Showing posts with label catholic church. Show all posts
Showing posts with label catholic church. Show all posts

When Institutions seek to protect themselves, rather than protect the most vulnerable - the pattern we must confront.

A letter I wrote and sent to various media and political representatives.

"I write as a Survivor. 




In recent articles covering The Catholic Church, the careful host of innumerable predatory clerics, and the case of Ms. Lethby, the serial killer of babies within an NHS setting, the same pattern emerges - an institution seeks to protect it's reputation and status when atrocious abuse is disclosed, the abusers continue to gain access to the most vulnerable and cause more intolerable harm.  When they are eventually stopped, it is already too late.

Avoidable harms to the most vulnerable are not avoided in order to avoid perceived harms to one's public reputation. This is a pattern, a behavioural characteristic, a cultural dynamic.

"The psychology of any given culture or society is both revealed and perpetuated in how they relate to and treat the most vulnerable among them."

The primary task of healthy social management is to prevent harm and to increase safety in any organisation.

From Austerity to Catholic Institutions, from NHS management to the managers of the London Met, from the way Fossil Fuel Industry has masked awareness of what continued use of fossil fuels was long proven to cause, and then how each of these devoted vast PR resources to campaigns of denial and propaganda to deflect responsibility and evade accountability in order to enable continuation of their operations, we see this pattern and the vast harm it causes.

This goes well beyond the 'few bad apples' trope, another careful and often used line of defence. This is clearly a question of unhealthy social management.

Is it not time we turned and faced this problem, this pattern of behaviour, as a cultural and institutional matter of the utmost importance?  

How do we change the psychology of a culture where those who occupy positions of distal power seek to protect their power and in so doing the evade their duty of care to the most vulnerable, leading to more harm rather than more safety? 

Well, the first step is to publicly recognise the pattern, to be open and honest about how wide and deep it penetrates our Society, with a view to breaking that pattern. 


Kindest regards

Corneilius

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Letter : The Catholic Church, Transparency, Humility and Justice

Letter : The Catholic Church, Transparency, Humility and Justice



To the Editor

The independent Inquiry into Catholic Cleric Abuse behaviour in France has shocked that nation, with estimates of between 241,000 and 330,000 children attacked between 1950 and 2020. 

Most Survivors in those other countries where similar inquiries have taken place could see this coming a mile off. With each inquiry more is revealed.  With each, there is still more to be revealed.

30 years of exposure and even still, the Catholic Church, and others - and there are many other settings where sexual attacks upon children have been and still are being perpetrated - have not come clean. 

These powerful institutions have not offered total transparency, and they continue to defend and litigate against Survivors - what would Jesus do?  

Would He urge fullest possible transparency and humble honesty as a key element in both accountability and prevention? 

Such a move need not be humiliating for The Catholic Church - rather it would be a liberation from its own internal tyranny to do justice for all the Survivors, the living and the deceased.

What would be a truly just accounting, and what would a truly wise and healthy outcome look like?

How would Jesus approach the Survivors? How would Jesus end this story? 

Yours sincerely



Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

https://patreon.com/corneilius - donations gratefully received

https://www.reverbnation.com/corneilius - .mp3 songs

https://www.soundcloud.com/coreluminous - .wav Songs

https://www.corneilius.net - Archive

#folkmusic
#singersongwriter
#blogger
#music

Survivors Insights ignored by The Church and The State

Again and again we see that Survivors insights and experience, and thus their real needs, are to a large degree sidelined as both Government and The Church craft 'responses' to the situation.

We are invited to make representations, we are to a degree
consulted, yet in the finalised outcomes the decisions made are from the point of view of Government and The Church and how they wish to frame their liabilities, and the consultation appears to be a matter of form, rather than substance.

In recent days we have had the completion of the 
review by the United Nations Committee for the Rights of the Child in Geneva of The Vatican's response to the world wide child abuse issue within it's own institutions, and the announcement of  the Irish Catholic Church's 'Towards Peace' support service.

The
United Nations Committee for the Rights of the Child has criticised the Vatican for it's actions to the present date, and as yet has to issue further comments and determine further action.

Eyewitness accounts and the transcripts will show that The Vatican has not altered it's course and is maintaining a strategic approach to the 'problem', rather than being open, honest, vulnerable and seeking a just resolution for all concerned.

The 'Towards Peace' support service has been launched without the detailed input of survivors, which had been promised. However what is true of the Vatican is also true of The Irish Catholic Church. Their approach is strategic, rather than open and honest.

In Australia, there is
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse which has been working since early April 2013, and is continuing as I write. In this inquiry over 5000 survivors gave evidence, as did the Church and other bodies... One of the targets of this Inquiry is the "Towards Healing" process crafted under the aegis of Archbishop Pell in Melbourne, for whom Tony Abbot has recently issued statements of support.

And yet again, at this level of Inquiry, we see the same 'strategic' approach from the Australian Catholic Church, although with the evidence of 5000 people to counter it, it will take some assistance from the Abbot Government to 'help' the Church 'manage' this situation.

"To date evidence showed the process failed some abuse victims who found it as traumatic as the original abuse because of the legalistic approach taken by the church.

Towards Healing will be the subject of several case studies by the commission which will hold public hearings in Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia as well as in NSW before June this year"
source: http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/national/child-abuse-inquiry-reopens-in-sydney/story-fnjbnvyj-1226805484854


This same approach, that of acknowledging abuse only when Survviors come forward into the public domain, and then 'managing' the response to protect the status and image of both Church and State has been seen in every case where Survivors have come forward.


