大象传媒

Did Saint Patrick really drive the snakes out of Ireland....or did he open the door to welcome them in?

After "listening again" to today's show here in Canada, I am astonished at the mealy mouthed words spoken by representatives of the Roman Catholic Church put forth. Said words serve to show that the Vatican and its minions have really only learned one thing: political spin! We are all hypocrites and sinners, but the Roman Catholic Church has brought hypocrisy to a new level. It almost makes this lapsed Catholic wish there was truly a vengeful God, in the tradition of the Old Testament.

You don't have to go to Dublin, William, to find a bishop skilled in mental reservation. Donal McKeown is caught in flagranti when he tells us he heard the term for the first time last week. He has been close enough to some of the best practitioners to be intimate with the thing itself even if he doesn't know what to call it. Intelligent people don't tell lies, or, if they do, they don't get caught. Rome is certainly to blame for appointing such a string of mediocrities to Irish bishoprics. There are men of intelligence and integrity in the Irish priesthood who have minds and hearts of their own. They don't rise to the top because they can't be trusted to play the game. But the game is over now, an enormous own goal.

Didn't hear the programme this morning, sounds as if I'm glad I didn't! Rusticatus, when you say; ' There are men of intelligence and integrity in the Irish priesthood who have minds and hearts of their own. They don't rise to the top because they can't be trusted to play the game', are you refering to Fr Mc Patrick Cafferty?

I think that in an American courtroom in testimony under oath, what the Catholic heirarchy calls "mental reservations" a prosecutor or judge would call "perjury."

"In response to the many concerns raised about the use of 鈥淢ental Reservation鈥�, we wish to categorically state that it has no place in covering up evil." (Bishops' statement of yesterday)
Sorry, lads. This won't do at all at all. It's just another example of "mental reservation". It says all too clearly that mental reservation is allowed when you don't think you're using it to cover up evil. You have shown that you can't be trusted to know when you're covering up evil. And a lie is a lie is a lie. If you can't come up with an outright rejection of the practice you should all resign. Nobody will ever take you seriously again. The snivelling of Eamonn Walsh and Martin Drennan is beneath contempt.

Here, from the old Catholic Encyclopedia, is the old Catholic doctrine of mental reservation that a Catholic Doctor of Divinity and Bishop told Sunday Sequence he had never heard of before the Murphy Report: