Church & State :+: Compare & Contrast

by Gyro Sat Nov 12, 2005 15:12

Islamic immigrants. PD deputy Liz O' Donnell. A frantic dig is under way to uncover more of their skeletons. teaching on contraceptives etc. This woman is thirty years out of date. Urban Young Muslim adults in urban France is not 5-11% but a very impressive 33 percent or more. They constantly gave the greatest percentage per capita in the country of General Election votes to Fianna Fail and Fianna Gael. The secular model is failing the French people. The greatest anti establishment figure of all time.
Islamic immigrants and their children living in the ghettos of secular France, will fare very well from the current riots; billions of euros will be extracted from the indigenous elderly French people and the terror stricken EU! Right on cue, the elderly priests of the Irish Catholic Church with thirty years of falling vocations are now being regarded as fair game to be ripped apart and the church’s core teaching and influence disregarded by PD deputy Liz O’ Donnell and others. A frantic dig is under way to uncover more of their skeletons. The ideals and aims of the Catholic Church are divine, but the whole edifice has to be run by people like ourselves; those of us who are weak, prone to hearing defects, unresponsiveness, washing of the hands, deficiency of sight, impairment of memory when challenged to act or account for our actions. It is true this country has had a bellyful of such blatant tribunal escapism and our frustration is looking frantically for an outlet! However, as a belated member of a Godless Western Capitalist system with its own overfull cupboard of skeletons (i.e. former imperialists, colonisers, plunderers and collaborators, unfair trade practitioners, racists; irresponsible lifestyle leading to a forty year collapsing birth rate); a little restrained and reflection is needed? The Catholic Church’s teaching on contraception etc appears to be the only one that can save our Western Culture. This woman is thirty years out of date. Her policies have being tried in France and where has it got them. The birthrate of Muslims being three to four times higher than that of non-Muslims, the proportion of children, teenagers, and young adults in urban France is not 5-11 percent but a very impressive 33 percent or so. “Discount the wealth of a childless nation; you’ll get Zero value!” This phrase was coined in the Mayo Association Yearbook 2002 in an editorial that explored the reasons why Co Mayo did not get equal substantial investment for industrial infrastructure from Leinster House throughout the 20th Century. This despite the fact that they constantly gave the greatest percentage per capita in the country of General Election votes to the ruling parties of Fianna Fail and Fianna Gael. The conclusion arrived at was that emigration sucked out the lifeblood of the county, there was no young generation to placate. This writer can fully identify with the frustration leading to the rioting in France; it appears that the forgotten people’s saviour in this case is its youth. Co Mayo lost out on development because of emigration and migration; indigenous Europe will lose out because of falling birth rates. Unlike Mayo, they will not gain from emigrant remittances. There are over two million less births per annum in the EU15 countries today than in the middle of the 1960s; this includes the births to immigrants! If this women gets her way; our current over worked, commuter based men and women, drivers of our run away and directionless society will be left without any hope at all! The secular model is failing the French people. The modern mantra that says that a falling birth rate runs in tandem with a booming economy is not in the peoples interest, and only allows short term economic goals be dominant over long term social ones. Our society is getting so deficient in thought that we think that our long term problems will be solved by putting more money into pension funds! After the French Riots, the policies that we should be pursuing are staring us in the face. The old men of the Catholic Priesthood will not win this battle without our (the Irish people) support. Our society desperately needs their wisdom before they pass away. Remember, They are our priests and our elderly! Go down to your church tomorrow. Listen and learn on how to face life head-on. We now desperately need each other. Do not let sins of the flesh divert you from informing yourself! Their teaching is 90% the preaching of what could be regarded as the greatest anti establishment figure of all time, Jesus, the son of a carpenter, but usefull for insuring the survival of ones's race, customs and beliefs. The Irish, up to now have survived against the odds over the centuries with no little help from our collared friends. They did not abandon us then, let us not abandon them now. We now need each other!

by iosaf Sat Nov 12, 2005 17:27

20 years of Harney. I found out by reading the website of the Irish Times. I -do- like to keep informed.

fancy that 20 years. Makes me feel old. I remember the "mouldy" breaking. The FF "class of 77 TDs" had included Ray burke, Liam lawlor and Mary Harney.
She followed Dessie something or other from Limerick who had the phone tapping past to found the party coz Haughey stopped liking them. Hideous neighbour came and doorstopped my family with leaflets filled with ambition and tax reduction within two weeks. "Will my parents get a divorce?" asked i.
"O they will, they will and you'll have condoms and wont have to pay VAT on them and we'll sort out your ma's alzheimers later on by cloning eggs in tullamore, do you like boys or girls?".

& now they want to expel the jesuits.
Thats progress I suppose.
Keep your eyes on them, they're poisonous & unfortuantely not going away.

by seamus breathnach - www.irishcriminology.com Sat Nov 12, 2005 18:03 sbreathnach at eircom dot net (01)4060484

I am not at all sure that your readers to date appreciate the phenonemon that is Liz O' Donnell.

Let me put it this way: she is the first Irish politician to speak to Bishops from Rome without grovelling since the fourteenth century. The last Irish patriot who seriously and honestly criticised the Roman Church for their preditory moves on the native Irish , was a Wicklow chieftain named Adam Dubh O Tuathaill. At that time native Irishmen were all classified by the Holy Roman bishops (including the Pict, St. Patrick) as heretics and , on that account, they could even be put to death by either Roman Orders (Militant and Mendicant) or their allies, British or French Normans, with impunity. In 1328 or thereabouts, about four year after the trial of Lady Alice Kyteler, the then Bishops of Rome, mostly Britons, took the Wicklow leader out and burned him at a stake. They tried to do the same to Lady Alice Kyteler,but unlike Adam Dubh O Tuathaill, she has powerful friends in Ireland and Briton and escaped her fate at the hands of Bishop de Ledrede.

