Wednesday 18 September 2013

FATHER PATRICK McCAFFERTY BELFAST

FATHER PATRICK McCAFFERTY BELFAST


THE BELFAST PRIEST, FATHER PATRICK McCAFFERTY IS SOMEWHAT OF AN ENIGMA. 

ON THE ONE HAND HE HAS SUFFERED GREATLY AT THE HANDS OF SOME PEOPLE IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH - AND IS VERY ANGRY AND BITTER ABOUT THEM.

ON THE OTHER HAND HE IS THEOLOGICALLY VERY RIGHT WING AND A LOVER OF THE POPE AND ALL THINGS ROMAN CATHOLIC. HE IS ALWAYS WRITING TO THE NEWSPAPERS DEFENDING A CHURCH THAT HAS LOST MOST OF ITS CREDIBILITY.

POOR PADDY WAS VERY BADLY SEXUALLY ABUSED TWICE BY FATHER JAMES DONAGHY, THE FORMER PARISH PRIEST OF BANGOR ON COUNTY DOWN. 
FATHER JAMES DOAGHY
THE ABUSE HAPPENED AT ST PETER'S SEMINARY IN WEXFORD WHERE BOTH PRIESTS WERE STUDYING FOR THE PRIESTHOOD.

FATHER McCAFFERTY WAS UNABLE TO REPORT DONAGHY TO THE BISHOP OF DOWN AND CONNOR AS HE WAS CONVINCED THAT DONAGHY WOULD BE BELIEVED AND HE WOULD BE SENT PACKING.

FATHER PADDY HAS WHAT COULD BE DESCRIBED AS A PATHOLOGICAL HATRED FOR BISHOP PADDY WALSH - RETIRED BISHOP OF DOWN AND CONNOR IN BELFAST. OBVIOUSLY HE FEELS THAT BISHOP WALSH WAS NOT THERE FOR HIM AND / OR WOULD HAVE BEEN OVER PROTECTIVE OF DONAGHY? IF YOU MEET FATHER PADDY DO NOT MENTION BISHOP'S WALSH'S NAME UNLESS YOU ARE PREPARED FOR AN EMOTIONAL EXPLOSION.
BISHOP WALSH


FOR THE LAST NUMBER OF YEARS FATHER McCAFFERTY HAS BEE WORKING AS A PRIEST IN RATHMINES IN DUBLIN - BUT HE ALSO MAINTAINED AN APARTMENT - OWNED BY THE DIOCESE OF DOWN AND CONNOR ON THE GLEN ROAD IN BELFAST.

IN THIS MONTH'S CLERICAL CHANGES IN THE DIOCESE OF DOWN AND CONNOR BISHOP NOEL TREANOR HAS APPOINTED FATHER McCAFFERTY TO BE THE CHAPLAIN OF THE ULSTER HOSPITAL AT DUNDONALD IN EAST BELFAST.

LIKE EVERYONE ELSE IN BELFAST I FEEL DESPERATELY SAD ABOUT WHAT FATHER Mc CAFFERTY HAD HAD TO ENDURE - AND THE VERY OBVIOUS DAMAGE IT HAS DONE TO HIM AS A PERSON. I DO NOT KNOW IF HE WILL EVER FULLY RECOVER FROM THE GREAT TRAUMA. PLEASE GOD HE WILL.

BUT WHAT I CANNOT UNDERSTAND ABOUT FATHER PADDY IS HIS TOTAL BLINDNESS ABOUT THE OTHER KINDS OF PEOPLE THAT HAVE BEEN ABUSED BY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH:

PRIESTS WHO WANT TO MARRY AND REMAIN IN MINISTRY

WOMEN WHO FEEL CALLED BY GOD TO THE CATHOLIC PRIESTHOOD

THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO HAVE BEEN SEDUCED BY PRIESTS FOR SEX AND THEN LATER CAST ASIDE

THE CHILDREN OF PRIESTS OUT THERE WHO DO NOT KNOW THEIR DADDIES OR HAVE ANY CONTACT WITH THEM.