Across the world, both The State and it's institutions and The Church and it's institutions  are obviously concerned about their roles in the abuse, the cover-ups and mismanagement of investigations, and understand that they have a liability that can be expanded if they are 100% honest and they seek to reduce or minimise that liability.

Whilst this is to be expected and is indeed standard corporate practice, it remains the fact that it is moral cowardice, and that Survivors lives are impacted by this management approach. It is also true that this impacts not only the Survivor, but their families and the wider society, as well as doing little to protect children, and other vulnerable people, from future abuses.


It also is a misunderstanding of the intent of the vast majority of Survivors, whose aim is to a) have the truth told and understood b) prevent further abuses (and the 'management' of exposure of abuse) c) regain some degree of healing in our own lives, and in the life of the community, the State and The Church.

We Survivors are gifting the world with our concern, our stories. The changes we represent can only increase nurturing in our Society. That's the fullest truth here.

It's long past the time that all this was recognised and responded to accordingly, not only by Government and The Church, but by society at large, by the people who sit in pews and pray and by all parents and caring people.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

Charity, Power, truth and Jimmy Saville

I appreciate the genuine desire of so many people to 'help others' through the agency of Charity.

And yet, to offer such temporary and often distal help rather than directly and with energy move to confront the actual causes of poverty, (and all the various other areas of need labelled as 'good causes' - note the use of the word cause in this which avoids the actual cause.... how ironic!), to chose  to avoid a head on collision with the truth, in order to look and feel good, rather than to resolve the issues to the greatest degree possible when we as a community and society are very much capable of doing this, (we can send a robot to Mars, design nano-computers that can be ingested, build massive international events such as The Olympics, etc), to avoid that defining human and essentially humane task, out of fear of changing the status quo, losing a job, or for any other 'reason', feels, in my heart of hearts, like a betrayal.


Charity is, to a much larger degree than most will openly acknowledge,  the guilt sop of the middle classes, and the propaganda of the ruling classes. For the lower income classes, charity always begins at home.

The Jimmy Saville story illustrates this quite well, amongst other things.
 
He was famous, feted by Power and Royalty, a TV star to millions of middle class folk, and when allegations were made during his tenure in that elevated position, they were played down, ignored or rejected because of his fame, because of his utility as a charitable agent, and his public profile as a man of good works. His 'oddness' was always besides the point.

At present, the media discussion is about the perpetrator, his accomplices, 'others', the 'enablers', and the restoration of the reputation of the BBC rather than the stories of the Survivors, and how such trauma has affected their lived experience throughout their lives, including how it has affected their families and relationships, and how those adverse affects play out in our communities.

People appear bewildered that "someone who did so much good, could be so evil."

To tell the story of what it really means to be a Survivor in this Society would be to begin to explore from a much deeper base the development of a truly profound critical analysis of our Society.

There is an unwillingness to look honestly at the many ways by which natural human empathy (not sympathy, a totally different thing) has been sidelined and effectively repressed across all sectors of Governance, Commerce and Religion, locally, nationally and internationally, as evidenced by the consistent disbelief of Survivors stories.

What kind of Society would ignore a child's plea for help? What kind of Society would protect it's image of itself in ways that permit harm to children?

Can one really be alive and fully human in a Society such as ours, working on the basis of 'this is the best of a bad lot' whilst refusing to confront and change what is harmful within it, when we know this is possible?

What kind of family would behave thus?

The blood, sweat, guts and tears of those who are oppressed, harmed or abused are hurriedly airbrushed out of the Politicians (and others) calls for change. They will not spend time reflecting on these uncomfortable realities; to FEEL THE FULL IMPACT of which would undermine that image of the status quo. That is utterly selfish, mean and cruel - even if it is not always entirely intentional.
Someone posed this statement/question : "We will also not confront the difficulty of Saville as a victim.... and what caused him to perpetuate such harm....What has happened to people for them to be so? Where have we as a Society gone wrong?"

This is the central question in the Jimmy Saville case, and is mirrored in countless ways by the actions of State leaders who engage in war, and how their actions are 'justified' by media and Offices of State, is mirrored by The Vatican (Worldwide Clerical Abuse, The Inquisition, )and Anglican Churches (Indian Boarding Schools in Canada and USA) and beyond.

 
This is crucial: for unless we examine the genesis of abuse, we will not prevent it.....

Of course, we must hold the adult who harms others 100% accountable, and yet at the same time we need to look to see how the child became such an adult, and seek to ensure that we fully understand that and then alter all of that within our Society that breeds such psychopathy. Resolution is the only long term path worth taking.

The mistreated infant most often loses touch with his or her true self - suppressing the truth of his or her felt experience - in order to adapt to the mistreating situation, and this leads to a loss of empathy for others.

This then lends itself to the creation a sense of disconnection from others, from those who ought to be nurturing the child, and from all of that which nurtures us in life, and this sense of disconnection has a fear associated with it which compounds the fear and
trauma of the original mistreatment and leads to a strengthening desire to control others (or oneself) to get perceived needs met. Perceived needs are often distorted, A natural organism will resist such control, and it is here that violence is 'utilised', to enforce the control. Abusers are violent because they feel the power of enforcement by violence is effective.

When a group of people with this psycho-dynamic operate, when they work together, they will inevitably insert their psychology and behaviour into that structure.

This explains the emergence of Institutions of Power that are cruel and violent, even if in name they are social institutions swith roles in Education, Religion, Governance or Commerce, whose stated intent is 'to improve life' for humanity.

This briefly explains how an entire society - or large swathes of a Society, enough to make a difference - can be rallied under the false flags of people like Hitler, Blair, The Pope, Abu Hamza and Bush.

We need, all of us to engage in this matter and to do so for a multitude of reasons - the many billions of Survivors of abuse - be it the Iraqi people, the Syrian people, the Palestinian people, the children in 'care home' and similar Institutions, the many aboriginal peoples whose lands are being invaded by commerce for profit, and not least for the benefit of all our own children and their children's futures.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe



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Catholic Church's 'scandal' is just a part of the issue.

David Quinn, in his comment piece for the Irish Independent, 4th May, ‘Abuse Cross Church must bear stems from decades ago’ wrote that a large scale study into child abuse, carried out in Holland, found that ‘the prevalence rate in Catholic-run Institutions was no higher than in other Institutions’ that were studied.

This is a fair comment. However, it does not mitigate the Church's behaviour in relation to the suppression of the truth and subsequent (avoidable) harms caused to so many children, over such a long time scale, one whit.

What he misses in his piece is that the abuse of children is a serious problem across our entire Society.

Whilst there is a huge focus on the abuse of children within Catholic-run Institutions, and rightly so, the issue of the sexual abuse, the mistreatment and brutalising of children is much larger than the Catholic Church.

Europeans often lay claim to the centrality of Christianity as a benign force in European development, as a central pillar of our Society. What kind of Society has this as a central pillar?
This is a matter of profound importance to Society at large. The fact that none of this (the 'scandal' of the Catholic Church) would be occurring without the courage of Survivors of abuse, who braved a prevailing societal unwillingness to accept the truth, is something David Quinn ought to have noted. It is something I reflect upon regularly. I am in awe of those who have shown such courage, well aware as I am of the shame, self-loathing, fear and confusion that are the outcomes for so many Survivors.

David Quinn's omission reduces his piece to a defensive polemic, on behalf of the Catholic Church, and does nothing for the children, be it those who have been abused, those who are being abused and those whose abuse might well be prevented, if the work of John Bowlby, (child mother bonding) James Prescott, (origins of violence) Alice Miller, (child abuse sanctioned by Society, intergenerational trauma) JosephChilton Pearce, (prenatal consciousness) John Holt (how children learn) and David Chamberlain, (child birth, infancy) and John Taylor Gatto, (the origins and intent of Compulsory Schooling) all of whom have examined in detail, and with courageous honesty, how we, as a society, treat our children, was not so studiously ignored by Government departments responsible for Education, Health and Child Welfare, so carefully avoided by the leading Psychiatric and Psychological Establishments, so rarely mentioned by leading media, in spite of  the verified and corroborated evidence that supports their collective contention, that the psychology of any given society is both revealed and perpetuated in how that Society relates to and treats the children.

The psychology of Power, (in simple terms, bullying), still dominates our Society and it is perhaps the single most important connective issue that we can, as adults, face in these tremulous times.
Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death amongst 10 – 24 year olds. A telling statistic indeed. Physical Health has been improved, yet psychological health is deteriorating.

War, Institutionalised Abuse (children, elders, prisoners, poverty) Ecological Destruction, the Competition of Power, be it secular, religious, economic or ideological are issues that cannot be avoided whilst at the same time the claim that we are a decent society is made.

The intergenerational trauma patterns associated with these issues will not diminish because we mitigate or ignore them. The work that has been done, mentioned above, and is being done is now more widely available, through the dissemination of information in this, the information age. Some of us, with access to that information, are genuinely better informed as a result.

It is surely time now for the organs of public discourse and the organs of Governance to fully engage with that information and that crucial work, to engage with what is known of this matter, in order to build a future that honours all our children, and with that all our peoples, for all of their lives.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe










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'Evolutionary' Origins of Religion: a trauma model


*the use of the tem 'evolutionary' is entirely satrical in the context of this essay. Religion and evolvution are two mutually exclusive dynamics..

My own view regarding Evolution and Religion (The Evolutionary Origins of Religion) emerges from my own life experience and from my readings of the work of John Bolwby, James Prescott , Alice Miller, Robert Sapolsky, Judith Herman, Allan Schore and many, many others who have explored the psychology of the biological mandate towards empathy,  (and the disruption of that biological mandate) which is based on the lived experience of self empathy from within the womb, through infancy and onwards throughout life.

 Joseph Chilton Pearce suggests in his research that self empathy, awareness of self, starts within the womb.

Self awareness and awareness of other exists in a pre-verbal reality that is experienced, in such manner that the material and social meaning of the experience is known to the experiencer: this is called direct or experiential cognition.

Others have described what is called  Liminal Consciousness a silent, non verbal full spectrum reality cognition that is shared within a group,  usually groups that are what we can call pre-conquest egalitarian cultures.

"When similar child nurture was later seen spawning similar consciousness in isolated enclaves elsewhere, it became clear that a type of mentality very different from world norms today existed widely in prehistory. Such mentality emerges from a sociosensual nurture common to such peoples but shunned in Westernized societies"

Prescott's  research has found an emergent pattern of Social Behaviour amongst Societies where the natural child-mother bonding processes are disrupted, of increased Religiosity, Hierarchy and Institutionalized Violence all of which exist in proportion to the levels of disruption to the child-mother bonding processes.

