Dr. Michael Woods Church "Negotiations"?

Raiser

It is projected that somewhere in the region of €1,350,000,000 will be the compensation bill payable to the Victims of The Roman Catholic Churches decades of evil Child sexual, physical, emotional abuse, neglect, torture and reign of utter, abject misery.

When the question of securing funds for compensating these poor People arose who did Fianna Fail send to meet with the Churches Leaders to ask them to do the Christian thing, step forward, accept responsibility, attempt to compensate, reach out, and show integrity, decency and compassion?

Well who would you think?

Was it someone skilled in complex negotiations and determined to cut through protestations and excuses to demand justice for the Victims? Perhaps somebody who was far removed from the Church and therefore could not be swayed by their influence, their hold on his psyche gained from a lifetime of Church institutionalisation, loyalty and obeyance?

Nah they sent Dr. Michael Woods - a man who describes himself thus: "I am a Christian first, then a Catholic"

Born 4 years before Hitler invaded Poland, Dr. Woods went on to attend the Christian Brothers and later said that he entered politics after working with several Catholic community groups. He went on to hold multiple roles in Fianna Fail over the years - describing his career as having a hallmark "straight and honourable" Catholic decency to it.

Dr. Woods, who has been accused by Victims rights groups of being a Member of not just one but two mysterious "God Clubs" - Opus Dei and The Knights of St. Columbanus - Organisations, where in many Peoples opinion, the religiously delusional but wealthy are free to worship God while having the opportunity to dress up in ornate costumes and perform secret dances and handshakes etc.

In 2002, at the tender age of 67, a Man who describes his career in terms of his own religious beliefs set out to meet the Heads of the Church and decide how best to proceed on the issue of Church/State compensation.

"My religion was an asset. They knew me and they knew my work. I can't say someone else wouldn't have been able to do the same. That said, they would have known me well," Dr Woods said afterwards and went on to defend the shocking result that the Church were to pay a mere ~10% of the compensation due to its deserving Victims.

He denied ground was conceded by the Government during the negotiations. But he said his strong Catholic faith, as well as his status as a Minister, had "kick-started" the talks.

Astonishingly, in a bizarre twist, Michael McDowell former Justice Minister who was at the time Attorney General sparked controversy when he contradicted Dr Woods's assertion that he had been involved in talks at all appropriate times.

To conclude - The remaining 90% is to be paid not by the Cardinals in their purple hats, the Bishops in their pointy hats, not by the sale of the thousand of acres of Church owned land, real estate and investments.

No, Dr. Michael Woods agreed with Popes and Co. that it was best if it was paid for by you, me and everyone we know from the empty Coffers of the State - from a fund that currently cannot afford to build actual concrete schools, recruit healthcare workers, provide adequate medical care to the sick and aged or pay for just about any other necessity that you might care to mention.

God Bless you Dr. Woods.




Any text stated as fact or which ascribes quotations to any third party have been taken directly from the sources quoted below - all taken from the Public Domain and reproduced here in good faith.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0525/1224247322672.html

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/my-faith-helped-to-save-church-abuse-deal-says-woods-495734.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Woods_%28politician%29

Liam Byrne

Raiser wrote: »

It is projected that somewhere in the region of €1,350,000,000 will be the compensation bill payable to the Victims of The Roman Catholic Churches decades of evil Child sexual, physical, emotional abuse, neglect, torture and reign of utter, abject misery.

Since everything else that FF promised is being reneged on on the basis that we have no money, this should be too.

Het-Field

Raiser wrote: »

It is projected that somewhere in the region of €1,350,000,000 will be the compensation bill payable to the Victims of The Roman Catholic Churches decades of evil Child sexual, physical, emotional abuse, neglect, torture and reign of utter, abject misery.

When the question of securing funds for compensating these poor People arose who did Fianna Fail send to meet with the Churches Leaders to ask them to do the Christian thing, step forward, accept responsibility, attempt to compensate, reach out, and show integrity, decency and compassion?

Well who would you think?

Was it someone skilled in complex negotiations and determined to cut through protestations and excuses to demand justice for the Victims? Perhaps somebody who was far removed from the Church and therefore could not be swayed by their influence, their hold on his psyche gained from a lifetime of Church institutionalisation, loyalty and obeyance?

Nah they sent Dr. Michael Woods - a man who describes himself thus: "I am a Christian first, then a Catholic"

Born 4 years before Hitler invaded Poland, Dr. Woods went on to attend the Christian Brothers and later said that he entered politics after working with several Catholic community groups. He went on to hold multiple roles in Fianna Fail over the years - describing his career as having a hallmark "straight and honourable" Catholic decency to it.

