandal has moved from downstairs to upstairs, there will be many other orders coming under scrutiny.
https://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/oth...xual-abuse
The latest chapter in Ireland’s seemingly perpetual crisis of child abuse in religious institutions is now being written. We have cycled through abuse in orphanages, industrial schools and Magdalene Laundries, only to now contend with abuse at literally the highest order of all.
The name Blackrock College reeks of privilege and upper-class mores. The South Dublin institution was as close to the equivalent of the playing fields of Eton as you could get. Among its alumni are Eamon de Valera, founder of the 26-county Irish state who ruled over Ireland for decades, and Archbishop John Charles McQuade, who almost single-handedly imposed his puritanical control over the Irish church for decades.
But when 300 sexual abuse charges have now been made against different Spiritan priests who taught in Blackrock it becomes impossible to just look away. The Irish Times reported this week, “More than 300 people have made abuse allegations against at least 78 Spiritan priests, a spokesman for the religious congregation has said. He also said the latter figure may increase slightly when all recent contacts have been fully processed.”
Do not believe for a moment that Blackrock is the only highbrow education institution to have had abusive priests in Ireland. Now that the scandal has moved from downstairs to upstairs, there will be many other orders coming under scrutiny.
https://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/oth...xual-abuse
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