Furthermore he was able to link disruption of the adolescent exploration of sexuality to the emergence of these Societal traits.

All of these experientials are embodied lived experiences, that is to say they are experienced and known primarily through the body, the senses and are biologically mandated as vitally  important life learning processes.

This 'disruption' could be called the Trauma model of the Evolutionary Origins of Religion.

David Chamberlain has written :
"From the second month of pregnancy, experiments and observations reveal an active prenate with a rapidly developing sensory system permitting exquisite sensitivity and responsiveness. Long before the development of advanced brain structures, prenates are seen interacting with each other and learning from experience. They seem especially interested in the larger environment provided by mother and father, and react to individual voices, stories, music, and even simple interaction games with parents. The quality of the uterine environment is determined principally by parents.
The opportunities for parents to form a relationship with the baby in the womb are significant and remarkable. This contrasts sharply with the previous view that prenates did not have the capacity to interact, remember, learn, or put meaning to their experiences"
It is quite obvious that those with innate or natural self empathy intact know or can better better, at a visceral pre-verbal level, how to relate to others, to meet their own and others needs, because they sense the other in intimate ways associated with their own sense of self empathy. They are more perceptive and more responsive to information contained within the other because they can more fully sense themselves.

Conversely, those whose natural self empathy has been somehow damaged have greater difficulty in relating to others, and require a set of external guidelines to manage their relationships.

This is the thrust of the work of Heinz Kohut

The resolution of the issue of damaged self-empathy would lead towards a spiritual or personally rational 'inner' motivated outlook, rather than religious 'externally driven' or societally rationalised outlook on life. Prescott's research demonstrates that where these key experientials are not disrupted, a more egalitarian societal behaviour emerges.

In terms of evolution, and of well being, it is clear that empathy, founded on experienced self-empathy is a crucially vital socialising characteristic, because it enables a visceral understanding of the world within, and of the world in which a human being is living, an almost direct perception of the value and meaning of life, and a grasping of the value of others lives to those others, and in particular the lives of other organisms that are the food we eat. This is the basis for the oft quoted respect many Aboriginal societies afford the creatures and plants within their environments, upon which they are dependent for food, medicine and other materials.

James Prescott outlined in some detail the societal behavioural characteristics to be found within a spectrum or bandwidth of societies, ranging from empathic egalitarian through to totalitarian hierarchical societies, and traced the emergence of these characteristics to the disruption or nurturing of two crucial empathic experiential learning points in the life of a human being.

From an evolutionary viewpoint, Imposed Hierarchical Religion can be seen as an evolutionary mismatch.

That is to say that whilst spirituality of some form is probably innate, and that perhaps the natural wonder so many experience (especially small children)  when we allow ourselves to simply gaze at nature and allow nature into us, is an expression of this, and that this wonder tends towards assisting in the development of nurturing relationships.

Whereas Religiosity is learned, and tends towards exclusive yet low-urturant relationships primarily with those who share the same religious viewpoints, and at the same time, religiosity  tends towards aversion of the other and or fear of other viewpoints. The history of sectarianism within religions and ideologies is all too often bloody and brutal evidence of this.

In evolutionary terms this means the person or society who is subject to imposed religiosity, or indeed ideology, (which is almost always imposed through the agency of Institutionalised Power) will be less willing to co-operate with the 'other' or to recognise it's own interdependency with all of life, and this therefore increases the likelihood of sustained behaviours that damage the environment, which inevitably reduces it's long term survival possibilities. The evidence for this lies all around us.

I have traced a path way of disruption, based on my understanding of Trauma and PTSD, which leads to the excessive control and violence associated with Institutionalised Power Religions, with Lateral Violence, Abusive Family dynamics, and much else besides.


a basic outline : loss of  self empathy due to trauma -> loss of empathy for others -> sense of disconnection from what nurtures -> compounds fear associated with trauma -> leads to excessive desire for control of self, others, environment -> leads to violence to control self, others, environment

To survive a trauma event often requires that a person undergoing the trauma suppresses his or her feelings in order to survive. This would also apply to a community that is being traumatised. If, post trauma, that person or community is unable to resolve those suppressed feelings, the suppression remains, and children born to that person or community will grow up with that suppression as part of their psychology. Such suppression leads to a disruption of self-empathy, because it leads to shutting down certain feelings or groups of feelings.

The loss of self-empathy leads to a loss of empathy for others, which can also be described as a loss of empathy for all that nurtures one, or a sense of disconnection from all that nurtures one. This will generate fear, which compounds the fear associated with the trauma, and leads directly to a sensed need to control the people, environment or world around one in order to have certain perceived needs met.

When any autonomous organism is subjected to external control, it will resist, and this is where violence is utilised, to break that resistance. That violence can be physical or psychological. It can be immediate and final or long term and sustained.

Naturally enough, a community or family that has been traumatised, and has been unable to resolve the feelings suppressed, will pass that on to the next generation. As each successive generation 'evolves' evolves they will inject that psychology into the structures they create around their system, structures that will become core beliefs, attitudes and over time Institutionalised patterns of permitted behaviour.

