Circumstances dictated that I work long and lonely hours presently.I am a great listener to the radio,mostly RTE.
The casual and none too subtle insulting to all things Catholic permeates the Station and I might add that of all religions it is only the Catholic religion that is treated like this.
Earlier this week the woman who replaces Sean O Rourke while he is on holidays hosted a slot about the totally legitimate complaints concerning the bigotry of the student faculty in Cork University and the way they refused recognition to a Catholic Society who are of the Pro life viewpoint.
In my view, if this is true and is stood up,all funding should be withdrawn from the Students Union until such time as it reforms itself and they should be made repay whatever monies they advanced to other societies whilst refusing recognition to this Pro Life Group.
In any event what was supposed to be a balanced discussion was hosted by this replacement broadcaster.
We had a Catholic Priest who was putting his view of the situation in the one corner and an Atheist ,whose name escapes me but who is wheeled out at every occasion where that viewpoint is needed by RTE.And then we had a columnist from the Irish Times who stated that she was there as a referee.
Well the antagonism of the atheist towards the Catholic viewpoint was palpable and it transpired that the columnist from the Times was of the view that religion was a private matter (which begs the question just why she took part in the programme in the first place ) and that she was on the periphery of the Catholic faith just hanging on by her fingertips.
She went on to deride the pro life movement in general because of one only experience she allegedly had over a phone call with a pregnant student many moons ago.
And then she derided in words of extreme vitriol the actions of a dead man,who many would regard as a hero, because the way he corresponded with the Catholic Hierarchy over fifty years ago.
The dead can't sue for slander nor can they respond.I'd say you learn this at journalist school.
I doubt she is fit to lace the shoes of Sean Mac Bride nor never will leave the mark on history he did.
Not one word did she say against the alleged blatant discrimination in Cork University.
So much for balance from that quarter.
But the presenter tore into the Priest stating ,iter alia ,theist the Catholic Church was responsible for a rake of abuses over the years and it was probably payback time against Catholics.Just what you would expect from the RTE mindset.
Neither she,nor the other heads in charge in the station have the wit to recognise that, yes certain evil individuals within the Catholic Church did unspeakable evil against children etc and to blame the entire Church for the deeds of these evil people is a nonsense .
I am a member of the Church and I never abused anybody,neither did countless millions others and I find such statements by journalists who do know better gratuitous insulting.
It is generally accepted that about 4 % of child abuse was caused by religious and the remaining 96 %by non religious .
! % is far too much but to extrapolate that because 96% of abuse is caused by non religious Irish people and makes the entire Irish race into child abusers is just as absurd as saying that he entire Ca tholic Church was involved in abuse .
The dissemination of these sort of inaccurate casual and harmful untruths should cease.
And then we had this a guy ,whose name I forget, on what I think is the" living word",trash his parents for sending him to the Christian Brothers ,trash them further for involving him in attendance at Mount Argos Church for various ceremonies,belittle the Christian Brothers because they did corporal punishment ( like all teachers at the time ) , decry their promotion of Gaelic games as against the game of the squaddies.
And then he trashed Irish society in general as it was at the time.
I lived through those times.
The Christian Brothees educated me and many millions like me.I have the height of respect for them.I loved and still love the games of the Gaels and fair dues to the Brothers for inculcating them.
I still have bad memories of a married lay teacher who beat us up with a stick regularly whilst a very young boy in National School .Immeasurably worse than any Brother I encountered.
I treasure the memories I have of serving Mass and the clergy I encountered .
I have only the fondest memories of my parents and appreciate totally everything they did for me.
And the society I remember,whilst it had its faults was one where you never locked your door,where breakins were as rare as hen's teeth and where a murder was so rare that it was a talking point for years.
Those were the god times man.
But of course RTE puts forward more nonsenical shite.
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