It was otherwise with Adam Dubh O Tuathaill. Apparently , he was saying what Liz O Donnell is saying. Unlike Liz O'Donnell the Wicklow chieftain made it clear that he did not believe at all in the mediteranean myth. As far as he was concerned it was another Harry Potter story,but with greater designs on reducing his country to slavery. He also told them that they should sling their hook elsewhere becasue they were abusing the people and were ingratioating themselves with the weak-minded tribes ( the then State) to do so.

Of course, the bishops burned him to death. But they had help from the natives whom they had recruited and who were afraid of the power of the Roman Church. The Sinn Fein types, for example, acted like a National Front , and when they were finished talking , the Church knew that they could be relied upon to sell Ireland down the drain. They even joined with the then Fianna Fail and the Labour party of its day and muttered socialist banalities about class,when the only real development was one between being a religious society governed by Holy Rome ,or a secular society governed by native Gaels. We know the result. Why?

All parties very very much afriad of the powers of the Holy Romans, who had infiltrated them, and probably held them in the pay of Rome and its rich monasteries. They even sold them indulgences for land -- as they still do -- knowing that the Irish would give up all their tribal land to get their nearest and dearest out of the flames of Hell and Purgatory.

It was these Irish (Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, the Progressiv Democrats, Labour and Sinn Fein) who heaped the Roman faggots on O'Toole's pyre. How else could a foreign power have crushed a native Gaelic chieftain. None of them spoke Gaelic by the way. There was no need; the language of government then - as now -- was Latin (with a fall back on Polish -- sorry, I mean Pictish!)

No doubt they will do the same to Liz O'Donnell. It is fitting, however, that after so long a period of 'history' a 'Daniel' --nay an O'Donnell -- has come to judge the Irish and raise the native banner -- the real meanign of Sinn Fein -- against the first and worst empire of the Gaelic Iriish.

In her speech Liz O' Donnell has made all political parties irrelevant. Her voice,unlike MacDowell's and Bertie Ahern's , and all the others who are so given to so much to Irish theatre, is honest and to be thoroughly supported. She is the new Ireland; the Ireland of secular posssibilities. She is dragging the medieval mind and its only ally -- the mediocre mind -- into the real and livable world. The parties are all church-controlled and her message will shortly show them up for the imperial lackies they are.

Already Bertie Ahern has made a formidable concession. In his own words he has pointed to the power of the Roman Church. The thousands of schools in the Republic are in its sole name. And without their permission Irish children cannot receive an 'education'. The mind boggles. Even after such depravity the schools that generated so many broken lives (suicides and homicides) MUST be continued by order of our Taoiseach. The Irish remains of the ancien regime is a perfectly male world and , again, Liz O'Donnell's voice is central. The sexual abuse has never been taken seriously by the Church and now , it appears, it is not being taken seriously by the State. Or is it a gender indifference! Has the Roman Church so corrupted the so-called secular State, that only women can apprreciate the depravity of which we speak. Is it the 'Divine Feminine' , buried 1500 years ago with Sile Na Gig, that has resurrected itself in the voice of Liz O'Donnell?

I know Opus Dei and the black blood of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Republicans, will at best remain silent and at worst prepare some burinng pyre upon which to silence her. But no one in Ireland can treat the issues she has raised with indifference and with political impunity.

The Labour Party is irrelevant, because they have already set themselves the task of being more agreeably Catholic than Fianna Fail or Fine Gael. In any event their front runners are buried deep in the pockets of Opus Dei. Listen to their responses; they hide in attacking the other parties, the last refuge of blockheads when it comes to the issue between Chruch and State. The Republicans have never understood that the British were merely the second empire of occupation -- initially introduced by the Church -- the same Church upon whom the Republicans are, like Fianna Fail, so dependent. The first empire of occupation was the Churhc of Rome and Sinn Fein are afraid fo their lives of it. Don't ask Sinn Fein about guns; they do guns greatly. Ask them about 'girls' ; are they going to countenance four to six thousand Irish girls going back to bad England to get an abortion, or would they, like their Roman masters, prefer to destroy this choice in Northern Ireland as well as in England. Ask Mar Lou to comment on Liz O" Donnell's speech and then you will see Sinn Fein for wha they are, Holy Roman lackeys! And Fine Gael , who have never understood, that De Valera , in undermining their established power as Cumann na nGaedhael in the first decade of independence, did so by his appeal to Rome, especially by givng the new Bunreacht na hEireann to the Pope to draft the rules of the game for the Irish. We, the Irish people, never gave 'ourselves' any such constitution; De Valera and the Holy Romans cut the deal and then stuffed it down our necks, just as Fianna Fail did the deal with respect to taking McDowell on board for church protection.

Again Liz O'Donnell is so refreshingly rea. She actually talks about the wealth of the Church -- the same Chruch who has for decades decried materialism. When I was young I prayed for the conversion of Britain as well as the conversion of Russia. I understood that the Russians were bad 'materialists' and the British were bad becaue they had a sex life (called sleaze). But the Americans were more wealthy than anyone at the time, but , strangely there was no criticism of 'American materialism.' The Church is primarily concered with wealth, with shipping it abroad in sync with its European and International interests. That Irish is a mere satilite for the Vatican is obvious.

But will the parties comment?

in truth none of these parties, if they have any self-respect, can now ignore the words and sentiments of Liz O'Donnell. It only remains for them to vote with or against her programme for Irish reform and renewal. All Irish persons, therefore, to be honest to themselves must seek to inform themselves about the historical treachery of the Roman Church and how they have continually set the Irish at war with themselves to extend their interests, even in East Timor. Or, indeed, how they have created the most enduring of sexual and social problems with their most ridiculous theories of familial, social, and sexual life,and how they have promoted the most pious -- if ignorant -- professors and ex-nuns and ex-priests to the detriment of more talented if outspoken Irish men and women.

All parties, all interests, all concerns , are sited through the Holy Roman grid. Police, Couts, Judges, Professors, Civil Servants, Universities, schools -- sans everything that is Irish , is sifted by the Holy Romans first. They even educate the 'tgrade union movement', 'athbheochan na gaelige' , 'social workers' , the latest to fall under their hegemony was TCD and Criminology, Rathmines. Even the so-called 'left' and 'right' in Ireland fought for the Church in East Timor in exactly the same fashion as the Anglici Irish fought the Gaels for the Church and the Pict , St Patrick, between the 4th and the fourteenth centuries.

Even Parnell was not as correct in his thinking as Liz O'Donnell is. For the moment it cannot be seen -- and I am sure the corridors of power at home and abroad will close in on her -- but hers is a vision for a whole new generation. She is the hope of things to come. She is the split in everything that thinks itself to be Irish; she is a second chance to chastise the imperial Church that seeks privilege and power everywhere; that undermines the secular constitution everywhere, that subverts the honest efforts of honest and ordinary people, and whose international immorality and arrogance extends to the fact of recononising Ireland with Catholic Poles if necessary, just as they once did with Anglici, lest the Irish ever develop a critical consciousnes that is not totally responsive to them.

Where is Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail and Labour in this new type of politic? Opus Dei has them all by the short and curlies. The Fern's Report at bottom is an insult to Irish womanhood. In buryhing Sile Na Gig (the goddess of Irish love , not to mention their treatment of Parnell) the Roman Church had always abused Irish women. More particularly when they insisted that they were spiritually inferior. And their menfolk, lines and lines of Fianna Failers, Fine Gaelers, Labourites, and Sinn Feiners -- they all lined out with the dead remnants of the 'ancien regime' against their own women-folk: just as they do now!

Women like Liz O'Donnell may have to go it alone. One thing is sure , the Mary Kennys and the Catholic writers will be of no assistance -- for now the political colour has changed irreparably. We are now talking about Irish history, Irish anthropology and the sacredness of truth, not the nepotism of those investing in the 'Faith' and Holy Roman expedience.

Hereafter, it appears to me, that when one talks about either politics or the Irish , they must refer to whether they are pro-Rome or pro-O'Donnell. Those who show indifference are false. On these issues one is either a gatherer or a scaterer -- and already by their oveerwhelming silence we know what all those who have babbled for so long are. The theatre between McDowell and Ahern will wash no longer. At least we know where Bertie stands -- he stands with Woods , the Hanafins (who can't imagine Irish people cannot make up their own minds about being divorced) and Opus Dei. But where does McDowell stand? Where does Mary Harney really stand? Where do you stand?

Much of these and other wider and more historical arguments are to be had on www.irishcriminology.com.

Le meas,


Seamus Breathnach

by iosaf Sat Nov 12, 2005 23:52

don't they. Telleth us more about Kyteler.-

by iosaf Sun Nov 13, 2005 12:50

The organisers (catholic teachers and parents association) say their demonstration brought 2 million people to the streets of Madrid yesterday.
The Council says 1,524,000.
The Government says only 406,757.
Anyway you look at it, someone is telling fibs about the exact number of paid up pilgrims but its agreed there were an awful lot of them. And they didn't throw stones or get arrested. The last protest against the LOE was by leftie students and in various locations they only got 30,000 together and of course they'd probably protest against the Catholics too. Oh well, November 17th won't be that humongous, I suppose i'll join the students. Its thus not surprising that today the ZP government has for the first time since election in March 2004 come 2nd in the polls. the PP would get 42,5% against 40,1% for the PSOE. Having the Kathurlicks on your side obviously gets you votes, but many polled are upset about the "territory" thing, apparantly allowing the Catalans (not catholic) to reform their local government was the problem.

Meanwhile, the PDs forgot all about the church for their birthday party and went back to the usual
"the Shinners are plotting to take over the state so they can then overthrow the state".

Oh well, as long as Sinn Fein don't turn Catholic
everything will be ok won't it?

by iosaf Mon Nov 14, 2005 14:04

News from Irish catholic affairs first-

A 79 year old nun (licensed assistant to religious ceremonies) was mugged in derry over the weekend probably by suporters of liz o' donnell.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4434856.stm

Mr Zapatero has offered to meet with representatives of the catholics who filled Madrid to protest the ending of catholic classes in schools, and the novel idea of stopping kids who fail three subjects from automatically progressing a year.

French media is enthralled, reminding its multi-cultural readers that the Vatican has identified Spain as its number one problem state in europe. The last pope said so, and so did Joseph Ratzinger (and he's the pope now) so its pretty high level stuff.

