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time you grew up and realised films are "pretend"

 

Oh dear, patfitzbally … perhaps not the most clear-headed and sober reaction …

 

As you say, the world of film can truly be "pretend" - but the actual reality of this child-abuse case is - not the film -but the law-court in Boston MASS which awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to local victims of priest-paedophilia - and the diocese had to pay up. Cardinal Law meanwhile, the arch-denier, got his promotion to Rome …

 

No smoke without fire, eh ? Especially when the flames are hundreds of millions of RC dollars burning up to Heaven … The law is the law, not The Law is The Law … if you see what I mean. So just who was doing the pretending in Boston MASS in 2002 ?

 

In the same way, the De La Salle order has just lost its final appeal in the UK Supreme Court and now has to find £7 million to compensate child victims of its abuse. The law is the law and is not easily hoodwinked. Even here. Unless they are pretending in this case as well, of course …

 

Last year, the United Nations published a big report detailing massive RC child abuse worldwide. Do you think they have got it wrong, too ? Do you think the UN is pretending ?

 

I suggest you go and see the film SPOTLIGHT and try to work out for yourself who is more important : the priests or the abused kids. And please do remember : not everything you learnt way back from somebody in a black cassock is necessarily true or useful or permanent …

 

And please be aware that I come from a rough-ar**d Sheffield background just as tough as yours … But I try to think for myself, some of the time …

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Is there to be no end to it all … ? To all this revelation and exposure and calling to account … ?

 

Now it's the turn of Pope JPII's reputation to be measured against the facts.

 

As we have all been hearing and reading recently, JPII's letters to the love of his life, Professor Anna Teresa, a married woman, have now actually been bought and sold for public scrutiny - and have been put on show for us all by that doughty Catholic journalist (freelance at the BBC) Ed Stoughton. World rights can't be far behind, can they ?

 

At a time in his career when he needed every second of time and every ounce of energy he could find (fighting Communism in Poland, heading the Papacy and The Church itself etc etc etc), we find that JPII devotes endless time and fine passion to writing to the woman of his life. And to secret meetings with her in several locations.

 

As they say, there is no suggestion that the two of them ever were real lovers - but I was brought up by JPII's Church to observe as moral fact that the impure thought was just as damning as the actual impure deed itself. As even President Jimmy Carter once admitted about a woman he thought beautiful : "I have sinned in my heart …" In my own impressionable young days, I fully expected to be damned by my (entirely natural) impure thoughts and was expected to make full confession of them to a priest.

 

So I now find it a bit difficult to be sympathetic to the double standards involved here with JPII.

 

On the one hand, JPII was one of the most morally harsh, unbending and uncompromising Popes ever - and on the other, in his secret life, he gets up to Professor Maria Teresa … Her letters to him, by the way, she sold to the Polish National Archive where they presumably reside until a big enough bidder comes along. We can now expect a publishing bidders' war - there's millions in it …

 

And as the baffled and confused moral dependants of the RCC, we do need the full story - don't we ?

 

The thing that really pigs me off is this vision I keep having of millions of gawping, shocked, incredulous Catholics scrabbling and scratching for excuses and justifications for despicable, hypocritical behaviour - just like the Cardinal Law case in Boston MASS …

 

Let's all just remember that the RCC is fundamentally a human and fallible, sometimes even criminal institution, that presents itself and convinces itself that it is divine and so untouchable by the mere prayer-fodder who sustain it …

 

If you have the stomach for any more RCC scandal, buy yourself (or see at your local library) the latest edition of the London Review of Books - which details unstoppably the gross financial (and other) shenanigans within the Vatican …

 

God in Heaven … !!

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Faith schools are a blot on the landscape.

They create a separatism that prevails throughout life no matter how much people deny it.

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Faith schools are a blot on the landscape.

They create a separatism that prevails throughout life no matter how much people deny it.

 

From my own perspective, Catholic St Joseph's school, Catholic De La Salle never gave me any feeling of separation whatsoever. Probably because most of my friends outside school were Church of England.

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From my own perspective, Catholic St Joseph's school, Catholic De La Salle never gave me any feeling of separation whatsoever. Probably because most of my friends outside school were Church of England.

I agree with you, it wasn't my fault that my Mother converted to Catholocism

and like you every friend or relative I ever had was C of E,or no religion at all. By the way was it St Joseph's at Handsworth you attended? if so, in what time frame did you go there?

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I agree with you, it wasn't my fault that my Mother converted to Catholocism

and like you every friend or relative I ever had was C of E,or no religion at all. By the way was it St Joseph's at Handsworth you attended? if so, in what time frame did you go there?

Hi Tony that's a coincidence as my mother converted from anglo catholicism to catholicism, upon marrying my father.

