Peter Tatchell, the Pope and Paedophilia

Peter Tatchell, who co-founded the gay action group "Outrage", is protesting the forthcoming visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Britain. Among other things he accuses the Pope of shielding clergy guily of child abuse from prosecution. Tatchell had a guest post on "Harry's Place" on 13 August and a very lively discussion followed that high-lighted Peter Tatchell's own views on adults and adolescents who have sex with VERY under-age children.
http://hurryupharry.org/2010/08/13/on-the-popes-state-visit-to-britain/

On the Pope’s state visit to Britain
Guest Post, August 13th 2010, 5:33 pm
Guest post from Peter Tatchell of the Protest the Pope Campaign

Text of Peter Tatchell’s speech at the Protest the Pope public meeting at the Old Town Hall, Richmond, on 12 August 2010:
................ In 1992, When he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he authored a Vatican document that condemned homosexuality as an “objective disorder” and a “strong tendency ordered towards an intrinsic moral evil.” Rejecting the concept of gay human rights, the document asserted that there is no “right” to laws protecting homosexual people against discrimination, suggesting that the civil liberties of lesbians and gay men can be “legitimately limited for objectively disordered external conduct.”

The Pope has attacked same-sex marriages as “evil” and vilified supporters of gay equality as “gravely immoral.” He has also denounced homosexual equality as a “deviant trend” and condemned same-sex love as being “without any social value.” He even threatened to excommunicate Catholic legislators who voted for gay rights laws.

While condemning loving, consenting adult same-sex relations, the Pontiff played a role in shielding Catholic clergy guilty of child sex abuse from prosecution. ..........

EXTRACTS FROM “COMMENTS” .......

A Bit Dark 14 August 2010, 1:31 am

“While condemning loving, consenting adult same-sex relations, the Pontiff played a role in shielding Catholic clergy guilty of child sex abuse from prosecution.”
Peter Tatchell, 2010.

“Lee is 14. He’s been having sex with boys since the age of eight, and with men since he was 12. Lee has a serious problem. He wants a steady relationship and has been going out recently with a guy in his mid-twenties, who he met at the hairdressers. But in the eyes of the law, Lee’s partner is ‘a paedophile’ and Lee is’ a victim of child abuse’. That’s not, however, the way Lee sees it:
“I want to have a boyfriend. It’s my choice. No one’s abusing me. Why should we be treated like criminals?”.

I am sitting in the kitchen of a friend’s house talking with Lee. Wearing a white T-shirt and combat trousers, his sophisticated gay image makes him look older than 14. He comes across as bright, articulate, sure of himself, and mature beyond his years. It’s hard to imagine anyone getting away with taking advantage of him.”

Peter Tatchell, 1997

http://www.ipce.info/newsletters/e_22/2_16_Lee.htm
.................................................

Kilbarry1 14 August 2010, 10:39 am
@ A Bit Dark
Re Peter Tatchell
The 1997 article you quote by Tatchell is on the IPCE website. According it its homepage
http://www.ipce.info/ipceweb/

Welcome to the Homepage of the Ipce Web Site
"Ipce is a forum for people who are engaged in scholarly discussion about the understanding and emancipation of mutual relationships between children or adolescents and adults.

In this context, these relationships are intended to be viewed from an unbiased, non-judgmental perspective and in relation to the human rights of both the young and adult partners.

Ipce meets once every one or two years in a different country, publishes a newsletter and a web site, co-ordinates the (electronic) exchange of texts and keeps an archive of specific written publications." [among which is Peter Tatchell's article].

According to “The Free Dictionary” the definition of the acronym is

IPCE International Pedophile and Child Emancipation
Well there are other possible meanings but in the current context it is unlikely to stand for:
IPCE Independent Parametric Cost Estimate
IPCE Interprofessional Cancer Education etc
http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/IPCE

Kilbarry1 14 August 2010, 11:50 am
A month or two ago a poster on HP quoted Tatchell’s proposal that the age of consent be reduced to 14. Someone else claimed that Tatchell only means this to apply to adolescents having sex with each other. It is abundently clear that this is NOT what Tatchell means (or meant in his 1997 article):
http://www.ipce.info/newsletters/e_22/2_16_Lee.htm

I point out to Lee that an age of consent of 14 would not have been much help to him, since he was having sex from the age of eight. Even with consent at 14, most of his past sexual relationships would have remained illegal.