If a child somehow retains some of his or her original natural autonomy, which is a core biological and evolutionary trait, then violence, both physical and psychological, will be permitted to be utilised against that child to break the child, to show the child who is master. This is the basis for what is called 'Poisonous Pedagogy' which has a long and well documented history in Europe.

Recent calls from UK Government Ministers and Teachers Unions for more Power to control children in schools reveals that this is still an active paradigm within the UK - the 21st Century is still Governed by Mediaeval and Victorian attitudes. David Cameron's call that children ought to 'stand up when an adult enters the class room' is very revealing, though he himself is totally unaware of what he is revealing.

Likewise the Catholic Pope's record on dealing with widespread child abuse within Catholicism, and the stance of so many Catholics in protecting both the Pope and the Institution of The Vatican.

Baroness Varsi, a UK 'Muslim' Peer, visited the Pope recently, and made no comment whatsoever on the issues facing the Vatican. Because those same issues are pertinent to ALL Governance as we know it today.




Evolution of life on Earth is more about interdependency, co-operation, mutualism, nurture than it is about competition, mere survival, hierarchical or linear growth. Religiosity is clearly of the latter stream, and is an evolutionary mismatch. The same can be said of ideology, nationalism, sexism, racism. That many people have been questioning these latter attitudes for so long, in a climate of almost constant oppression and denial, speaks to the innate power of our natural biological mandate towards self empathy and empathy for others.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe














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Letter : Church’s brazen request for more funds: and a response from a Catholic supporter!

Church’s brazen request for more funds

Letter published in The Examiner, Friday, October 21, 2011

A Chara,

PARISH priests in the Cork and Ross diocese have introduced two new quarterly collections to meet a deficit in their finances.

One of the costs they are claiming is that of implementing best practice child protection policies.

Diocesan leader Bishop John Buckley said: "Two collections would be needed every three months from now on, to ensure the diocese had enough funds to carry out its day-to-day duties."

How brazen a move is this, in the aftermath of the Cloyne Report, to urge parishioners to cough up the cash that ought more properly be sourced from the Diocese’s property portfolio, or the Vatican direct, whose fiduciary responsibility in this matter is abundantly clear, in that it was the Vatican’s instructions to bishops that led the policy of denial, intimidation, secret settlements and avoidance of their legal and moral duty to report criminal acts to the civil authorities?

Given that the Irish taxpayer is facing a bill of €30 million, under a contractual obligation entered into by Bertie Ahern’s government, to pay the legal costs of the Church’s "contributions" to the various Governmental Statuary Reports, is it not time to counter sue the Church?

We could do so in the light of the Cloyne Report, to void those contractual obligations on the basis of fraud — that the Church made public commitments to the welfare of children and survivors it had no intention of delivering on.

Bishop John Buckley also noted that the extra funds would not be "used to compensate abuse victims".

How sad it is that parishioners are still willing to contribute to a Church so utterly unwilling to behave in an honourable manner on an issue of such grave importance, not least to the welfare of people from within their own communities?

What would Jesus say?

Corneilius Crowley 
Harrow
London
England

---------------------------------
On Wedensday, 26th October 2011 I received by post the following letter.


"Dear Mr. Crowley,

Reference to your letter in the Irish Examiner as to the priests in the Cork & Ross diocese seeking extra collections. Glad to hear that somebody in London is suffering from anxiety about the Church affairs and the need to sue it.

Many regret they were not abused, as they could afford to have a good deposit on a house - maybe you yourself are suffering from this regret or possibly not being able to claim from Bishop Buckleys collection like many are or is there some innate desperation still bugging you -- you need help or counselling without delay.

You ask what Jesus would say? He'd say 'get behind me you Pharasee.'

I enclose an article of defamation against a priest which you can read, this is only one of many cases brought  to court by priests here against false claims.

I trust that the counselling sessions will help you in so many ways, especially if you are working with others in your job.

Yours sincerely

"
I leave the senders name out for now....The article he sent was cut from The Universe, Dated October 16, 2011 (page 2) and told the story of the return of a priest ( against whom allegations were made, that have been proven false, but were broadcast as valid, by RTE, the Irish State Television station, in a program produced by  Prime Time, entitled, "A Mission to Prey") to his parish.

--------------

I WILL respond, and explain the situation in some detail. I am not offended by this letter, because it says nothing about me, though it says volumes about the person who wrote it!

Being offended is a choice, as Australian comic, Steve Hughes points out :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cycXuYzmzNg

I choose because I am mature enough to understand what Steve Hughes points out.


2. The assumptions the writer makes about me are without foundation. I KNOW this. The writer does not. His assumptions reveal more about him than they say anything about me.

His assumptions are false, yet the intent of his words are intended to be abusive, in that he makes a number of rather snide allegations:

I will deal with each point in his letter, in due course....


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe










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The Irish Presidential Candidates Curious Silence

A Chara,

The most troubling thing about this 'race', Presidential this election is that NONE of the candidates inspire confidence or hope.

That one of them will get the post, by default, is the reality.

Not a word from any of them about the Institutional Abuse of Children that has been deeply embedded in Irish Society for most of the Republics existence..... be it by the State or by the Church(es) or anyone else.

Indeed no-one is talking (yet) about the abuse which occurred in the 'better' schools - Clongowes, Blackrock, Newbridge, Rockwell et al where the scions of Irish elites were 'educated' in preparation for their future positions as the 'good and the great'. Is there a link between that silence, and the views of some who might, in private, claim that their experience in such schools ‘made a man of me’?