Zapatero of course is doing his usual. You get a million people on the street, you can talk to him.
No problem. Door is always open. Unlike Aznar.
Who interestingly backed down on his reform of the LOE in his day. It is curious to see the rightwing play exactly the same kind of oppositional politics that the left did in during its turn. Get them all out on the street, wave flags, have a day out, build a movement.
Unfortuanately the movement they're building has not really changed anything other than underwear since the eucharistic congresses of the 1930s.
http://www.eitb24.com/noticia_en.php?id=104820

by Con Carroll - Class-War Mon Nov 14, 2005 15:06

the PDS were part of the secret deal between church and state in the indemnity deal in 2002.
on how to undo the damage that was done to survivors of child abuse.
Harney wasa part of cabinet sub committee.
has delicious Liz forgot about this?

by Duine Mon Nov 14, 2005 15:26

An é seo comhcheilg na gCaitliceach Rómhánach smacht domhanda a bhaint amach?

Agus shíl mé gur clár eagna a bhí anseo!

by Liberal Mon Nov 14, 2005 15:29

When have Class War ever confronted the Church? You are the only member they here. In the UK all they ever do is hold silly riots.

by iosaf Mon Nov 14, 2005 15:54

from any perspective. Tell me please. I reckon the rules have changed since Francesc Ferrer i Guardia (anarchist, mason and educationalist) http://www.laic.org/cas/index.htm confronted the Spanish church in the 1900s by setting up secular schooling, and ending up burning the churches of Barcelona in 1909 (for which they executed him). His ideas survive as does his school systems, and many other equivalents of his period (Montessori) thereafter Steiner.

& i'm pretty sure it has changed since Federica Montseny (anarchist and feminist) took a ministry in the Spanish republic and for the first time offered abortion on demand. But the RC church in Portugal can still call the results of referenda on such issues as in the last 2 months.

The RC church _when it suits it_ is a "mass" of parents and faithful supported by a heirarchy, and at other times it is a political institution of heirarchy _supported_ by parents and faithful.

How do you confront them?
nail complaints to their doors?

by Con Carroll Mon Nov 14, 2005 16:04

I am the only Cw person in Dublin
three years ago as part of survivors of child abuse in Ireland there was a demonststaion outside the Christians Brothers celebrations in the RDS.
I personally confronted Cardinal Desmond o Conell
Bishop Eammon Walsh in St Patricks cathederal
I will be called to give hearing about my expierence as a survivor to the red-ress board about complaints I have made against the Daughters of Charity. while I was in their care during the 1970s.
the institution was for children with physical disabilities.
also children whos mothers were forced to put their children into institutions because of the way Irish catholic society treated single parents during the 1960s
the hearing will be on the 29 November to the Redress board in Dublin.
I have had gardai from Fitzgibbon street call to my home because of a letter which I sent to an Taoiseach about states apology to people who are survivors of child abuse. around 2001.
does this answer your query?

by Liberal Mon Nov 14, 2005 16:34

Thats your personal business with the Church. You have reason to hate them. What are Class War as an organisation doing? Why dont they hold a riot in a church?

by pat c Mon Nov 14, 2005 18:08

Seeing as you always put off topic things on threads, I couldnt resist this little gem.



On this Day - 14 November 1927 - Leon Trotsky and Grigory Zinoviev were expelled from the Soviet Communist Party .

Red Flag

by Tomas Mon Nov 14, 2005 18:44

Best way I've seen to avoid domination in education by the RC Church.

98% of our primary schools are denominational (RC Church mostly ) but 98% of parents DO NOT want denominational education. Survery (page 35)
http://www.education.ie/servlet/blobservlet/yes_survey_report.pdf
(via AD)

A Show of Support for Educate Together

Tuesday 15th November, 6pm sharp

at Dáil Eireann, Kildare Street, Dublin 2

Please come along with candles and a petition (download here) from your school community.

We have invited An Taoiseach, Minister Hanafin and leading politicians to meet with parents and teachers from Educate Together to hear first-hand of our urgent need for increased State Funding.

* Educate Together is working with local parent-led volunteer groups to open new schools across Ireland on behalf of the State. There are now 39 Educate Together schools nationwide with demand in up to 30 further areas

* Educate Together schools are learning spaces of equality, respect and democracy. They are open to all children and are legally obliged to provide equality of access and esteem to children and their families “irrespective of social, cultural or religious backgrounds"

* As the State does not open any new schools itself, Educate Together takes on the challenge of opening schools in areas of rapid housing growth and among new communities. These are often areas where there is a chronic shortage of school places

* Educate Together works in partnership with the State and other education providers and contributes innovatively to the management of the national education system.

The website is a gold mine of the state and Church collaborating in frustrating attempts to educate chidren outside the RC Church although ET are too nice to say that.

by pat c Mon Nov 14, 2005 19:06

I thought this was the place for this article as well.
***************************
'Labor Priest' Msgr. Rice dies at 96
Monday, November 14, 2005

By Nate Guidry and Jon Schmitz, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



Msgr. Charles Owen Rice, known as Pittsburgh's "Labor Priest" for his decades of activism on behalf of working people, died yesterday at Vincentian Home in McCandless. He was 96.


Tony Tye, Post-Gazette
Msgr. Charles Owen Rice in 1996 photo.
Msgr. Rice marched on picket lines and led labor protests starting in the 1930s, joined arms with Martin Luther King in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and was an early opponent of the war in Vietnam.

His forceful and opinionated writings appeared for years in the Pittsburgh Catholic newspaper, and Bishop Donald Wuerl once joked about the volume of mail the columns generated.

