Lolek Ltd, Trading as 'The Iona Institute'

The Black Oil

robindch wrote: »

Oireachtas Retort replies to BOB in a forthright fashion:

http://oireachtasretort.tumblr.com/post/118538922950/breda-obrien-is-full-of-****

The audio from the Marian Finucane has Breda talking about Iona being a platform for those who feel their views are not represented. Is she talking about media coverage only here? It's not as if there's a daily call to prayer or dominance in the education system...

Shrap

OOh, loving this:

http://bocktherobber.com/godsquad/godsquad.html

They've missed out a number of notable connections but it's a good start. Get in there and pull some Ionanists out of place....

galljga1

Shrap wrote: »

OOh, loving this:

http://bocktherobber.com/godsquad/godsquad.html

They've missed out a number of notable connections but it's a good start. Get in there and pull some Ionanists out of place....

All that is missing is

The Knights Who Say "Ni!"

Fred Swanson

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Bannasidhe

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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Dey de Daddy.

Shrap

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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I'm imagining it's because they are *probably* at the heart of it all, but their members are top secret and always have been. Likewise their funding. Here's an interesting article from 1983 with some connections that can still be made to current politicians, judges, etc. http://politico.ie/archive/secrets-opus-dei

robindch

Shrap wrote: »

OOh, loving this:

http://bocktherobber.com/godsquad/godsquad.html

Interesting to see that they've connected with the tiny Benedictine outpost in Stamullen. Popette is a big fan of them and unlike many Benedictine outlets, appears to house hardline fundamentalists.

Their website is here, while a more informative blog lives here.

Shrap

robindch wrote: »

Interesting to see that they've connected with the tiny Benedictine outpost in Stamullen. Popette is a big fan of them and unlike many Benedictine outlets, appears to house hardline fundamentalists.

Their website is here, while a more informative blog lives here.

Holy smoke Batman! There's some fierce cognitive dissonance going on there. Read this in a post entitled Saint Dymphna and Teenaged girls - "No institution in the world has honoured young ladies, teenaged girls, as much as the Holy Catholic Church" and can read no further for reasons of mental health.

Good old Opus Dei, eh? Their teenage girl numeraries will surely be thankful to read that from the confines of their brainwashing.....

expectationlost

so how we figured out how they are funded? surely somebody can figure this out so they can be facts behind headlines saying the no side are funded by foreigners.

volchitsa

Shrap wrote: »

I'm imagining it's because they are *probably* at the heart of it all, but their members are top secret and always have been. Likewise their funding. Here's an interesting article from 1983 with some connections that can still be made to current politicians, judges, etc. http://politico.ie/archive/secrets-opus-dei

That's a really good article there, thanks for that, Shrap.
About Bocktherobber's diagram, there's one person on there whom I know from UCD (the famous UCD connection your article mentions, someone I know is a member of OD, but is not linked to them on Bock's diagram.

I presume that's not the only case - as you say, the fact that they refuse to acknowledge membership makes it a bit risky to "out" them without written proof. I'd say many or even most of the people on the diagram may in fact be linked to OD, as some of those organizations are IMO a front for OD.

Shrap

volchitsa wrote: »

I presume that's not the only case - as you say, the fact that they refuse to acknowledge membership makes it a bit risky to "out" them without written proof. I'd say many or even most of the people on the diagram may in fact be linked to OD, as some of those organizations are IMO a front for OD.

You're welcome.

And of course, the diagram doesn't detail how professional and far reaching some of these organisations actually are. Have a look at Lismullin (these days admitting its Opus Dei ethos) http://www.lismullin.org/ Their retreats, conferences, seminars, etc. have regularly wined and dined many of the movers and shakers in our present Civil Service and higher echelons of society, including politics. Would love for an exposé, but it'd be a brave (or foolish) journo who'd do it properly. The freemasons have nothing on these guys.

Edit: Prime example of someone we "don't really know" whether he belongs to Opus Dei - this Broadsheet link to archived Ronan Mullen stuff - scroll down to "Opus Dei, You Say?" http://www.broadsheet.ie/tag/senator-ronan-mullen/

volchitsa

Absolutely. I wasn't referring to Ronan Mullen, btw - but I'd imagine he's certainly likely to be one of them too.

