The deaths at Tuam: a voiceless testimony

There is an unmarked mass grave in Galway which has become briefly famous by the work of historian Catherine Corless, who spent years tracing the death records of each child whose remains may have been buried there. (You can hear her being interviewed about her work on the mass grave here.)

Timothy Stanley, a Telegraph blogger who converted to Catholicism from the Anglican church, argues that the mass grave is “a human tragedy, not a Catholic one”. At more length, Caroline Farrow, a spokesperson for Catholic Voice, explains that first of all, this wasn’t really so bad, and anyway, everyone except the Catholic Church is probably lying. (I note for the record: the sheer quantity of misinformation and distortion provided by both Stanley and Farrow is quite astonishing.)

Are corporations people?

The legal definition of a corporation in the UK is:

a body of persons authorised by law to act as one person, and having rights and liabilities distinct from the individuals who are forming the corporation.

A corporation can own property, do business, pays taxes – well, sometimes – be sued, sue individuals and other corporations, and though it can’t be born or die, a corporation usually has a definite beginning and can come to a definite end. A corporation doesn’t have a passport: it may be registered in just one country, but it can exist in many.

But no matter how many legal rights and powers a corporation may acquire, there are things it cannot do: it cannot vote in most democratic elections – though the richer the corporation is, the more it is likely to get its way regardless of democracy; it cannot have sex or experience orgasm or know love or laughter or tears; and it has neither soul nor conscience – from a religious viewpoint, a corporation is not a person at all.

Or so I always thought.

But apparently, in the US at least, the Catholic Church has ruled that corporations have souls and consciences, and therefore rights of freedom of religion that ought not to be violated.

The American legal definition of a corporation is similar to the UK’s definition. A corporation in the US is an independent legal person, created, organised, and – should that time come – dissolved according to the laws of the state in which it is registered. Each state requires articles of incorporation that document the corporation’s creation and the corporation’s management of internal affairs. Nowhere in the legal definition of a corporation does it explain where in this process the corporation becomes ensouled.

Because it’s my choice

Over two years ago, I wrote a blogpost outlining why I thought those who were opposed to same-sex marriage were also opposed to safe legal abortion. (Human Rights: Abortion and gay marriage).

In 2004, the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) won the general election and had as a manifesto commitment, lifting the ban on same-sex marriage in Spain. In 2005, Spain became the third country in the world in which same-sex couples can marry. In 2011, the right-wing Partido Popular (PP) won a majority, and had in their manifesto commitments to roll back access to safe legal abortion, and to have the Constitutional Court consider re-imposing a ban on same-sex marriage.

Courts and judges, upholders of law and order, have in general proved to be supporters of keeping marriage legal, because unmaking lawful marriages is disorderly, and to the judicial mind, disorderliness in marriage law is anathema. In 2012, so it proved in Spain: rather than fall into the unutterable confusion of declaring that seven years of marriages would no longer be recognised, the 2005 law was upheld.

The Wonderful GAY

“Time lies frozen there. It’s always Then. It’s never Now.” The Cardinal was afraid of Now, for Now has warmth and urgency, and Then is dead and buried. Now might bring a certain knight of gay and shining courage –

Crdinl Keith O’Brien has confirmed he will no longer use any of the letters in the word ‘gay’ and stressed

he was embarking on the phonetic moratorium because he did not want to be ‘prt of the problem’.

His spokesman said:

“Luckily ‘safe words’ include Jesus, communion, crucifix and Keith O’Brien.

“However he has had to change his job to title to ‘Crdinl’.

“Also, half the word ‘Mary’ is off limits so from now on he will refer to the Holy Mother as ‘Ethel’.

“It’s not blasphemous if it’s part of a bulwark against depravity.”

The spokesman added: “Golgotha comes out as ‘Oloth’ and Calvary is just ‘Clvr’, so Easter is going to be tricky. Especially if he’s calling it ‘Ester’.”

We confirmed with the spokesman that from now on the Crdinl says

Haters hate: marriage is still love

Marriage is when two people make a legally binding vow to love, honour, and cherish each other lifelong: making each other into their closest next of kin.

Know that the haters are just trying to silence us because of bigotry. Huge waste of their time and a sad state to be in. We are actually doing things to help others. That’s a good use of time and a happy place to be. So ignore them when you can, mock them when you want a laugh and report them to the police or FBI whenever you see a credible threat and most importantly, keep doing good things. (Ask Surly Amy – How To Deal With Hate)

On Sunday afternoon over a post-gym coffee and a pastry in the new I ♥ Cafe in Leith Walk, I read a kind but muddled (and in places factually incorrect) article about marriage.

The Gay Agenda
1. Gym
2. Buy yellow mangos – they’re in season! – from Najak
3. Coffee and pastry
4. Undermine the unique importance of marriage in the world
5. Blog

Kevin McKenna writes:

My beloved church is not enjoying its finest hour as it steps up its opposition to the SNP government’s plans to permit same-sex marriages.