Of all the Political and Statuary posts in Ireland, surely it is the role of the President to be the voice of all those children, given the failures of the past, starting with Dev himself, who clearly ignored and suppressed the horrific truth from the word go, an omission that led directly to my own trauma as a child during the 60s and 70s.

Apparently not. I am appalled at the behaviour of Irish Society in this regard. I do not blame the candidates alone, for they are simply a part of that culture, and it is, in truth for ALL people in Ireland to think long and hard about this and to gather some courage and act as empathy, decency and justice suggests!

Kindest Regards


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe


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Can Christians safely counsel and advise Survivors of Clerical Abuse?

This is a crucially important question.

All over the world Christians, both clerical and lay, have been put in place by ill advised State Authorities and by the Church itself,  ostensibly to 'protect' children, to 'advise' and 'counsel' Survivors, in spite of their inherent conflict of interest. 

And in some cases these people have turned out to be abusers themselves. There are many such cases.

There are also a lot of documented cases of Survivors being further traumatised by calls to 'come closer to God', by Christianised advice and counselling that seeks to 'reconcile' the Survivor with the Church, where Survivors who are believers have gone in good faith, and finding no genuine honesty, have in desperation, taken their own lives or descended into long term depression and illness.

Not to mention outright adversarial approaches taken towards those who come forwards with allegations and or proof of abuse.

The Cloyne Report from Ireland exposes this in some detail.

Thus solving the 'problem' the Church has - a dead or 'reconciled' Survivor will not speak out against the Church. And a re-traumatised Survivor is less likely to mount a concerted campaign to expose what is happening, and may well give up, and may submit, under undue pressure, to 'confidentiality arrangements' linked to cash settlements.

This pattern is being observed and recorded in America, Canada, Australia, Ireland, across Europe, Asia and Africa.

It has to be exposed in full, for it constitutes yet another level of abuse, of trauma, of politicing with the lives of Survivors.



Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe




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Julia Gillard and Monsignor Dean Cappo's appointment..

Letter to Julia Gillard, Australian Prime Minister, on her appointment of Monsignor Dean Cappo to Chair the National Mental Health Commission.

sent today, via her Parliamentary email.

Dear Prime Minister,

It has come to my attention that you have appointed Monsignor Dean Cappo as as the chairman of the National Mental Health Commission.

How is it possible that you could appoint a senior Catholic Official, whose primary allegiance is with The Vatican, which we all know is embroiled in a world-wide scandal - part of which has been played out to the detriment of hundreds of thousands of children, Aboriginal and European, in Australia - The Scandal of long term Institutional Child Abuse of such utter cruelty, that is well documented, that was actively covered up for many, many years, that only came out due to the bravery of Survivors, (many of whom would have been labelled as mentally ill, when in fact they were, and are distressed, and expressing that distress) in spite of intimidation, manipulation, bribery and Vatican 'secrecy' and, given that the Vatican is even still attempting to manage this scandal as a crisis for the Vatican rather than focus on the needs of survivors and the necessary work to bring those who have abused children before the courts and the urgent need to review those Catholic teachings that underpin the brutality meted out to children - Original Sin, the Devil within the child that must be beaten out, the lack of a commandment to HONOUR THY CHILDREN......?

You are being observed, by Survivors and their advocates all over the world, and your actions are being noted, and YOU WILL BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE. The Vatican IS responsible for Criminal acts, as are many State bodies, and that liability has now become YOUR PERSONAL LIABILITY.

I urge you to rescind your appointment of Dean Cappo, and to appoint someone whose concern for the welfare of children and adults is well known, is proven in the field..... someone such as Helen Caldicott comes to mind.....

Yours sincerely.

Corneilius Crowley

---------------------------

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Defending the Indefensible : the Confessional Secrecy

http://examiner.ie/opinion/letters/seal-of-confession-must-not-be-broken-161323.html

A letter published in the Examiner, an Irish broadsheet, on 18th July, the weekend after the publishing of the Cloyne Report, which detailed the devious, manipulative and malign behaviour of  Irish Clerical Hierarchy in their 'response' to the 'abuse scandal', detailing the most appalling behaviour at the highest levels, from 1996 to 2008, in which the writer wrote :

"AS the father of a family and as a normal human being I am as appalled as anybody else at the abuse of minors by those in positions of authority, which includes (but is by no means most prevalent among) members of the Catholic clergy.

But by what insanity does the Fine Gael/Labour coalition think it can legislate to prosecute priests who do keep inviolate the unbreakable seal of the confessional?

No doctor or lawyer or other person in a position of confidence can ever be compelled to do this.

It is a very painful thing for them when they hear certain things in their professional capacity, but only a tiny dose of maturity is needed to realise that confidentiality must be respected in these special cases for the greater good of society.

And a priest especially has vowed to protect the confessional seal with his life blood — as so many have testified down the ages.

In the case of a guilty party confessing, the normal procedure would be to withhold absolution until the culprit has given himself up to the secular authorities — just as with certain other very serious sins. Shame on the perpetrators of this disgraceful opportunistic suggestion.


Yours etc....

This is my response to that letter :

Micheál Ó Fearghail, Glanmire in a letter to the Examiner 18th July 2011 wrote, defending the sacred nature of the confessional, that :

"In the case of a guilty party confessing, the normal procedure would be to withhold absolution until the culprit has given himself up to the secular authorities — just as with certain other very serious sins."

