The culture of respect for religion has gone too far

The culture of respect for religion has gone too far | Polly Toynbee

Ireland’s confrontation with its dark past shines a searchlight on Catholicism. But all religions can be havens for abusers

The pope has flown home after a roughing-up in Ireland. Just a few years ago it was unimaginable that a gay taoiseach would dare berate a visiting pontiff face-to-face about the “dark aspects” of Ireland’s history and “brutal crimes perpetrated by people within the Catholic church”.

Leo Varadkar’s magnificent assault eviscerated his country’s past cultural capture by the church. “The failures of both church and state and wider society created a bitter and broken heritage for so many, leaving a legacy of pain and suffering,” he said. “It is a history of sorrow and shame.” The sorrow is not just for victims of monstrous priestly abuse, but the abuse of an entire society in thrall to clerical oppression: lives crimped, warped and blighted, no escape from the church’s domination of everything. The best Irish literature breathes that pernicious incense.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2wjRKSx

Comments

REPORT: Furious Spike Lee Paces Aisle, Turns Back To Stage...

REPORT: Furious Spike Lee Paces Aisle, Turns Back To Stage... (Top headline, 5th story, link ) Related stories: REVIEW: Hostless Show Starts With Rock & Rolls Off Rails... Actor knocks borders, walls during speech in Spanish... Stage designed to look like Trump hair? 'GREEN BOOK' OVERCOMES BACKLASH, NABS BEST PICTURE... Top Critics Fume... LIST: WINNERS... Advertise here from Drudge Report Feed https://ift.tt/2SUpIKy

Tiny Love Stories: ‘Who Was I to Deprive Him of Joy?’

By Unknown Author from NYT Style https://ift.tt/2UV7YAG

The Ugly History of Dual-Loyalty Charges

When Representative Ilhan Omar recently complained about “the political influence in this country that says it is okay to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” many noted accurately that she had deployed a trope—dual loyalty—that had been used against Jews for years. But this accusation has a broader history in the United States, having been used against several religious minorities—including Muslims like Omar. Indeed, many battles over religious freedom have revolved around dual-loyalty claims. [ Read: Ilhan Omar just made it harder to have a nuanced debate about Israel ] In the 19th century, many attacks on Catholics stressed that these immigrants were pawns of a foreign power. In the 1830s, Samuel Morse—then a prominent painter and later the inventor of the telegraph—urged Americans to build “walls” and “gates” to keep out Catholic immigrants, who would always be loyal to Rome. Because these Catholic immigrants were decrepit —“halt, and blind, and naked”—they were easy to co...

KnightViral

Search This Blog