A series of small strokes had left him frail in recent years, but he was able to attend a celebration of his 70th anniversary as a priest in July 2004 at St. Anne in Castle Shannon, his home church. He was given a standing ovation during the Mass, which was celebrated by Bishop Wuerl and more than 40 priests, some of whom worked with Msgr. Rice through the years.

"Msgr. Rice was a priest's priest," said the Rev. Robert Cedolia, current pastor at St. Anne. "He gave his entire life to the church. For 71 years, he was dedicated and committed to the church. He loved God and he loved people and everything he did flowed from that. Everything he did was for the good of the people."


Post-Gazette archives
John L. Lewis, president of the Committee for Industrial Organization, seen here talking with the Rev. Rice at the CIO's first constitutional convention held in Pittsburgh in November of 1938. Msgr. Rice delivered the invocation for that historic gathering.
"It's like the passing of an era," said the Rev. John Rushofsky, director of clergy personnel for the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese. "He was the oldest priest in the diocese. He really loved being a priest and enjoyed having priests around. He used to say that being a priest was the best job in the world."

Msgr. Rice was born in New York City in 1908, the son of Irish immigrants. After his mother died when he was 4, he and a brother were sent back to Ireland to be raised by his grandmother. By age 11, he returned to the States with an Irish brogue and a vocation.

He was ordained into the priesthood in 1934 following studies at Duquesne University and St. Vincent Seminary. Three years later, he helped found the St. Joseph House of Hospitality in the Hill District, a shelter that still operates under the umbrella of Catholic Charities.

He and two older clergy also organized the Catholic Radical Alliance, which later became an important adjunct of the Catholic Worker movement in America.

During World War II, Msgr. Rice was rent control director for the city of Pittsburgh. In the 1940s, he became a leader of anti-Communist forces inside the labor movement, a role about which he later expressed regret.

He marched arm in arm with Martin Luther King at the United Nations in 1967, addressed anti-war rallies in the 1960s and wrote in the Pittsburgh Catholic in 1972 that "Vietnam is a dirty and dangerous business and we have to get out."

As a young priest, he joined his first picket line at the H.J. Heinz Co. factory on the North Side during the Depression in 1937, a year that was a turning point in the movement to organize industrial workers.

His appearance at the Heinz plant along with two other priests caused an uproar. He was denounced from pulpits, particularly by clergy whose parishes had been helped by Heinz.

It also drew the attention of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, which invited him to visit a picket line in Ohio during a strike called to organize Youngstown Sheet and Tube and other "little" steel companies.


Post-Gazette archives
In 1948, the Rev. Rice, center, joined the picket line of striking American Federation of Labor restaurant employees at the Downtown Rodgers Dairy Co. stores. Here he is shown at the Wood Street store.
He is remembered as one of the few clergy in American mill towns to take the side of the union.

"I got the other two priests in my little Chevy and we hit the picket line there," Msgr. Rice wrote in one of his columns. "We all spoke, but mine was a rip-roaring, no-holds-barred denunciation of the steel magnates and the infamy of great wealth."

Once back in Pittsburgh, Msgr. Rice, by his own account, became involved in every labor struggle and every strike -- and there were many of them over the years. Some called him a publicity hound, others a great friend.

A year after Heinz, Msgr. Rice delivered the invocation at the founding convention in Pittsburgh of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, a forerunner of the AFL-CIO.

He protested steel plant shutdowns in the 1980s and joined striking workers of The Pittsburgh Press in 1992.

"He was the most important Catholic social activist in 20th-century Pittsburgh," Charles McCollester, a labor relations professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, said in 2004, at the reception honoring the 70th anniversary of Msgr. Rice's ordination. Dr. McCollester was editor of "Fighter With a Heart," a collection of Msgr. Rice's writings.

In 1998, at a celebration of his 90th birthday, Msgr. Rice said, "I've only been a parish priest and I haven't tried to be anything else, but as far as labor is concerned and the poor and the blacks, I kept the faith. I tried to help the downtrodden."

In his seven decades as a priest, Msgr. Rice was pastor of numerous churches, including St. Joseph in Natrona, Immaculate Conception in Washington, Pa., and Holy Rosary in Homewood.

In 1976, at the age of 68, he was named pastor of St. Anne, at his request. He remained a part of that parish as retired emeritus pastor up until his death, which was announced at the evening Mass at St. Anne yesterday.

Funeral arrangements were incomplete last night.

by iosaf Tue Nov 15, 2005 14:54

Like Ireland over 90% of primary schools in Spain are controlled by the RC church. & just like Ireland, the RC church in Spain doesn't offer to educate, form, condition, and prepare our children for their future lives and roles as citizens for free. Naturally, for the RC Church is not a charity. Both the Spanish and Irish states "invest" considerable amounts of tax-payers money in the support of RC schools to the detriment of secular education, often against local parents needs or wishes.

Today the PSOE government announced the novel idea of cutting the funding from the central state to that organisation, since it seems it can survive quite well enough on its own. They have also "moved to the left" saying they agree broadly with the IU (post marxists) party.

The nature of the funding agreement was made between the new democratic state of Spain and the RC church in 1979. Under the dictatorship, the RC church held a position of unrivalled power and influence much akin to the "special relationship" that operated between De Valera and Mc Quaid. The democracy (which now looks forward to next week's 20th anniversary of the death of Franco) had to negotiate a hard deal in 1979. Huge swathes of both rural and urban property have been held throughout Spanish history by the RC church, added to which must also be considered the RC "colonial and post-colonial" assets throughout the spanish speaking world. Indeed, we might reflect on the role of the RC church in supporting Franco's coup d'etat _to protect _ its own financial interests.