CATHOLIC MARRIED COUPLES WHO DO NOT FOLLOW CATHOLIC TEACHING ON CONTRACEPTION AND FEEL REJECTED AND ABANDONED


ALL THE GAY AND LESBIAN CATHOLICS WHO FEEL CONDEMNED AND THEIR FAMILIES

FATHER PADDY WAS DREADFULLY ABUSED. BUT ALL THESE GROUPS TOO HAVE BEEN "ABUSED" IN MANY DIFFERENT WAYS.

SOMEONE ABUSED IN ONE WAY SHOULD HAVE EMPATHY WITH ALL THOSE ABUSED IN OTHER WAYS. 

I BELIEVE THAT FATHER McCAFFERTY IS GREATLY MISGUIDED IN HIS STRIDENT DEFENCE OF THE POPE, THE VATICAN, CANON LAW, MAN-MADE TEACHINGS AND THE INSTITUTION IN GENERAL.

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC INSTITUTION - AS A MONSTER - NEEDS TO BE TOTALLY DESTROYED AND THEN REBUILT AGAIN ACCORDING TO THE MIND OF JESUS CHRIST.

RENOVATING THE INSTITUTION WILL NOT BE ENOUGH. IT IS TOO ROTTEN FOR RENOVATION.


IT NEEDS A CHAIN AND BALL JOB - AND THEN REBUILT ON A SURE FOUNDATION - THAT FOUNDATION BEING THE JESUS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT - WHO OVERTURNED THE RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENT OF HIS DAY AND BEGAN SOMETHING NEW - SOMETHING VERY BEAUTIFUL.


Bishop Pat Buckley
18.9.2013.









27 comments:

  1. I was raised and schooled in the Roman Catholic Church. I have practiced my faith piously and devoutly for my entire life. I was a Marian devotee and wore a scapular for 35 years. Now, widowed at age 61, after having read through the entire Bible, for the first time I find myself feeling eerily different, even distant, about my religion.

    My most pious relatives and the devout among my Catholic friends are vitriolic and acrimonious in their scorn and rebuke since they discovered I have presumed to read and attempt to understand the Holy Scriptures without the aid of a priest or officially approved Roman Catholic literature.

    They often will scream and yell about Protestant misinterpretations of Christian beliefs established long ago by early church fathers, about the abandonment of Roman Catholic traditions or about numerous Protestant Bibles with flawed translations. They seem self-righteously proud they have avoided attempting to read the Bible for themselves. They tell me that I am a fool, while assuring me that they "KNOW" what they believe.

    I can only be honest Bishop Pat, Canon Law and the church structures are not the same as the Word of God or the Eucharist. I believe that they are so far away from the tradition left us by Christ himself - my conscience and reading is telling me this, am I wrong?

    Jim

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    1. "am I wrong?" you could be. Do you have a specific example.

      Sorry to hear about your wife.

      There is Jesus saying blessed are the poor and then saying the poor will always be with you. Jesus who drove the money lenders for the temple. Jesus who said to give up everything to follow him, and Jesus whose group carried a money box. Jesus who praised the widow for her small donation and Jesus who was happy to pray in the opulent Second Temple of Jerusalem.

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    2. ABSOLUTELY you are not wrong! The RCC is not found in GOD's word. The clear reading of the plain words of Scripture demonstrate that. The RCC has to nuance so many plain teachings of Scripture to make it fit with their traditions. You wrote this a while ago, so you may have come to Biblical faith and are now standing FIRM and SECURE in Christ, but I'll still share Romans 1:16-17 (16For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.") cross referenced with Mark 8:38 (If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."). The RCC is ashamed of these words of Christ because they tell us "the Bible is not enough." These words of God/Christ are not enough, according to the RCC. They are ashamed of these words because they contradict RCC theology.

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  2. My detractors are making my life a living hell. I am considering moving away from my family, my lifelong friends and my hometown just to have some peace and to regain a more normal and less contentious lifestyle.

    Is there really, as I feel the Bible clearly indicates, something terribly wrong with the Roman Catholic religion?