Can he, or anyone else for that matter, furnish substantiated evidence that this is the normal procedure of a priest hearing the confession of another priest, nun, bishop or any other clergy confessing to serious crimes?

Can he say that a priest, upon hearing such a confession, would urge such action, that is for the perpetrator to hand him or herself over to the civil authorities, given that the Pope and others in authority have prohibited such disclosures without their consent, with the sanction of ex-communication for any priest who might break that prohibition, in a fit of ill advised decency?

If a priest, or any person, who has sexually assaulted a child, wishes to confess, ought that person themselves, if they feel true remorse for what they have done, not be the one's to approach the civil authorities, and then seek a confession under Christian 'ethics'?

Has this ever happened?

Shame on Micheál Ó Fearghail, for writing "Shame on the perpetrators of this disgraceful opportunistic suggestion."

Shame on the writer for making assumptions such as he does, when we know that worldwide, the numbers of children grievously harmed, whether it be in Aboriginal Boarding Schools (Canada, USA, Australia, Africa) or European 'care' Institutions, Magdalene Laundries, Orphanages etc... can be counted in their hundreds of thousands...

When we know, even still, that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church is protecting known abusers, obstructing justice and more, merely to protect it's 'image'?

Shame! A shame that tarnishes the name of Christ, which it would appear is of less importance than the Power and Status of the Institutional Church, and certainly of less value than the lives of so many children, and the lives of so many survivors. 



-------------------


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe







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Alcoholism, Institutional Abuse and The Cloyne Report

A Chara,

The Examiner, The Irish Independent and other media in Ireland, has reported on the increase in deaths involving alcohol.

I studied the dynamics of Alcoholism many, many years ago, and the evidence suggests strongly that rather than it being a 'disease' or the FAULT of the alcoholic, it is a behaviour pattern that emerges in communities where feelings and experiences are not allowed to be fully expressed, where pain is suppressed and it's very much about masking subconscious, hidden or 'unwanted' feelings.

What was also clear from those studies was that children who grow up in an Alcoholic home environment also learn to mask certain feelings, and tend NOT to become Alcoholics BECAUSE they have seen it, yet DO still mask their feelings, and adopt other strategies to maintain that mask. And what these studies also showed was that there was a tendency or a trend whereby the NEXT generation, who hadn't seen the Alcoholic behaviour would be likely to use alcohol to mask pain and feelings....

You see, the child grows up in the psychological milieu of his or her parents and his or her social structures and has to 'adapt' in order to 'fit in'. That adapting process most often means that certain key needs are not met, that many feelings are not expressed, and that the pain of not being treated with empathy is masked by : consumerism,adverse  nationalism, religiosity and 'addictions' : behaviours that are learned.

Consider this. The Irish History of the last 200 years includes the FAMINE, two world wars and a civil war, and intense poverty.

The vast majority of the people who went through these TRAUMA were able to resolve those painful experiences ... and so the patterns of intergenerational dysfunction continued, as they will always do, until they are recognised and dealt with, with empathy, with nurturant intent, with grace....



I wrote some years ago about the need for empathy, for honesty, for the placing of the needs of all our children at the very centre of Society such that then we may say : Our Society is truly decent.


The Cloyne Report is published today, and we can say that the behaviour of the Churches and Orders, and the Government and HSE thus far has left so much undone that needs to be done with regard to the honest appraisal of the realities.


Let us not waste any more time. There is work to be done, and our children's children will thank us for it, let alone the relief it will provide to living survivors and their families.
Kindest Regards

Corneilius Crowley


London


Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe




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Empathy and Fear Based Control


Those with natural empathy intact, who are fully responsive, whose ability to respond is intact, need no rules, nor do they require any regulation.

Empathy is the ability to discern the CONTENT of the other. It is built on self empathy.

Self empathy is to a large degree developed through the child-mother bonding process, in that it is the environment that the new born grows in that is most crucial to her or his development. Environment means the psychological, emotional, material realities into which the child is born.

In utero, the child is in a fully empathic reality, connected to her or his mother in profound ways. They are as one. The child in utero is sensing not only her own world, but that of the mother as well. The evidence is clear : the child is learning all the time, and that learning corresponds to how their physiology and neurology developes.

Thus the child, after birth has to learn and experience empathy as a separate being, and there are key experiences that are biologically mandated to help the new born to develope self empathy, and empathy for others. Prescott's 1975 Paper Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence set out some of the parameters for this development, and his work has been corroborated by researchers ever since.

http://www.violence.de/prescott/bulletin/article.html

What science is now finally 'proving' has been a working knowledge for the human species for 6 million years, and is a working biological reality for many mammals. Our bodies know this. Mothers bodies sense this.

http://birthpsychology.com/free-article/introduction-life-birth

If a child is not given those key experiences, if the relationship between mother and child is in any way disrupted at these crucial stages of early life, then the fundamentals of self empathy, and with that empathy for others are missed out on, and what flows from that loss is what we see all around us, on our daily news : the urge to Power, to control others to meet one's perceived needs.

What baby would not be angry at not being met with the experientials our biology has mandated? Think of the child left to cry himself to sleep in another room, to scream and cry until exhaustion brings sleep. Is this not a common practice in our culture? What of the resignation, the suppression of that rage, the loss of self empathy which ensues from that suppression which is the outcome of such a practice?