“Young people under 14 should be allowed to have sex with someone up to a year or so older”, he suggests. “That way they’ve got freedom, and are protected against exploitation by older men”.

Even with a permitted one year age differential, Lee’s affair [at age 10] with Andrew, who was three years older, would not have been legal. Something a bit more flexible is required.

The idea of a sliding-scale age of consent is something that OutRage! is promoting. In addition to supporting an age of consent of 14 for everyone (gay and straight), OutRage! argues that sex involving young people under 14 should not be prosecuted providing both partners consent and there is no more than three years difference in their ages.

To emphasise that “Lee” was not exceptional Tatchell pointed out that:
Lee is just one of a growing number of lesbians and gays who are coming out at an ever earlier age … twelve, thirteen and fourteen is not uncommon nowadays. Research published by Project Sigma in 1993 shows that

9 percent of gay men had their first homosexual experience by the age of 10,
19 percent by the age of 12, and
35 per cent by the age of 14.

For Peter Tatchell this is not something to be deplored. In fact the law should be changed to facilitate it! ........................................

John P. 14 August 2010 2:37 pm
Official gaydom always maintains that pedophile priests are pedopbiles because they are repressed homosexuals. The cause of that repression, and the resulting pedophilia is placed, thus, squarely at the feet of The Church.

I used to buy into that.

In my home parish a priest is on trial for abusing 13 and 14 year-old boys ( arrested last year). During the preliminary hearings it was revealed that this priest had also been involved in a long running relationship with another adult male. This guy was not abusing kids because Church teachings had “repressed” his sexuality. He was keenly aware of his orientation and far from feeling repressed, he appears to have acted on every lustful impulse he ever felt.

His taste for teenage boys, thus, was not the perverse result of repressive Church teachings. Rather it was part and parcel and a clear and unambiguous ‘celebration’ of his homosexuality.

It is estimated that up to 30% of priests are queer, with the other 70% being hetero.
Surely, if Church teachings prepressed sexuality, then both groups would be equally repressed and given, thus, to abusing minors on a roughly proportional scale.

A reasonable assumption, non?

However, the number of cases in which hetero priests abuse underage girls is far, FAR below their 70% portion of the priesthood. In fact, almost ALL of the abuse cases involve homosexual priests.

Who ever thought that the sexual repression resulting from Church teaching could be so selective?

Interesting coments from Kilbarry1 and A Bit Dark.

John Cooney - New(?) Allegations against Archbishop McQuaid

The General Humbert Summer School which is directed by John Cooney starts tomorrow in Co. Mayo. According to Phoenix magazine, John Cooney is poised to make further "revelations" about John Charles McQuaid. The following is from a discussion on the www.politics.ie website
http://www.politics.ie/current-affairs/135682-holy-father-rejects-resignation-two-dublin-bishops-10.html

Originally Posted by Kilbarry1 View Post
Slight correction. Cooney has already repeated his slander against Archbishop McQuaid at the Daniel Corkery Summer School in July - with (of course) no reaction from Diarmuid Martin. However Phoenix expect him to do so again at his own General Humbert Summer School which starts on 17 August:

http://www.irishsalem.com/individuals/writers-and-journalists/John-Cooney/cooneyvsmcquaid-30july10.php

Last Friday (23rd July 2010), the Daniel Corkery Summer School heard Cooney deliver a thundering peroration of his allegations against McQuaid with what he said is additional evidence and the promise of further revealations to come in his forthcoming book, The Curse Of McQuaid. His book, Cooney claims, 'will provide numerous sordid details of McQuaid's dark secret.'

Cooney's speech last week also referred to what he claimed was further evidence of McQuaid's sexual activity. These, the journalist said, were advances made, not to children but to a young priest and 2 clerical students resulting in 2 Garda investigations into these allegations made in the the 1960's and early '70's. Cooney told his audience that the investigations cleared McQuaid - unsurprisingly, given the period - but he also claimed that the files have gone missing. Cooney also referred to other evidence he says he has unearthed in recent years which provide similar evidence against McQuaid.

Expect more fireworks at Cooney's own summer school, the General Humbert Summer School beginning 17 August.