Dr. Woods, who has been accused by Victims rights groups of being a Member of not just one but two mysterious "God Clubs" - Opus Dei and The Knights of St. Columbanus - Organisations, where in many Peoples opinion, the religiously delusional but wealthy are free to worship God while having the opportunity to dress up in ornate costumes and perform secret dances and handshakes etc.

In 2002, at the tender age of 67, a Man who describes his career in terms of his own religious beliefs set out to meet the Heads of the Church and decide how best to proceed on the issue of Church/State compensation.

"My religion was an asset. They knew me and they knew my work. I can't say someone else wouldn't have been able to do the same. That said, they would have known me well," Dr Woods said afterwards and went on to defend the shocking result that the Church were to pay a mere ~10% of the compensation due to its deserving Victims.

He denied ground was conceded by the Government during the negotiations. But he said his strong Catholic faith, as well as his status as a Minister, had "kick-started" the talks.

Astonishingly, in a bizarre twist, Michael McDowell former Justice Minister who was at the time Attorney General sparked controversy when he contradicted Dr Woods's assertion that he had been involved in talks at all appropriate times.

To conclude - The remaining 90% is to be paid not by the Cardinals in their purple hats, the Bishops in their pointy hats, not by the sale of the thousand of acres of Church owned land, real estate and investments.

No, Dr. Michael Woods agreed with Popes and Co. that it was best if it was paid for by you, me and everyone we know from the empty Coffers of the State - from a fund that currently cannot afford to build actual concrete schools, recruit healthcare workers, provide adequate medical care to the sick and aged or pay for just about any other necessity that you might care to mention.

God Bless you Dr. Woods.




Any text stated as fact or which ascribes quotations to any third party have been taken directly from the sources quoted below - all taken from the Public Domain and reproduced here in good faith.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0525/1224247322672.html

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/my-faith-helped-to-save-church-abuse-deal-says-woods-495734.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Woods_%28politician%29

Woods has also sat in two different sets of Government benches which have been responsible for the virtual bankruptcy of the Irish financial coffers.

The man is a complete failure as a politician, and has been part of the malignant ooozy part of North Dublin Fianna Fail, who are happy to stand by sleeze and corruption.

He has been part of the FF parlimentary party since 1977, and intends remaining there as long as he can. The man is a waste of space who has NO political legacy, save for his indemnity, which protected his catholic state of mind. He epitomises the useless type of catholic who cannot separate the institution from the fundamental message, and views them as inextricably linked i.e. any attach on the institution is an attack on God.

Rev. BlueJeans

And no doubt he attends church every sunday, and bates the chest off himself with righteous piety.

A symbol of much that was wrong with this country in the past.

Yixian

What would be done with this €1,350,000,000?

MikeC101

Yixian wrote: »

What would be done with this €1,350,000,000?

From the first sentence of the post: €1,350,000,000 will be the compensation bill payable to the Victims

So I'd assume it would be paid to the victims, as compensation.

Unless you mean what else could be done with it if the government didn't have to pay it, or what the victims will do with it?

starbelgrade

Raiser wrote: »

Born 4 years before Hitler invaded Poland, Dr. Woods went on to attend the Christian Brothers

Bertie Ahern was born 12 years after Hitler invaded Poland, but if you want to make a point about his, or anyone's elses life, I don't really see any relevance in relating them to any point in Hilter's "career".

Why pull the Hiltler card?

And if you do, where do you stop.. "Theirry Henry, born 38 years after Hitler invaded Poland..... " etc etc.

Raiser

starbelgrade wrote: »

Bertie Ahern was born 12 years after Hitler invaded Poland, but if you want to make a point about his, or anyone's elses life, I don't really see any relevance in relating them to any point in Hilter's "career".

Why pull the Hiltler card?

And if you do, where do you stop.. "Theirry Henry, born 38 years after Hitler invaded Poland..... " etc etc.

Sometimes a date is just a date - People may or may not think of them in the same way so sometimes its helpful to use certain markers in historical time lines - World War II was the one closest to 1935 in my mind anyway.

I felt his age was significant - Michael Woods was 67 when he took on that role.

What age does the average working Person retire?

What's the average age of the tax paying individual in the Country?

What's the average age of somebody so religiously indoctrinated that they are seem blind to life, logic and common sense?

- If you honestly think that the current generation + or - 20 years holds the same, awe, reverence, respect, fear, withheld judgement and tolerance for the posturing pomp of the Church than those of Michael Woods generation, well then then the point was always going to be lost on you......