The rightwing RC pressure group Opus Dei (founded in Spain in 1928) has since 1979 moved to a exceptionally favoured position in the RC church (as some people believe) for bailing it out of several near bankruptcy problems associated with the "god's bankers woes" of the 1980s. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1575898,00.html They have copperfastened control of key financial institutes and places of higher education in business studies, in the last 6 years in Spain. So it is quite apparant that the RC church does not lack "business acumen".

I rather hope other states such as Ireland will follow the example of the Spanish Socialist goverment and examine the exact relationship between State and church. a relationship which begins with $ then has € and finally an "X" for baby jesus. Are tax-payers getting value for money? Could our children not be educated in a better way at same or less cost?

by Con Carroll - Class-war Tue Nov 15, 2005 15:02

Liberal
don't take this personal,
I love people who sit in comfort of arm chairs
who tell us what should be done
asking why Class-war don't have a riot in a church,
is off the wall to me.
people have confronted Cardinal Desmond o Connell about how he treated survivors of child abuse. I was not involved.
I would have no problem with the action of ACT_UP in Newyork when they protested against a cardinal celebrating mass over the church homophobia and their attitude to people living with HIV/AIDS. during the 80s
as I recall a number of people were arrested
Bishop Diarmuid Martin will be celebrating mass in the pro-cathederal Christmas eve
Liberal feel free to protest.

by Atheist Wed Nov 16, 2005 14:34

what ya reckon Con?

100 persons protested outside the archbishop's residence in support of a priest victimised for trying to highlight abuse.

Or are the priests still hiding their knowledge of child abuse behind canon law, inquiries and hierachy.

by iosaf Wed Nov 16, 2005 21:36

Today the RC church replied to the vice premier's suggestion to review state contributions to them. & claimed to save the state upwards of 3billion€ a year. I've been going through the figures. I've gone through the figures because I believe we may all learn something from any such "conflict". Before I outline them as published in today's spanish right wing and notably "catholic" daily "La Razon", i'd like to mention one item which they have only passingly referred to.
Their responsibility in caring for 80% of the "heritage" of Spain. You see, all those cathedrals and old churches and monastries have a certain cultural value. Such a high value that many of those sites have been declared UN sites of world heritage.
The situation in Ireland is a tad different. You need only look at Dublin's cathedral question and what Merrion Square's passage on "ownership" from RC church to Office of Public Works means. That same "lack" of heritage buildings is reflected in both Finbars of Cork, Canis in Kilkenny, etc.., No-one is going to argue that either Galway rc cathedral or Ferns "cathedra church" is in the same league for "national and international heritage value". They're more on the level of the Tara M50.
I thus tend to think of the "heritage" of the RC church in spain in pretty much the same way I think of it Ireland. Directly connected to the historical power balance. I see no evidence that the RC church has really ever taken an interest (other than the mass thing) in the property they maintain.
Of course until many kathurlicks and non-kathurlicks protested, when Barcelona's cathedral allowed the scaffolding over its door and facade (for restoration work) to be used for advertising space. It does raise questions does it not? Just like the funerals the hypocrites get and the lack of "serious options" for people who aren't their fans. I'd like to remind everyone of the reaction when in May 2004 for Trinity sunday we occupied that cathedral with migrants (mostly muslim) and how church and police acted in the following hours to remove muslims from morning mass. There's a good movie i'll bring it to ireland some time.
Anyway - would the state make a better job of polishing the stone and replacing the broken windows? Would tourist income increase if there were no masses or sinister godfather's counting the holy communions?

Spanish Catholics claim they save the state a fortune in educating the kids, feeding the junkies, housing the homeless, staffing the hospitals and recruiting for third world charity organisations or disaster relief projects. And today at the news kiosk i really was taken aback at the recent flurry of new "catholic" [we don't all think alike!!!] publications.

I'm convinced.

Now, I'd like to see them give up "the heritage" all that really heavy baggage of useless stone work.
In Ireland we could sell them like everything else, and maybe that would pay for new schools with proper playgrounds. so the RC people can make a better job of the things they're really good at. Like saying "sliothar"

by iosaf Thu Nov 17, 2005 14:15

Well in Spain today the focus of :+: has gone to other spanish speaking states that have been having difficulty with the RC church. Argentina's RC woes have been building for the last 2 years. Ratzinger's list of "problem states" puts Spain number 1 in europe, and Argentina number 1 in South America just followed by Brazil. Think about that for a moment, they've given up on other states such as Venezuela or France which boast majority catholic populations. "Catholic" with a little "c". But Argentina and Spain are still worth the fight for "Catholic" with big "C".
I admit this used fascinate me as a child. As Irish people we all know our "Catholicism" was writ with big "C". No-one else in Europe (apart from Franco)
really managed to clock up the indulgences, please the Pope, & fight the heathens like we did. I was fascinated becuase I used wonder "did english catholics have to try harder?"

Anyway - my last little thought for ye is this-

The RC church is proud of its contribution as a social organisation to - drug relief projects, old age pensioner housing, hospitals, charity work, schooling and all the rest. Yet despite thousands of years activity on these areas, they haven't made any progress. Why is this?
Could it be that they are so terribly bad at schooling that they have never properly prepared people to live a good life with true social awareness and charitably concern and not see a marginalised minority living in poverty, addicted to drugs, ageing alone and poor, or an economic system that allows millions to live in exploited misery in the 3rd world?

Its rather like, RC with capital letters have a go at "leftwing" regimes then when challenged stop being "RC" and suddenly go "rc" social conscience trocaire concern. and talk about their "democratic worth" despite quite obviously never having supported democratic society.

Let us be frank! We would have a better chance of solving social problems without the monoliths of State & Church. IN any conflict between the two we see what is best and worst of both estate, and must remember that social liberation, autonomy of the individual and an end to global misery has not been achieved by either. For both have always believed in "conserving" the system within "national borders" that underscore the inequalities of manking.

Today thousands of students have marched against the bologna process and the privitisation of education in Catalonia, http://www.vilaweb.com/www/noticia?p_idcmp=1616889 Spain and the EU. against both "church" & "state".

Neither Pope nor Managing Director.
Education is a right.

by dulamhan Thu Nov 17, 2005 23:16

will this make up for the mugged nun in Derry?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4446720.stm

by ipsi Sat Nov 19, 2005 15:37

Thursday 17th of november saw thousands of students protest against the LOE as proposed by ZP and the Bologna process which effects all students in the EU.

But they were on the left, I don't know if they're catholic or kathurlick, I suppose some are bit bolshy, and others maybe not. I do know that in the main they were Catalan or Catalanish. Thats why they carried all those little catalan flags and speak the language like natives. And because of the recent developments and stuff in that little land, with its autonomy debate and home rule, this time it was the Catalan police who did the security. Whereas before it was the forces of occupation "policia español".

So what was their first day like? Are the national police better than the other national police?
Its only a week away from the Euro-mediterranean summit will see 35 states assemble in Barcelona to discuss the 10th anniversary of the Barcelona process. What can activists expect?

Today's middle of the road to right wing paper devoted an editorial to discussing the first street order work of the "mossos d'esquardra". It seems that after all those years of facing the other bastards, the home grown bastards are worse.

There's something universal in that.

anyway photos of the thier demo are here-
http://barcelona.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/216263

Over 40 students were arrested and made kneel Iraq style at the kerb for a very long time, for not protesting the Spanish government like Catholics.

by seamus breathnach Tue Nov 22, 2005 13:51 sbreathnach at eircom dot net Dartry, Dublin (01) 4060484

You ask a most intereting question and I have already submitted an answer to this quesiton; but I feel it has beend edited out. Please contact me privately and I shall give you the full response. I wish to protest agasint any editing of my submissions; but knowning that it is Irish, one must be susupicious, particularlly when the directors are hidden behind a lot of jargon.

Failing that, have a look at www.irishcriminology.com

Trust me there is a way of confronting the largest empire in the world -- and do not be too surprised if things have not changed thatn much in Spain. Franco may be dead but Opus Dei is fully active, wealthy beyond anyone's imagination, and I wish that Da Vinci had not taken from the real conspiracy with a less real one.

By the way, the RC church still burns heretics -- which, these days, means and anyone who gets sight of her ugliness.


Seamus Breathnach

by Ex-catholic Tue Nov 22, 2005 15:18

When and where was the last occasion re "the RC church still burns heretics"?
You really do need to back up these assertions.

by seamus breathnach Wed Nov 23, 2005 01:20 sbreathnach at eircom dot net (01) 4060484

When you can come to terms with yourself and get enough courage to identify yourself with your full Christian name and Surname, I will be more inclined to take you seriously. But in case you are simply a gangly and callow youth who is afraid of his own image (rather than another secret member of a secret Church organisation who likes to call him self ex-something or other but who is actually ferretting out Irish heretics), I should say that these days the burning is figurative.

Of course by 'burning' is meant the modern interpretation of what the Church did to all those who differered with them in antiquity, beginning in Ireland with the first known patriot, Adam Dubh O Tuathail ,whom they actually burned at the stake in 1328 for saying precisely what Liz O' Donnell has said. And over the centuries the RC Church burned and killed others in countless numbers and even employed the emerging secular states to execute people for Crime Against the Faith (which preceded Crimes Agaisnt the State).

It was only with the Reformation and the emergence of the 'Irish' -- when, indeed, the Gaelic were utterly destroyed -- that the Church began to tun on the English. The real crime of the English in Irish eyes was a cultural one. Having had Real Roman history, they had the strength of mind and culture to withstand the Holy Romans. But since the Irish had been sold to the English at a critical time in their history by the Pope, their chances of realising High Kingship was crushed utterly, since when Norman England got stronger and stronger with the Pope's help, while the hapless Irish got weaker and weaker.

The English-speaking Irish, being the bastard middle nation of Catholic conquistadores, never had that kind of stamina. They could never rise above the superstitions of the Mediteranean Myth. Moreover, the conflict between Britain and Ireland had been begun and maintained by the Pope and the Christian Churches, as part of the agenda of the general thrust of the Christian Conquest . And that was the case since the first Crusades to the Northern Irish Peach Agreement ,when Christian Anglo-America reminded Sinn Fein/IRA that they were after all Christian, and that in the light the tenth Crusade against Islam (begun in East Timor), they should lay down their arms.

The killing of the native Irishmen , whether in the middle ages or right up to the murder of Garda Gerry MacCabe (not to mention countless others in Northern Ireland) was done by the Christian Church , their servants or agents, whether those servants or agents were called Knights or Normans in the middle ages or Fenians , Sinn Fein, or Fianna Fail, etc. in more recent times.