    Why do my Catholic friends make life so difficult for people who question them? Where is the Christian values??

    Jim again!


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  3. The RC church, of which I belong become too arrogant and put itself above its followers becoming political and interfering in government and secular matters that don't concern it. It forgot the teachings of the person who it is supposed to be based on.

    JJ

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  4. I think a differentiation does need to be made here between 'Catholics' and 'Catholicsim' as an institution. The vast majority of (modern) Irish Catholics I know and am one of, use contraception, have no major problem with homosexuality, would report abuse directly where they should be reported - to the police, not the bishop - would not mind women priests, and the youngest ones gleefully have relations outside of marriage, although Catholics do, in general, tend to be the ones who wait.
    It's the machine itself which appears outdated and struggling to change, not Catholics themselves, and there is a higher tolerance among the Catholic community of their church's sluggishness precisely because they accept a vast, ancient institution and city state is going to be slow to change.

    They campaign, they press on, and change is essential, but an institution that originates within the Roman Empire and has continued since changes far more slowly than other smaller and more wieldy institutions.

    The consensus among Irish and British catholics is it does need to change, and that it will, but that the process will be long and painful. It will not, however, either destroy itself or disappear tomorrow if it doesn't get a move on,

    Unless Saint Malachy and his poems of future popehoods were accurate - in which case heads up, everyone, the next pope will be the antichrist and bring about the end of the world. And we're all doomed.

    lol - Patrick J

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  5. "The pope is an idiot" as are some catholics, Hypocrites more like it. Want to wear the uniform, want to belong to the club, but don't want to play by its rules canon law, man made evil rules!!

    Weak minded individuals addicted to the group-think, the sense of belonging, and ritual that the catholic church provides.

    Wise up and grow up.

    Joan

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  6. If you seriously believe in the truth of the Catholic religion, changing the church to accommodate modernity is ridiculous; your mission must be to adapt modernity to accommodate the church. The timeless creator of the universe is hardly likely to change moral truths in line with prevailing fashion. If it leads to the church losing members and being subjected to ridicule, read Matthew 5:11.
    If you don't seriously believe in the truth of the Catholic religion, then for God's sake stop calling yourself a Catholic and then you can stop caring one way or the other what the church teaches.

    ALthough, I am not sure if I care or not to be honest! The Bishops do not care, living in their millions of pounds worth of renovated houses. I can just about pay for some heating!

    Vag

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  7. The Truth of the Catholic church is an oxymoron.

    If the Catholic church had any truths or morals the molestations would've never occurred and when they did they would'be been reported immediately and not swept under the rug.

    It is the simple and large elephant in the moral maze of the catholic mind!

    Victoria

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  8. The Catholic Church is an organisation, not a declarative statement: it is not possessed of a truth value.

    The Catholic religion, on the other hand, is a series of propositions which are either true or false.

    Ex-Catholic

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  9. The Catholic Church, by definition is not and never will be "modern". That it has failed is manifest. But its main failure transcends this Pope. The Church has demonstrated that it is fundamentally an immoral institution at its core and this Pope did nothing to change that fact.
    The Catholic Church sat on a wall
    The Catholic Church had a great fall
    All the Pope's horses
    and the All the Pope's men
    Cannot put the Church together again . . .

    Fra

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  10. Fr Patrick for Pope - let us bring healing to our very core.

    Jean

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  11. Not granting Henry VIII a divorce. They've been going downhill ever since.

    Andy

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  12. It's like the Marxist-Leninist parties. All it is is a hierarchy. And hierarchy is dying. Nobody cares what any leadership says any more. It can only be a museum piece. A hobby. An anachronistic men's club.

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  13. The Roman Catholic Church is an opulent greedy an irrational organization.
    Even Martin Luther recognized this close to 500 years ago.
    It is a medievalist ritualistic obsessed organization.
    I should know because growing up I got an overdose of it and I am not even mentioning it's misogynist base and sexual perversions towards children.

    Brian

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  14. I must stop reading theological arguments, of whatever faith or creed. They always give me a headache as I try to work out if the author actually believes what they’re writing or if they’re spouting yet more dogma.