Sleepy

The deal should have been thus:

50/50 from Church and State with the Church handing over all property being used for the provision of state-funded education as part of their 50% with the remainder in cash or bonds drawn on the Vatican bank.

Raiser

Sleepy wrote: »

The deal should have been thus:

50/50 from Church and State with the Church handing over all property being used for the provision of state-funded education as part of their 50% with the remainder in cash or bonds drawn on the Vatican bank.

No offence Sleepy - but can I please ask, how or why would you take such a complex and multifaceted issue and distil it down to such bare and simplistic essentials?

Church and State, right then, 100% of blame and responsibility to be meted out..... divide by 2 - so 50/50 lets go halves.... ahem - sorted.

I often hear it argued that the State "left it up to the Church" to educate people and thus are obliged to to now take responsibility for allowing the Church to assume the role and grossly mismanage it on a catastrophic level.

To me this argument is fundamentally flawed and absolutely unfair. From the States perspective the People coming forward and offering to educate the masses were impeccable and utterly trustworthy Candidates for the role being as they were Gods representatives on Earth - which at the time would not have sounded as daft and ignorant as it does now in retrospect.

On the face of it the State went with a very attractive, well referred, distinguished, established, Candidate for the role at that point in time - How anyone could then in hindsight accuse them of negligence in some manner is untenable and unfair.

Certain elements within the Church made conscious decisions to brutalise the vulnerable, small, weak, defenceless unfortunates in their care - Society should have at this point moved far enough from the gloom of the Dark Ages to civilly and reasonable ask them to address their own wrongdoings and to atone for their horrific transgressions against their Victims.

- In addressing their decades of absolute evil they will not be able to offer any real consolation, solace or peace of mind to their many thousands of Victims - but at least let them pay the tangible, material, monetary debt they that they absolutely, completely, truly and rightfully owe - little and all that it is in the face of their despicable crimes......

Sleepy

Much and all as I'd love to say we should just seize all assets of the Catholic Church - I reckon the Vatican contains enough wealth to alleviate much of the world's poverty (which seems a bit perverse given the teachings of the church!)- I actually believe that the state is guilty of numerous things in this issue:

From my reading of the Ryan Report (and I'll admit I just skimmed it), the perpetraitors weren't all members of religious orders, lay staff were involved in the abuse too.

Many of the victims were wards of state when they were entrusted to the institutions.

The Garda Siochanna ignored or refused to persue many of the reported cases and those they didn't, they tended to refer to the Bishops rather than the courts.

Finally, our state tied itself to the church at the time. Moves towards separation of church and state have been a relatively recent phenomenon in this country and we've still a long way to go.

Finally, why such a 'down the middle' approach? Well, there's culpability on both sides and I honestly don't think there's much to be gained from analyzing the who's and where's and when's of such a complex issue, dragging it out and forcing it's victims to have to keep re-living their past whilst the government and church squabble over each and every point of a percent. Keep it simple, quick and move on with trying to turn the country into a place where such horrors will never happen again.

rohatch

It is the perfect time to remove the church. They never should have been allowed to get into such a position but this is Ireland.

We need someone to stand up and point out that their basis for existing is a delusion to begin with, and then seize all their assets. They can work for free or handouts as I am sure their LORD would have wanted them too.

They own over 650,000 buildings and institutions and have billions of Euro worth of art and treasure hidden in their vaults with nominal valuations of €1 on most of them.

http://www.chick.com/reading/books/153/153_10.asp

http://www.zenit.org/article-25379?l=english

http://www.liberalslikechrist.org/Catholic/Vaticanpalace.html

http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/archive/2005-08/2005-08-02-voa8.cfm?moddate=2005-08-02


“But this is just a small portion of the wealth of the Vatican, which in the U.S. alone, is greater than that of the five wealthiest giant corporations of the country,” Baron Manhattan explains. “The Catholic church is the biggest financial power, wealth accumulator and property owner in existence.” [Vatican Billions]

Don't forget to throw in more than 18,000 works of art. [Fortune Dec 21/87]

The Vatican's gold treasure alone has been estimated by the United Nations World Magazine to amount to several billion dollars. The Independent has independently confirmed that “the Vatican Bank - Istituto per le Opere di Religione - manages more than $4 billion in assets. It does not reveal its profits or dividends, which are paid directly to the Pope. It enjoys the status of a central bank and has a dealing room adorned with crucifixes and papal portraits where 20 traders work .” [Independent Apr 19/02]

According to Hank's Jesuit Vatican informant, the world's ultimate Vatican bankers “wanted to make sure there was enough confusion, and enough information going all over the place that no one would pay attention to” their current cover-up in the catacombs.