Empathy is a multi-sensory ability. Thus the mind, the intellect, the 12 senses, insight, intuition, mirror neurons, the heart field and direct experience all work together in the empathic natural human being.

Being responsive means that one observes, takes in the information, absorbs that field of information, processes that information and generates action to deal with the situation.

The natural inclination of all living organisms is to act in ways that nurture the habitat so as to maintain the optimum conditions for life to flourish, for ALL life to flourish.

Thus the action taken is taken within that ‘ethic’. Ethic here is used as an analogy, for it is deeper than ethics, which are a human concept.

It’s important to comprehend that there exists Societal Institutionally induced conditions that create that lack of empathy, repeatedly. It’s also important to note that trauma that is unresolved can also lead to a loss of self empathy on the personal level, and on the societal level.

Lack of empathy leads to a sense of disconnection, which leads to fear (that one's natural needs will not be met) which leads to a desire to control others (to meet one's perceived needs) and it is the imposition of control that leads to violence...... because self organising nature rejects control in favour of co-operation, and this natural 'resistance' is met with violence to maintain control.

An example is the labelling of certain children as 'disruptive', the creation of spurious diagnoses and the utility of drugging those children to maintain control of the classroom. The system undermines the parents/teachers sense of empathy by enforcing certain requirements upon them, which in order to be met, require that they control the children because of fear of the repercussions. It is the fear that drives the controlling behaviour, not love. Even if it is rationalised as love, it is not love. It is not trust. It is fear.

Hunting is not the same dynamic, so don't go there.... as an attempt to suggest that adverse control is all over nature.... natural hunting exists in the context of the metabolising of materials in ways that improve the habitat for ALL Life..... everything eats.

Those who seek to make change in our Society such that we build in or reclaim a nurturant underlying ethic  must have an accurate understanding of HOW SOCIETY CREATES THAT LACK OF EMPATHY, THAT FEAR, THAT DESIRE FOR CONTROL in both the person and the structure of Society.

Metabolising one's own trauma patterns will release one from the trauma cycles. However action is required to extend that further such that the Societal and Institutional trauma patterns are brought to an end.

Without that understanding, those who are engaged in activism, in protest, or in any other activity to bring change WILL be manipulated, their work will be co-opted and neutralised, and the adverse control will persist...

We see the evidence for this in Institutional 'care' systems all over the world. We see this in the 'greenwashing' PR campaigns of various polluting Corporations. The co-opting and neutralising of good ideas, of the urge to co-operate, to devolve power, is ubiquitous in any Hierarchical system of Power, and it's obvious too that being conditioned into such a system internalises that process, and it is addressing the loss of self empathy that is key to undoing those internalisations.




Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe













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The Congregation of The Faith's 'guidelines' are a criminal failure.

This is an open letter. sent to media, politicians, activists in the UK , Ireland, Australia, USA, Canada and elsewhere.

Concerning the latest set of 'guidelines' issued by the Congregation of The Faith in Rome, to all Bishops worldwide....

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/victims-furious-over-new-vatican-abuse-guidelines-2648496.html

to the Editor...

and to all concerned citizens, irrespective of your beliefs.

When an Institution, that has been shown to have failed miserably to meet the legal and moral duties of care to those who have been, for whatever reason, placed in it's care,  which does not, above all else, place the needs of those people who as children were abused, traumatised, physically and psychologically harmed by officials of that Institution, in such manner that adversely affects the Survivors entire life times in the aftermath, and which do not and can not be deemed as adequate with regard to the prevention of further abuses, and after so many years of heart breaking requests by Survivors for honesty,  accountability,  empathy and justice, offers 'guidelines' such as the latest set issued by the Congregation of The Faith, that are not directly informed by the needs of those they have failed, then it becomes clear that the adverse nature of this Institution, as it stands, is a serious threat to the common well being of all those communities it is connected to and ministers to.

Be it State or Church, the same applies.

It is now time for the Irish State to act, as a humane and just Institution, to take the Vatican, the Irish Churches and The Pope, to the International Criminal Courts as part of it's own Institutional healing process, to face charges of Crimes Against Humanity. 

It can do this, and admit it's own past failures, as a measure of it's courage, empathy, honesty and commitment to the well being of all citizens of the Irish State.

What is also important to note is that this applies not only to Ireland, but to many States across the World, that this is a global issue.

The first step in true reconciliation is the admission of wrongs done, acknowledgement of harms caused, full transparency and a realistic commitment to end all such practices that enabled the abuse and harm to occur.

Not so much to punish, but bring about a full accounting, to bring to an end these repugnant machinations of denial, obstruction, intimidation and power play which have typified the response to Survivors from the very first days, so many years ago, that Survivors brought their testimony before the community.

That is not to say that those who have committed serious crimes should not face the legal consequences of their actions. They must. Children have to be protected. Society has to know that our children are safe.

And, importantly, it is long past time to bring about such fundamental changes within the State and the Church as Institutions, that they might become less about Power over people, than about the well being of those people who subscribe to and fund these Institutions.

In essence this is about ensuring that the full meaning and intent of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child be fully and materially implemented without reservation.

This is the call of our times. This is the message of all great sages and spiritual teachers. This is what the future of all our children requires. This and nothing less.

Yours sincerely

Corneilius Crowley


Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe





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