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www.celtic-connection.com
MAY 2010
A Free Woman: Emancipated
from the Catholic Church at 21
O Ferns Bishop, Denis Brennan, wants 100,000 parishioners to contribute to the diocese's massive legal bills. What gall!
The Vatican is reputed to be the richest organization in the world, selling off even one of their artifacts would easily net them more than enough cash to cover the legal cost in all dioceses.
How is it possible that Brennan, quote: "is not familiar with the finances of the Vatican" when their substantial financial assets are common knowledge around the world.
He states "I do not want to burden others" (meaning the Vatican) and goes on to state "this is our responsibility" (meaning his parishioners). No problem burdening the faithful with a mammoth financial responsibility they do not own and did not create.
The hierarchy of the Catholic Church, those who hid behind closed doors organizing escape routes to other churches for the serial pedophiles who continued their vile behaviour - they and the Bishops who protected them -they are the ones who own this obscene, decades long abuse perpetrated on defenseless children. This belongs to them, lock, stock and barrel.
I was, however, heartened to read of the resignation of several Irish bishops. Kudos to them for their integrity. May their strength bring courage to other bishops who may be struggling to find the courage to resign their church post.
The statement by Bishop Kirby in the March edition of The Celtic Connection quote: "Victims expected too much from Pope's summit," would have been a stunner for me, had I not been long-since disenfranchised with the Catholic Church.
Immigrating to Canada as a young teenager allowed me just the distance I needed to step back from my - then -devoted commitment to Catholicism.
Here, I got breathing space, even as I dreamed scenarios of priests shouting demands from the pulpit - for money, for service to the church, as they put the fear of God into us.
There was one priest amongst their midst, who, on many occasions scoured the streets, beating up boys playing football instead of what he felt was more important, attending services organized for their supposed benefit.
One scene etched in my head still after 50 odd years, is of a very thin woman who lay full length on a bench outside the church, as we filed out after Mass. She appeared comatose until I heard a prefect explain she had fainted in church.
Her frock (the Fifties fixed garment) blew up and revealed torn underwear. I was later to learn from someone who knew her that she was a pillar of the parish, and gave much of her meager earnings (and by the look of her frail body, her food money) to the church.
By VIOLET MOORE
"...they are the ones who own this obscene,
decades long abuse perpetrated on defenseless children."
There were others like her on Rathdrum Road, where I grew up. St. Bernadette's, our parish, stood on Clogher Road, all of our priests lived on Clogher at the corner of Aughavanagh Road.
Their houses were ample sized homes with sweeping front lawns that housed their own personal housekeeper, cook, and bottle washer. Except for one (the tyrant who beat the boys), they all had ample bellies.
We passed their houses which faced each other on opposite sides of Aughavanagh Road on our way to Mass and solidity. NEVER during my lifetime in Dublin was there ever a comparison made in my hearing of the manner in which the priests lived - compared with the raw, abject poverty of every family in the neighborhoods surrounding our church.
It was that memory that burned in my brain and caused the dissolution of my belief in my religion.
This caused the complete collapse of my entrenched, never failing faith in God - no more would I revere my Omnipotent Pope, my revered love of our priests and nuns, gone, dissipated.
My adoration included the mother superior of the separate school we attended - next to the Loretta Convent, where no serious attempt was made to to educate us.
We would become Dublin's grunt-workers, an education would be a waste of time. This icon of the church pared her bamboo cane into strips - which left five welts on our legs or hands. Punishment for arriving late for school.
It was only then that I acknowledged the abject hypocrisy of the church in all its finery. Its utter disregard of our circumstances, its hell-fire diatribes kept us terrified and constantly praying for forgiveness. For what? To keep us chained and terrorized.
I am happy to report I am no longer a Catholic. My separation was anything but traumatic. It was in fact the most empowering experience in my lifetime. At the ripe old age of 21,1 was a free woman.
No longer fearful that I'm a sinner, I am instead completely in charge of my own feelings and failings. Responsible for my own actions, and loving my life as I have never loved it before.
1 U.S. car accident
claims life of Belfast man's son
TAOISEACH Brian Cowen with Natasha McShane receiving her bursary scholarship in 2009.
Co. Armagh
student 'may never walk or talk again'
Doctors fear a young Irish woman will never speak or walk again after sustaining extensive brain damage in a vicious baseball bat attack in Chicago.
Natasha McShane, from Silverbridge, Co. Armagh, was beaten unconscious in the city, along with her American friend Stacy Jurich, on April 23.