By the sound of it Cooney's LATEST (?) allegtions against the late Archbishop are not exactly new. They sound very like issues that were treated by Jody Corcoran then political editor of the Sunday Independent in an article dated 7 November 1999.
http://www.irishsalem.com/individuals/writers-and-journalists/John-Cooney/gardainvestigationcleared-07nov99.php

The article begins:

A GARDA investigation into allegations of illegal homosexual acts and paedophilia at two Dublin diocesan colleges more than 20 years ago [i.e. in the 1970s] cleared the late Archbishop John Charles McQuaid of any involvement, the Sunday Independent has learned. The now retired Garda detective inspector who led the investigation said three students were dismissed from the colleges, and while Dr McQuaid was also investigated, no evidence of any wrongdoing on his part was discovered.

In the course of the investigation, the gardaí questioned a gay student priest about an incident in Lourdes which involved Dr McQuaid, but found no evidence of wrongdoing. The incident formed a small part of a more extensive Garda investigation into what were then illegal homosexual acts between two student priests at All Hallows College in Drumcondra, Dublin, and a third student at the nearby Clonliffe College. That investigation had its origins in an anonymous letter to the then head of All Hallows which contained unproven allegations of child sexual abuse against the two All Hallows students.

This sounds very like Cooney's latest allegations as outlined in Phoenix Magazine recently. I note that he says that the investigations cleared McQuaid "unsurprisingly, given the period". Is he claiming a cover up by the Gardai and by the Attorney General's office and if so why is he saying this now? The retired Garda detective inspector who carried out the investigations was 83 when he spoke to the Sunday Independent in 1999.

The 1999 article ended:

Mr Devane prepared a file which was forwarded to his chief superintendent at Whitehall and to the Attorney-General. Charges were never brought. Mr Devane is adamant that no pressure was applied by the Church authorities to drop the charges. ``I recommended that no charges be brought. I thought they had been through enough,'' he said. ``They were thrown out of the college, their parents were involved and, anyway, they would have probably got the Probation Act. There was no point in putting them through all that the publicity and everything.''
Cooney's General Humbert Summer School starts tomorrow so perhaps all will be revealed then!

Peter Tatchell

There is an guest post on the "Harry's Place" blog by Gay activist Peter Tatchell entitled "On the Pope’s state visit to Britain". It contains the text of Peter Tatchell’s speech at the Protest the Pope public meeting at the Old Town Hall, Richmond, on 12 August 2010 which begins

Pope Benedict comes to Britain next month. As democrats, we believe he has every right to come here and express his opinions. But we also have a right to protest against his often harsh, extreme views. We have a right to say that he is not welcome.

The Protest the Pope campaign is calling on the British government to disassociate itself from the Pope’s intolerant teachings on issues such as women’s rights, gay equality and the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV. On these and many other issues, Benedict is out of step with the majority of British people, including most Catholics. ..... and includes the following gem:

While condemning loving, consenting adult same-sex relations, the Pontiff played a role in shielding Catholic clergy guilty of child sex abuse from prosecution.

There are 32 responses to date including the following two:

[A] A Bit Dark… 14 August 2010, 1:31 am

“While condemning loving, consenting adult same-sex relations, the Pontiff played a role in shielding Catholic clergy guilty of child sex abuse from prosecution.”

Peter Tatchell, 2010.

“Lee is 14. He’s been having sex with boys since the age of eight, and with men since he was 12. Lee has a serious problem. He wants a steady relationship and has been going out recently with a guy in his mid-twenties, who he met at the hairdressers. But in the eyes of the law, Lee’s partner is ‘a paedophile’ and Lee is’ a victim of child abuse’. That’s not, however, the way Lee sees it:

“I want to have a boyfriend. It’s my choice. No one’s abusing me. Why should we be treated like criminals?”.

I am sitting in the kitchen of a friend’s house talking with Lee. Wearing a white T-shirt and combat trousers, his sophisticated gay image makes him look older than 14. He comes across as bright, articulate, sure of himself, and mature beyond his years. It’s hard to imagine anyone getting away with taking advantage of him.”

Peter Tatchell, 1997

http://www.ipce.info/newsletters/e_22/2_16_Lee.htm

[B] Kilbarry1 14 August 2010, 10:39 am

@ A Bit Dark

Re Peter Tatchell
The 1997 article you quote by Tatchell is on the IPCE website. According to its homepage http://www.ipce.info/ipceweb/

Welcome to the Homepage of the Ipce Web Site

Ipce is a forum for people who are engaged in scholarly discussion about the understanding and emancipation of mutual relationships between children or adolescents and adults.