The Eucharistic Congress and the cardinal cover-up

There is a ring around the world

Today, the 50th Eucharistic Congress begins in Dublin. From the Catholic Free Press:

The Vatican official who will act as papal legate for the International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin defended marriage based on the church’s traditional teaching and urged Catholics to use the resource of the family to confront the challenges of secularized societies.

That’s Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Canada, who’s head of the Congregation for Bishops as well as the Pope’s representative to this Congress in Ireland. (L’Association des Victimes de Prêtres, in Quebec, says that Ouellet has been consistently silent about the victims of abusive priests, despite repeatedly being asked to help repair the damage. Oellet is of course willing to speak out to protect “unborn” children. Once they’re born, though…)

It ensnares the little Ones

From the Irish Times:

In relation to the most painful of those issues, the sex abuse crisis, Cardinal Ouellet was unsure whether he would be meeting abuse survivors while in Dublin, saying it was a delicate, sensitive issue.

Recently, the Italian bishops’ conference affirmed that a bishop had no legal obligation to report a paedophile priest to police. But is there not a “moral” obligation?

“Regarding sexual abuse of children, the main concern of the church is the protection of children. For this reason, full co-operation between church and civil authorities is a moral obligation when concerning the protection of minors. This co-operation has to be developed according to the laws of each individual country.”

As these priests and bishops fall

How to make a book a bestseller

Sister Margaret Farley is a Sister of Mercy (nuns, not a rock-and-roll band, unless they’re nuns who also do rock-and-roll music). She’s also professor emerita of Yale Divinity School. She’s not the kind of person who would write a bestseller that hit the top ten in Amazon six years after publication.

But she did.

The Vatican’s “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” (the Holy Office, aka the Inquisition) took six years to consider Just Love:A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics, which on Monday 4th June was at 142,982 on Amazon’s bestseller list. They announced to the world, very sternly, that this nun had written a book showed: “defective understanding of the objective nature of natural moral law” and pose “grave harm to the faithful.”

Twenty-four hours later, Just Love was in the top ten list on Amazon.

To give you an idea of the kind of awful thing Sister Margaret Farley is saying

Cardinal Brady is shocked

In 1975, Father Sean Brady had no idea what to do when an 11-year-old boy told him that an adult man had had sex with him, because “no State or Church guidelines for responding to allegations of child abuse existed in Ireland”. Apparently none of the Church hierarchy above Father Brady, now Cardinal Brady, had any idea what to do either.

According to Monsignor Charles J. Scicluna, speaking in 2010 as the “promoter of justice” or the prosecutor of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which was once called the Holy Office or the Inquisition, very clear guidelines had existed since 1922, republished and distributed in 1962: the responsible clerical authority should order an investigation and if the accusation of delicta graviora was proved well-founded (the Congregation’s job is to investigate delicta graviora, which include sexual crimes committed by a cleric against a person under the age of eighteen) then the clerical authorities should refer the priest to the Congregation.

Reading Cardinal Brady’s statement exculpating himself, I was reminded of Monsignor William Lynn, pastor of St. Joseph Church in Downingtown, Philadelphia, who was arrested in February 2012, indicted in mid-March and is now on administrative leave.

From Rolling Stone:

At 60, Lynn is portly and dignified, his thin lips pressed together and his double chin held high. In a dramatic fashion statement, he alone has chosen to wear his black clerical garb today, a startling reminder that this is a priest on trial, a revered representative of the Catholic Church, not to mention a high-ranking official in Philadelphia’s archdiocese.

Atheist Easter Links

As an atheist, I shall not be eating a chocolate egg today.

— EdinburghEye (@EyeEdinburgh) April 6, 2012

And two hours later, after I had bought a latte and a croissant at Relish:

As an atheist, I shall not be eating a chocolate egg today EVEN THOUGH the coffee shop was selling Divine dark chocolate Fair Trade eggs.

— EdinburghEye (@EyeEdinburgh) April 6, 2012

As an atheist, I suppose I ought to have made this post on the vernal equinox. But who’s thinking about chocolate eggs then?

Why is the Telegraph helping Labour get elected?

Lyall Duff thought he’d made his Facebook profile private. The lesson everyone should take from the Telegraph’s “investigative journalism” – finding a few ranty sweary posts and quoting or partially quoting them – is that Facebook is never reliably private.

The SNP have suspended Lyall Duff, but it is too late to take his name off the ballot for Murdostoun ward in North Lanarkshire: the Telegraph waited to disclose Lyall Duff’s posts until after the deadline precisely so that the SNP’s possibilities for damage limitation would be minimal. This will benefit Scottish Labour; they won a majority on North Lanarkshire council in 2007, and half of the seats in the Murdostoun ward. The Telegraph ran another story this morning with an opening:

Labour questioned why the SNP was prepared to pass new legislation cracking down on sectarianism in football matches but has so far refused to expel Lyall Duff. They accused the First Minister of crying “crocodile tears” over the affair.

Why are the Telegraph runing a press campaign to help Scottish Labour win one more seat in a local authority ward in North Lanarkshire?