The article described accurately the way I saw vulnerable students being targeted by Opus Dei members, invited to special meetings the rest of us (the more difficult ones, I guess!) weren't invited to, and they fairly quickly started either coming back before the holidays are over, or just actually staying in the residence and not going home at all. Definitely cult-like behavior, imo.

PopePalpatine

TIL John Paul II was in Opus Dei.

magicbastarder

i'd forgotten ronan mullen was spokesperson for desmond connell. i suppose it's hard to use that fact against him without it seeming personal.

PopePalpatine

Who's Desmond Connell?

Also, I noticed that God Squad web doesn't have Fr Brian McKevitt linked to Nearly Dead! Alive!

robindch

PopePalpatine wrote: »

Who's Desmond Connell?

Desmon Connell is Diarmuid Martin's predecessor as archbishop of Dublin and was one of the star witnesses in the 20009 Murphy Commission Investigation into clerical abuse in Dublin.

Connell became an hit when he explained that the inaccurate statements he'd previously made were actually instances of "mental reservation", which he defined as follows:

Desmon Connell wrote:

Well, the general teaching about mental reservation is that you are not permitted to tell a lie. On the other hand, you may be put in a position where you have to answer, and there may be circumstances in which you can use an ambiguous expression realising that the person who you are talking to will accept an untrue version of whatever it may be – permitting that to happen, not willing that it happened, that would be lying. It really is a matter of trying to deal with extraordinarily difficult matters that may arise in social relations where people may ask questions that you simply cannot answer. Everybody knows that this kind of thing is liable to happen. So, mental reservation is, in a sense, a way of answering without lying.

robindch

This image showed up yesterday on twitter I think:

Shrap

Originally Posted by Desmon Connell

Well, the general teaching about mental reservation is that you are not permitted to tell a lie. On the other hand, you may be put in a position where you have to answer, and there may be circumstances in which you can use an ambiguous expression realising that the person who you are talking to will accept an untrue version of whatever it may be – permitting that to happen, not willing that it happened, that would be lying. It really is a matter of trying to deal with extraordinarily difficult matters that may arise in social relations where people may ask questions that you simply cannot answer. Everybody knows that this kind of thing is liable to happen. So, mental reservation is, in a sense, a way of answering without lying.

Oh yes, I remember this masterclass in how to debate like an Iona shill. Ronan Mullen was well trained, like the rest of them, in how not to answer hard questions "without lying".

Pherekydes

robindch wrote: »

Connell became an hit when he explained that the inaccurate statements he'd previously made were actually instances of "mental reservation", which he defined as follows:

If you can persuade others that you are not lying, then you are not lying?

Is that it?

Shrap

Pherekydes wrote: »

If you can persuade others that you are not lying, then you are not lying?

Is that it?

As far as I know, it's not even necessary to persuade others that you're not lying - you can just keep not answering the question.

I think it's more like when you are asked a particularly difficult question that you wouldn't want to answer as it would make you or the people you represent look bad or would divulge a secret, then it's fine to use ambiguity to preserve the lie from being uttered, so long as you use the mental equivalent of crossing your fingers. Most often associated with the Jesuits*.


*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_reservation

robindch

Pherekydes wrote: »

If you can persuade others that you are not lying, then you are not lying?

Not quite. The idea is that you make an incomplete or ambiguous statement to somebody and trust that the person picks up the "wrong" meaning. I think it was Connell who went on to explain it approximately thusly:

Some guy wrote:

Imagine you are a housekeeper for a priest and somebody comes to the door whom the priest does not wish to see. You open the door, you exchange pleasantries, then say "Ah, you want to see Father Bob, but Father Bob is not here" and you complete the sentence by adding, inaudibly to yourself, "...at the door with me.".

In this way, you have said something which is true ("Fr Bob is not here at the door with me"), but the recipient will have understood something else (that "Fr Bob is not here", 'here' meaning the house, with the implication "that Fr Bob cannot see you").