In this context, these relationships are intended to be viewed from an unbiased, non-judgmental perspective and in relation to the human rights of both the young and adult partners.

Ipce meets once every one or two years in a different country, publishes a newsletter and a web site, co-ordinates the (electronic) exchange of texts and keeps an archive of specific written publications. [among which is Peter Tatchell's article].

According to “The Free Dictionary” the definition of the acronym is

IPCE International Pedophile and Child Emancipation

Well there are other possible meanings but in the current context it is unlikely to stand for:
IPCE Independent Parametric Cost Estimate
IPCE Interprofessional Cancer Education etc
http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/IPCE

Bishop John Magee and Ian Elliot

The folllowing is an extract from my article on Bishop John Magee. It may help to explain the hostile report produced by Ian Elliott, chief executive of the National Board for the Safeguarding of Children

http://www.irishsalem.com/individuals/accused/bishop-john-magee/index.php

Ian Elliott and Bishop Magee
A clue to the attitude of Ian Elliott towards Bishop Magee can be gained from an episode in April 2008 in which Mr Elliott was quoted in the Sunday Tribune (20 April) as saying: "The national board for the safeguarding of children in the Catholic Church has been made aware of issues surrounding the handling of allegations of abuse within the Diocese of Cloyne. The board has not received the full information and documentation requested of the diocese. We are trying hard to resolve these difficulties and have sought an urgent meeting with the diocese to progress these matters further."

In its statement in response, the Diocese of Cloyne said that Bishop Magee and other representatives had met Mr Elliot on two occasions. "These meetings were cordial and productive," said the statement, adding that Bishop Magee later wrote to Mr Elliott offering to meet him on either April 4th, 7th, 14th or 21st as well as promising to co-operate fully and provide him with access to all relevant files. Mr Elliott wrote back on April 14th, indicating that he was unable to fix a date for a meeting until after April 17th, and that he would be in contact to discuss other possible dates. The Diocese statement said his comments were therefore "surprising".

Bishop John Magee and Cloyne Report

I completed the main draft of my article concerning Bishop John Magee yesterday as Judge Yvonne Murphy's Report on the Cloyne diocese is due to be published this autumn. I would expect it to ignore most of the salient issues e.g. the previous false allegations of sex abuse directed at Bishop Magee in 1994 and 1999. Anyway the following are the last two sections of my essay which is at:
http://www.irishsalem.com/individuals/accused/bishop-john-magee/index.php

AFTERMATH TO PUBLICATION OF NBSC REPORT IN DECEMBER 2008

Prior to December 2008 the Gardai had submitted several files to the Director of Public Prosecutions in relation to allegations against two priests of the Cloyne Diocese. In every case the Director stated that no criminal prosecution should be brought. In December 2008 Garda Superintendent Pat Carey confirmed that there were no current investigations relating to alleged child abuse by priests in the Cloyne diocese.

After Bishop Magee published the NBSC Report in December 2008 there were a spate of further criminal allegations - including one against the Bishop himself. It may be that Bishop Magee published the Report in the expectation that it would "heal the pain" of the alleged victims and "promote reconciliation" with them. If so, he was very much mistaken!

CONCLUSION - THE BISHOPS AND THE NUNS

In the early stages of child abuse hysteria in Ireland the Bishops - including John Magee himself - were prepared to defend the innocent even to the extent of suing newspapers and TV stations that published false allegations of child abuse. The Christian Brothers did likewise - at least to some extent. However the Sisters of Mercy grovelled from the beginning and went out of their way to apologise to people who were making, what were obviously, false claims. (Their rationale seems to be that false accusers are suffering deep pain and the way to heal their pain is to apologise to them.)

In 2004 two events combined to end all ecclesiastical resistance to false allegations. These were the appointment of Diarmuid Martin as Archbishop of Dublin and a further dramatic apology by the Merciful Sisters. After this the Bishops - led by Martin - abandoned any effort to defend their priests; in effect they adopted the policy of the nuns. This is what Bishop Magee did in December 2008 when he published a report that both slandered his own priests and made it impossible for them to sue the report's authors.

The effects of this policy of appeasement were catastrophic for Magee, for the Catholic Church and indeed for all falsely accused persons. Of course the Sisters disclaim all responsibility and blame the Bishops! In an article in the Irish Times on 14 November 2009, Patsy McGarry quotes Bishop Willie Walsh (a great admirer of Archbishop Martin):
He had been speaking recently to the leadership team of the Mercy congregation’s southern province, “women who have given their lives in the service of the church”, and who were “very broken, very sad”. They felt “let down by us, the bishops”.