    Confused

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  15. Things have gone wrong for the Catholic Church in the west for a number of reason but two of them include its failure to respond to
    a). The advance of science and education
    b). Its inability to keep a lid on its scandals and secrets.

    Teresa

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  16. And there was me thinking it was the RCC's archaic attitude toward contraception and abortion, paedophilia scandals and plain misogyny. They make the CoE look radical.

    Wil

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  17. A friend of mine who died last year was a socialist, and like many Scottish Catholics completely disregarded the church's rulings on contraception and several other matters.
    Yet she was an admirer of Ratzinger as a theologian and once tried to explain to me why - a useless task as I don't get theology in general. I'm happy to accept that Ratzinger has depths impenetrable to me but they are not depths I want to investigate. The real world is tough enough.

    I wish Frankie will.

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  18. He should have spent the last 10 years dobbing all the criminals into the police, not writing stupid books. He's running an international organisation and is responsible for his employees.

    Samu

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  19. They've been getting things wrong since at least since the time of the Gospels.

    Lol - Noel

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  20. Quote Notes:
    1. "It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church's pastors wherever it occurs."
    2. "Above all, we must have great respect for these people who also suffer and who want to find their own way of correct living. On the other hand, to create a legal form of a kind of homosexual marriage, in reality, does not help these people."
    3. 'The statement from the Holy See said it "opposes all forms of violence and unjust discrimination against homosexual persons, including discriminatory penal legislation which undermines the inherent dignity of the human person. ... [T]he murder and abuse of homosexual persons are to be confronted on all levels, especially when such violence is perpetrated by the State."'

    Yet, look how it treats its own gay pastors, crazy!

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  21. Lex orandi, Lex Credendi.

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  22. When Fr Paddy McCaff came to our Parish in 1988 as a deacon, he looked about 12 yeas old. We thought he was an Altar server at first. If you had been properly following the court case Fr Buckley you would know that the abuse happened to him in the diocese - not in Wexford - when Donaghy was a priest and he was a young student. I have known Fr McCafferty for many years. He is not bitter as you claim. In fact, I saw him in the company of Bishop Walsh at Fr Matt Wallace's funeral. There was no 'emotional explosion' and they seemed fine together. You need to get a life Pat Buckley and stop your devious mischief making about things you are ill informed and ignorant of. The UTV programme told the real story. Gerry

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    1. Gerry,

      My understanding was that Father Mc Cafferty was abused at least twice by Father Donaghy.

      Because of evidence in my possession I know that Father McCafferty blames Bishop Walsh for not stopping Father Donaghy's abuse.

      You would hardly expect Father Mc Cafferty to have a go at Walsh at a priest's funeral ?

      I have a very good life thank you.

      For the record I was deeply involved in the Donaghy case for 10 years and in the making of the UTV programme.

      Bishop Pat

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  23. Pat, the court case reported multiple - not two - violent rapes against Fr Pat when he was a seminarian. Your understanding is wrong. Go and check your facts. At the end of the day, Walsh could have done more but chose to do nothing. Ultimately, Donaghy is in jail and responsible for all the harm to all the victims. It is astonishing that Judge Loughran, a close friend of Paddy Walsh sat on the case before stepping down, under pressure from the prosecution!!! And she got away without declaring a conflict of interest in the beginning - something a juror would not get away with! The legal system in NI is rotten and untrustworthy. Barra McGrory, the AG, was Donaghy's lawyer when Loughran was sitting on the case. She severed the victims cases and imposed a media blackout on the trial. All of this was reversed by Judge Patrick Lynch when the trial was entrusted to him. No one has the balls to go after this. You claim to have balls. Go after it! Gerry

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  24. Why were we never, as children, pointed towards our own free reading of the Bible? Control - freakery! Incidentally, can someone explain to me the rationale, theology of cemetery Sunday? A very dubious ritual - the soul has fled, there are only remains. Why honour remains? To have the P.P. feel useful,his authority exercised, vindicated?

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