The 23-year-old ex-Queen's University graduate remains in a critical condition on a ventilator in a drug-induced coma, having suffered a skull fracture and swelling to the brain in the no-warning assault.
One of two suspects, Marcy Cruz (25), was granted $1 million bail after prosecutors said she was just as culpable as her boyfriend Heriberto Viramontes (30), who was denied bail by a judge the previous day.
The two victims had been on their way home from a bar when they were both savagely beaten with an aluminium baseball bat and robbed.
The assistant district attorney told the court that Stacy needed stitches while Natasha will require extensive rehabilitation for speech, sight and mobility.
Speaking about McShane's condition, assistant district attorney Erin Antoinetti added, "Doctors don't know if she will ever walk or speak again."
McShane, who is under the care of one of the city's top doctors, had been studying urban planning at the University of Illinois since January.
In an interview, Jurich said Natasha's mother, father and sister were keeping a vigil by her hospital bed.
"They 're having a really hard time right now," Stacy said. "I think the focus of their lives is just being at her bedside, making sure she hears all of our voices and knows we're here.
"She's going to open her eyes some day and that's what's most important to them... .that they're the first people that she sees."
Jurich called it her "mission" to see that she and Natasha recover from their injuries - and, she said, she wants justice.
"We would like to make sure that the individuals that did this terrible, terrible thing are sentenced and are put behind bars and do not have the opportunity to hurt another person and another family," Stacy said.
FIVE-YEAR-OLD Shea Owens was killed in a tragic car accident on April 16.
SEATTLE - Five-year-old Shea Owens, the son of former Bredagh GAA player Dermot Owens, died on April 16 when struck by an SUV at his home in Newcastle to the east of Seattle.
The Owens family has strong links with the GAA in Belfast, the child's grandfather, the late Patsy Owens, having been one of the longest serving members of the Bredagh club.
Dermot Owens is now the manager of Mck Kelly's Irish Pub in Burien, just south of Seattle.
"What a great father he was," said Mck Purdy, co-owner of Mick Kelly's, and Dermot's boss. "We all saw Shea grow up right here, running around the place. To have this tragedy happen is just unbelievable. We're all in a state of shock."
Friends rallied to hold a car wash on April 25 to help raise funds for the family to assist with funeral expenses and time off from work so they may mourn the loss of their son.
If you would like to make donations to help the Owens family, they can be
DERMOT OWENS (R) is shown in an earlier undated photo with Mick Purdy (L), owner of Mick Kelly's Irish Pub in Burien. Dermot is the pub manager.
made at any Key Bank of Washington: Little Shea Memorial Fund.
Donations are also accepted online through PayPal. For details, e-mail: inmemoiyofsheaconorowens@gmail.com. For a direct link, see: www.b-townblog. com/tag/mick-kelly s-irish-pub.
Cheques can also be mailed directly to the memorial fund at Mck Kelly's Irish Pub & Restaurant, 435 SW 152nd Street, Burien, WA 98166, or call (206) 246-2473.
Irish family face $1 million medical bill
The family of an Irish woman who was seriously injured in a car crash in the U.S. are facing a bill ofmore than US$1 million (EU755,000).
Nicole Ryan-Graham has been in a coma since the car in which she was travelling crashed into a wall during a winter snowstorm in Kansas.
The 27-year-old has since suffered a stroke and her family fear that the medical bills will continue to rocket.
The mother of three grew up in Elton Court, Meelick, Co. Clare, but had been living in the U.S. for 18 years. She lost her job as clerk in a courthouse in the first week of January, while her health insurance ran out on February 3.
Five days later on February 8 she was in the serious crash. A fundraising campaign spearheaded by friends and relatives in Ireland, which has attracted donations from all over the country, has
already raised around EU20,000.
However, significant sums of money still need to be raised to cover the cost of her ongoing care and expected transfer to a rehabilitation hospital within the next two to three weeks.
Family members are hoping to enter into discussions with U.S. health insurer Medicate to establish if the company will cover the cost of some of her care.
A Facebook page has been set up to help with the fundraising effort and daily updates on Nicole's condition have been posted every day.
A bank account has been opened to help and donations can be sent to: First National Bank of Olathe, 444 east Santa Fe, PO Box 1500, Olathe, Kansas 66051-1500 U.S.A. Attention of Howard W. Schoene. Make cheques payable to the Nicole Ryan-Graham Medical Fund.