Bishop Willie - like Martin - is a gutless wonder who never condemns false allegations of child abuse. So it is unlikely that the "very broken, very sad" Sisters whom he quotes, are blaming himself. Presumably they are blaming those Bishops who originally defended the innocent!

No doubt every ruling class becomes morally corrupt before it becomes extinct but even a Franz Kafka would find it difficult to do justice to the decadence of the leadership of the Catholic Church in Ireland today.

Kafkaesque = "Marked by surreal distortion and often a sense of impending danger" (Wikipedia definition).

Labour Councillors Join Mob Harrassment of Innocent Family

Councillor Nicky Kelly and fellow Councillors accept petition at Redcross Commumity Hall.

The following is from a discussion on www.politics.ie regarding a mother and her four children who have been hounded out of four houses in Co Wicklow because her husband was convicted of a sex offence against a minor 18 YEARS AGO! (He got a suspended sentence of six months at the time).

Labour Councillors Join Mob Harrassment of Innocent Family

The family have been hounded out of Kilcoole, Redcross, Rathnew and Ashford. I think they are all in the Archdiocese of Dublin which covers most of Co. Wicklow as well. Ashford certainlly is and that is where their house was burned down.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has become a great hero of the liberal media because of the way he has dealt with allegations of child sexual abuse. He cannot make a speech without denouncing the evils of abuse and apologising for the way the Church dealt with them in the past. He even put pressure on Bishop Martin Drennan to resign even though NO criticism had been made of him in the Murphy Report. (Like the Wicklow mob, the Archbishop seems to believe in guilt by association.)

http://www.irishsalem.com/individuals/Politicians%20and%20Others/archbishop-martin/index.php

Would it be too much to ask the Archbishop to condemn the behaviour of the people who hound an innocent mother and her four children? The mob are abusing these innocents. Moreover the hysteria and fanaticism generated by the mob will rebound on real victims of child sexual abuse in the future. Cynicism is what normally follows after Hysteria.

Bishop John Magee and False Allegations of Child Abuse

The following is my comment on an article in Ciaran’s Peculier [sic] Blog
http://ciaranparker.com/2008/12/22/news-from-nowhere/#comment-1469

QUOTE:No one can say that Bishop Magee has been guilty of any wrong-doing in the diocese of Cloyne. However, I knew of a priest who once served under him. This man was in many ways an archetypal Irish Catholic priest, middle-aged, and with somewhat prejudiced views about the modern world. However, when asked about Dr Magee, he said but one thing. “That man is evil.”

And then again there were rumours, only rumours, that the bishop of Cloyne liked to pay social visits to London, but not to visit the Victoria and Albert museum or take in a show. ENDQUOTE

Is this what you mean by any chance?
“Guardian Apology to Bishops for Paedophile Ring Claim [1994]”
http://www.irishsalem.com/individuals/accused/bishop-john-magee/TheGuardianandBishopMagee.php

The following is an extract from an article by Sam Smyth in the Sunday Independent on 10 April 1994:

“Eight days ago an article by Susie MacKenzie in The Guardian weekend supplement about celibacy and the Catholic priesthood made a reference to a bishop’s involvement in a paedophile ring. It outraged the Catholic Hierarchy who apparently considered taking a class libel suit on behalf of the country’s 30 bishops. On Friday the Bishop’s Conference announced that they had made a formal complaint to the Guardian and Bishop Thomas Flynn said they were “highly offended”.

“The Guardian said it is taking the complaint “very seriously”. THE SOURCE OF THE INFORMATION ON WHICH THE ‘BISHOP AND PAEDOPHILE RING’ ALLEGATION WAS MADE IS UNDERSTOOD TO BE A PRIEST. [My emphasis].

“According to research, it would not be surprising if there was one homosexual among any 30 men, although there is not one iota of evidence to suggest that there is a gay Irish bishop. BUT ALL THE RUMOURS CIRCULATED TO SUGGEST THAT THERE IS A PRACTISING HOMOSEXUAL AMONG THE IRISH CATHOLIC HIERARCHY HAVE PROVED TO BE FALSE – AND THERE MIGHT WELL HAVE BEEN MALICE IN THE MANUFACTURING OF THEM.”