To prove it in the middle ages the Pope (Adrian IV) actually sold the Irish (Gaelic and all) to the English for a shilling a household . Get your mitts on a copy of Laudabiliter and you can read it for yourself. And to prove it in modern times , all one need do is study what Fianna Fail did with the Irish Constitution which is comicly described as a constitution which the Irish people gave to themselves.

The Catholic Encyclopaedia actually admits the existence of Laudabiliter these days, and Fianna Fail have hired someone to tell them about their history, lest they forget what they did, do, or are about to do.

So you can imagine the status of the Irish in Holy Roman eyes in the middle ages, just -- perhaps -- by a reading of the Fern's Report you can see what they mean in current parlance. If you are still not sure, you might recall that the Irish , government-led are the only people on earth barbarous enough to subscribe by way of their taxes to defray the costs and damages accruing to the biggest clerical pedophile ring in the world.

Moreover, in every negotiation between the Irish and the Reformed English the Church betrayed the Irish (the Presbyterians before 1800, the Young Irelanders in 1848, the Fenians in 1867, Parnell and the Land League when Parnell was Ireland's uncrowned king, and they marked their triumph over the vallant 1916 men in 1932, by which time they earmarked Dev as the one who could look after their interest best in the Free State and the Republic.) There isn't a blade of grass that they don't own. Ireland, as I understand it, is the property in fee simple of the Vatican. I don't know anyone of any intelligence -- except Sinn Fein -- who , on serious reflection, denies it.

So, who does the Church burn these days?

Well, there is a Fern's Report , which among other things, delineates the terrible powers of the Bishops over the Irish people. Were it not for a couple of English people, Bishop Comiskey would still be telling Harry Potter tales about doing God's work.

So, there is all those innocents, who , figuratively, metaphorically, the church burned. But more than those, there are generations upon generations of Catholic children who were persecuted in all those 3 to 4 thouseand schools that Bertie Ahern referred to. How did they get so much property, you might well ask, and did they manage to bully and beat every irish child since the nineteenth century?

Who else gets burned by the heretic-hunters?

Anyone who stands up against them?

One might mention James Joyce, Parnell, Peter Lennon, Dermot Morgan, Edna O Brien (all those whose livelihoods were written of by Catholic censors), 50,000 Southern Protestants, John Mc Gahern (and he didn't even differ with them), Gerry Fitt, and , if you keep your eyes open, you may even catch them burning Liz O' Donnell.

Now, the question arises: who shall protect her?

This question is easily answered if one remembers that all political parties in the Republic of Ireland are defined by their social distance from , and their deserts in respect of, Holy Roman favour. This should not alarm the pusillanimous; for if recently one observed how the Church interfered pro-actively in the American political system to favour George Bushe and destroy John Kerry's chances, they will also recall that John Kerry was a thinking Catholic who dared differ with his Church. he also came from Massachussetts -- a place which needed to be punished because they relentless sought out Bishop Law for telling them porkies and putting their children at risk. One might also recall the Pope' s visit to Germany, where like George Bush Ms Merkell came in to prominence with the slightest margin. The once Hitlerjugend timed his visit well, and if it was only coincidental that the Pope agreed with Ms Merkel's policies on keeping the Turks out of Europe, it was important in the German election. That these matters are never critically examined in Ireland is part and parcel of Ireland's wonderful charm. It is called superstition and ignorance.

So, who will fly to aid Liz O'Donnell if and when the Chruch are pressurised to actuall make an audit of their national and international wealth in Ireland?

It won't be Fianna Fail. They gave away our constitution and ran like a herd into the ranks Opus Dei. It is here , between the network of UCD and the Bench-and-Bar Library that all the secrets are cross-referenced. Fianna Failers are in the happy and rather wealthy position that they can't distinguish which club comes first, the Opus or the Fianna. As Bertie in a round-about-manner admits: "I didn't get where I am today without ringing All Hallows'. Neither, for that matter, did Dev or any other Taoiseach.

Do you think ,then, that Sinn Fein, the runt in the Church's political creations, will protect her? So dependent are they upon the Bishops and their Catholic and anti-Protestant votes , that they can't even bring themselves to mention the Church, abortion, East Timor, or , family planning, lest everyone realise that they , too, speak with forked pulpit-tongue.

And what about Labour? Their front bench is so closely alligned with Holy Roman matters, that their main political inspiration is to prove to the Chruch that they are as safe as Fianna Fail ever was.

So, where do you think Liz O'Donnell can go, when every power in Irish society is already armed against her. Some can't even express their name, lest they be identified!

If the circumstances of this connection has not struck you as ridiculous -- but strangely not unlike the confessional -- where you cannot identify yourself , yet you want me to talk literally so you can understand what is being said. To enlighten you about comments aimed at revolutionising Irish society, one has to talk into the void!

Which of us is the more contemptible,do you think?

Seamus Breathnach

by iosaf Wed Nov 23, 2005 01:29

obviously it has touched you. But the title, like much that I "write" on various internet spaces meant something more than you may so far have understood.
Take for example that little ":+:" thing.
What is it? colon-plus-colon?
or a litte cross in a square?
am I blessed and besainted Aquinas?
Anyway, I have the awful feeling that Seamus has confused the penultimate commentator with myself.
And my name is jewish btw.
and the other is gaelic.

on with the parley...
I take it we'll be organising million strong marches against poverty and the roman catholic church for the G8 in Russia in 2006.

Its ok they make cheap bracelets in russia.