It's called "mental reservation" because the speaker "reserves" certain words "mentally", and the ambiguity caused by their omission leads the listener to understand something other than the primary meaning of the words spoken.

As I recall somebody saying at the time, it's the ethical equivalent of crossing your fingers behind your back while you say something and believe that this absolves you of any responsibility to be honest.

Frankly, it's a little bit unbelievable that some people apparently believe this is honorable, adult behaviour.

Shrap

BTW, pass whatever links you can back up between the God Squad personages to https://twitter.com/BocktheRobber or http://bocktherobber.com/

"All additions and corrections welcome" Bocktherobber

Smiley92a

volchitsa wrote: »

Absolutely. I wasn't referring to Ronan Mullen, btw - but I'd imagine he's certainly likely to be one of them too.

The article described accurately the way I saw vulnerable students being targeted by Opus Dei members, invited to special meetings the rest of us (the more difficult ones, I guess!) weren't invited to, and they fairly quickly started either coming back before the holidays are over, or just actually staying in the residence and not going home at all. Definitely cult-like behavior, imo.

Hmm. Remember that college acquaintance I mentioned tried to get me to vote for Mullen in the EU elections, and claimed to be a friend of his? I was surprised to see him on facebook recently pushing for a yes vote. I wonder if this is what happened to him? If so, I'm glad he escaped. I suppose if they do go on the hunt for new members, Maynooth must be a prime hunting ground.

lazygal

https://www.questia.com/magazine/1P3-45481683/ireland-s-new-intolerance


I just....what? Quinn seems to have implied in 1999 that "A profound alteration in the relationship between parent and child may result when the child is no longer welcomed as a gift but produced as it were to order. Parental attitudes would thereby be affected, creating a sense of consumer ownership as well as a new anxiety to win and retain the child's affection. The child no longer belongs to the family in a personal sense if it is radically a product rather than a person. So much of parental ambition has been invested in the one or two children that a properly personal relationship becomes problematic."

Says the man who thinks people who have enough money should be able to get around adoption checks and who adopted two children from a different country.

Penn

lazygal wrote: »

Says the man who thinks people who have enough money should be able to get around adoption checks and who adopted two children from a different country.

Correction; "heterosexual married" people. Anyone else will ruin the child's life, make them cry and long for their biological parents (even though the adopted parents aren't the biological parents anyway) and destroy everything society considers to be a family.

lazygal

Bad Horse wrote: »

Correction; "heterosexual married" people. Anyone else will ruin the child's life, make them cry and long for their biological parents (even though the adopted parents aren't the biological parents anyway) and destroy everything society considers to be a family.

Ah I see. Much like the way everyone I know got divorced after the 1995 referendum and how no one had babies after we were able to buy condoms and get the pill to regulate our cycles.

The Black Oil

Desmond Connell is one of those names I'll forever associate with the awfulness reported on (and the response) in the last decade. Such an empathy gap between him and the likes of Archbishop Martin.

fisgon

Wow, dormant thread... Has Iona not been up to anything recently?.....

Anyway, just reading an extract from the How the Yes was won, book, charting how the Yes movement won the referendum.

"The reasearch.... showed that having the Iona Institute as the most prominent opponent was an advantage for the Yes campaign. Potential swing voters did not warm to Iona's leading spokespeople who were seen as standing for an 'uptight', 'old world', 'down with that sort of thing', 'reactionary' position that did not appeal to uncertain voters."

Made me smile. Note that the responses were from swing voters, not those already voting Yes.

Cabaal

fisgon wrote: »

Wow, dormant thread... Has Iona not been up to anything recently?.....

Anyway, just reading an extract from the How the Yes was won, book, charting how the Yes movement won the referendum.

"The reasearch.... showed that having the Iona Institute as the most prominent opponent was an advantage for the Yes campaign. Potential swing voters did not warm to Iona's leading spokespeople who were seen as standing for an 'uptight', 'old world', 'down with that sort of thing', 'reactionary' position that did not appeal to uncertain voters."

Made me smile. Note that the responses were from swing voters, not those already voting Yes.

Gota say I agree with that viewpoint,

Thats exactly how Lolek come across, they are no different to the CatholicComment group

Fred Swanson

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