Also by coincidence, I started at St J's Handsworth infants and junior up to the age of 9 and left in March 1964 when mum and dad moved to Walkley. Then went to St J's Walkley until going to De La Salle in 1966.

The old friends I had at Handsworth I met again at De La Salle: David Battams, Geoffrey Oldfield, Jimmy Phelan.

Also a further coincidence, I started a new job here in Handsworth 2005 and found the secretary had gone to St J's handsworth 10 years before me and knew the teachers! Hope you're enjoying it in Toronto!

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Hello ValleyHill,

Spotted the De La Salle posts. I was never a DLS scholar but was friendly with one whose always stayed in my mind.

In 1949 -50, we had a local football team which played in Concord Park, Shiregreen. Our goal keeper was a De La Salle scholar of unusual ability; his agility and strength was exceptional. He was more hirsuit than the rest of us and of stocky strong build. He was Peter Sievewright - his deep thick eyebrows actually met in the middle. A lively likeable lad who was never down-hearted. His goal keeping was spectacular and never afraid to get down among the boots.

 

We nicknamed him Tiger, after Alexei 'Tiger' Khomich, the acrobatic Moscow Dynamo goalie who toured with the Russian club in the 40's and 50's.

 

I could be wrong, but I have a feeling that Peter joined the Royal Navy. Someone must remember him somewhere, he was a lively unforgettable character. In one match in Longley Park, I was left back (whatever happened to them) and was defending the goal line because Peter had gone out to halt an attack.

 

As I was heading a shot at goal off the goal -line, Peter re-appeared and performed a diving punch which hit me in the side of the head instead of the ball. He was generous in his sympathy but couldn't resist stifled laughter as I was being doused with the magic sponge to restore my concsiousness. I actually apologised to him for getting in his way. He then winded me by giving me a friendly but hearty slap in the back as a thank you. I never shook hands with him in consideration of my fingers. A very likable young man so long as one kept him at arms length, his expressions of friendliness could be quite debilitating. I liked him a lot. He lived on or near Bellhouse Road Shiregreen just above St James and St Christophers .

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Hi Tony that's a coincidence as my mother converted from anglo catholicism to catholicism, upon marrying my father.

Also by coincidence, I started at St J's Handsworth infants and junior up to the age of 9 and left in March 1964 when mum and dad moved to Walkley. Then went to St J's Walkley until going to De La Salle in 1966.

The old friends I had at Handsworth I met again at De La Salle: David Battams, Geoffrey Oldfield, Jimmy Phelan.

Also a further coincidence, I started a new job here in Handsworth 2005 and found the secretary had gone to St J's handsworth 10 years before me and knew the teachers! Hope you're enjoying it in Toronto!

 

Well I was 10 years before you, I started at De La Salle in 1956, but all my junior schooling was at St, Joseph's in Handsworth as it was the nearest Catholic school to Catcliffe, where I lived. I suppose the teachers had probably changed when you went there. I remember Mr Snell, the only male teacher there, Miss Higgins, Miss Clapham and a Miss Riley. Incidentally, do you know if Jimmy Phelan had an older brother called Paul, who I remember from St Jo's., he didn't go to DLS though. Anyway nice talking to you, all the best:)

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Well I was 10 years before you, I started at De La Salle in 1956, but all my junior schooling was at St, Joseph's in Handsworth as it was the nearest Catholic school to Catcliffe, where I lived. I suppose the teachers had probably changed when you went there. I remember Mr Snell, the only male teacher there, Miss Higgins, Miss Clapham and a Miss Riley. Incidentally, do you know if Jimmy Phelan had an older brother called Paul, who I remember from St Jo's., he didn't go to DLS though. Anyway nice talking to you, all the best:)

Well the teachers were still the same when I was there! Miss Riley was the nicest one of all, Miss Higgins took J4 and I left before that. As you were 10 years before me, you might know Teresa Staniland, our secretary who retired a couple of years ago. She ws 10 years older than me and went to St. Jo's and later to Notre Dame.

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Well the teachers were still the same when I was there! Miss Riley was the nicest one of all, Miss Higgins took J4 and I left before that. As you were 10 years before me, you might know Teresa Staniland, our secretary who retired a couple of years ago. She ws 10 years older than me and went to St. Jo's and later to Notre Dame.

 

I don't recall Teresa Staniland, but remember a Michael Staniland, who could have possibly been her brother. If she was a year ahead or a year behind I probably would not have known her as I can remember a lot of names from my year but very few, if any, from other years. Incidentally, I still have a class photo from my early years at St Jo's with Miss Clapham standing at one end and Miss Riley at the other end.

Edited by TORONTONY

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