Posted on 06/21/2014 11:05:53 AM PDT by NYer
Edited on 06/21/2014 2:12:25 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Associated Press has issued an apology for its errant reporting regarding claims of a mass grave for children of unwed mothers on the grounds of Tuam Home, an Irish home for unwed mothers.
Since the disturbing story broke early this month regarding the Tuam Home for unwed mothers in Ireland, where 796 babies were purportedly “dumped into a septic tank”, the Patheos bloggers have been on the case.
(Excerpt) Read more at patheos.com ...
We shall see, but I seriously doubt it.
I don’t get that. I’m an ex-Presbyterian, but I don’t go around looking for evil about Presbyterians past or present. If every one of them abounded in holiness and good works, I would be thrilled ... and it wouldn’t change the fact that I disagree with some of what they believe.
Sums up the situation efficiently
LOL, the ones I’ve known are all good people. Some
fell for the new agey stuff, but that was the sixties.
We have an 80+-year-old Sister at our parish, who used to be a school principal in the inner city of Philadelphia. When I’m ready to give up on rearing my children to be functioning adults, I go see her and she tells me to buck up.
A few years ago she came to my Cub Scouts meeting and talked to the boys about growing up in the 1930s. That was absolutely priceless. “How many people lived in your house? How many rooms? NO WAY!”
One day my BIL (Fatheroffive) began to challenge me long distance from Florida on the things I was saying.
Eventually I studied my way back into the Church.
I have never felt any animosity toward the protestants I was with when I left the Church or their faiths.
I pray that they will find their way to the Church.
And that is just how it goes former Catholics are filled with ugliness and former protestants just aren't. We have the true peace of Christ and no need to bash where we came from.
I guess there’s just no telling about people. Sometimes I’m waiting in line at the Walmart, and I look at an ordinary looking man and think, “Is he like FReeper So-and-so? How would I ever know?”
I think there are advantages to not knowing what people really think. You can imagine they’re nice. The internet takes that away. On the other hand, you can get to know marvelous people you would never get the chance to speak to in real life.
I’m sure the usual suspects around here will reference it for years to come in their attacks on the Church.
On the other hand I have met some really great people. My mother had a medical scare a little while ago and Salvation had the prayer warriors out in a heart beat.
It will; al come out on judgment day.
All it sounds like AP is apologizing for is their printing of a story in which "some" points were not factual which they had been told. It sounds like there is STILL an ongoing investigation and all the FACTS are not known. We now are told:
1. Only "some" children who died were baptized (but not all). How many? No one knows yet. How many that were put into the mass grave? We don't know yet.
2. That children born to unwed mothers were denied baptism because it was "church" teaching is clarified that it wasn't "church" teaching to deny baptism even though they don't know if some were still denied it anyway in practice.
3. The part of the story that dead children's bodies were placed in a used septic tank hasn't yet determined if it WAS a septic tank and won't be known unless and until an excavation is done. Yet, we do know that blueprints of the property show a "septic tank" in the same spot. Let's not forget many Catholics here accepted that it was a septic tank "re-purposed" for a burial vault. What is so volatile about this?
4. Until, or unless, there is an excavation, no one knows how many of the 796 children and babies who died there were buried in this structure. That eye witnesses say they SAW small skeletal remains in there when the lid was moved, hasn't changed and their testimony has not been recanted. That there were no burial records for nearly 800 children who died at that home was what prompted the whole story in the first place.
5. Finally, the year the home was opened was off a year in the AP report. Is that a HUGE deal?
If those pitching a fit now towards others who DARED post a thread or a comment bemoaning what might have gone on there would look back at those threads, they would see the SAME comments of NOT condemning anyone until all the facts are known - I know I said it several times. This apology from the AP is admirable but only in the sense that they were able to correct the errors they had previously printed. From what I can see, there is a full investigation going on and the people of Tuam, Ireland are just as concerned about getting to the truth as we all should be. In other words, don't jump the gun demanding apologies for something you don't even know the full truth yet.
I’ve met many terrific people, too, and found a lot of terrific books as well.
BTTT! Did you read this?
**Where are all the FR usual suspects offering their apologies for gleefully spreading this lie?**
I haven’t seen one yet.
Bad things happen when you believe the mainstream media. You’d think Freepers of all people would know that by now.
When riding on the city bus I used to look at people and try to imagine if they had a story ( don't know exactly how to say this) -- something that would explain that scowl, or that defiant straightening of the shoulders, or those expensive multi-colored fingernails, a story that would help me understand them. I'd think, that man, that severe, almost scary face: he might be fighting cancer. That lady is going to prove to her aunt that she WILL finish college. That girl wants to be as glamorous as her older sister. That guy is working two jobs to raise his kids and pay off his student loan." Whatever.
It's the stuff of novels, but somehow I don't have the drive to be a novelist. I just want to think of something in their "inscape" (to use Hopkins' word) that would explain their outer presentation in a sympathetic way.
Naive, I guess. Helps me pray.
Someone I met today went home with the start of a story. I drove my new classic sports car to church this afternoon (to pick up Sally from the missions-fundraiser yard sale), and stopped for gas. As I was pulling in to the station, I realized I didn't know which side the gas tank was on! So I waved at an SUV passing me, and a woman about my age put the window down. "Excuse me, is the gas tank on this side of the car? I haven't driven it in 30 years!"
She said, "You look 30 years younger in it! and yes, it's on this side."
When I see other people in stores, in church, on the raod, etc., I think about how much Jesus loves them and died for them so that they could be saved and I wonder if they know that. It helps me to look past their scowls, frowns, smiles and faces and see them as God would want me to see them - like HE sees them. Those that society considers “throw-aways” are, in truth, individual creations of Almighty God, whom are loved and He knows every hair on their heads!
I'm preaching to myself here, trying sincerely to fight off an outbreak of cynicism. I do think people can do better. I do believe in grace.
Besides, some of the offenders (on both sides of the religious divide) don't even seem to know that detraction and calumny are sins. Really, they don't know. And these vices are treated like virtues in the foul world of cyberspace.
Face it, this is a sin-sponsoring environment.
I thought of that recently while reading the passage in Corinthians (one of them) in which St. Paul explains that the parts of the body that are less "presentable" are clothed with more honor. In the metaphor, that means that we as the Church should show more honor to the people who seem "least worthy": the handicapped, the elderly, children, the sick.
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