To try a quick hand of Hide The Terrorist
And a big ‘Frack You’ to the Thatcher Govt for their leading role in the conspiracy.
While not devaluing your justifiable outrage, what does the Thatcher Government (elected 1979) have to do with this clusterfuck in 1972?
We would all like to live in a world where simple choices are possible, but this is perhaps not as clear cut as it may seem.
Remember this was at the hight of the troubles, can anyone imagine what the effect of arresting a catholic priest would be?
Without doubt there would have been an escalation of violence and many more dead.
Perhaps those involved thought that putting him out of the way and under surveillance was the best way of avoiding extra bloodshed. It is a valid if rather stomach-churning appraisal.
Note- I am very much not a sympathiser for any paramilitary organisation, nor a fan of the UK government of that era. I think my natural instinct in this case would be to bang him up and let him rot and let justice be served.
But I can’t shake the feeling that far more innocent people would’ve died as a result of such a decision.
You are right - it was in the previous gutless Tory administration he was N.I. Secretary (not that I’d expect any political party to have any guts). He slithered his way to Home Secretary with Thatcher.
They were worried about the, what seemed at the time, very real possibility of civil war.
Yes it’s an outrage but you have to consider it in the historical context.
Yes, the historical context is very important, but what I see as the point of this thread is that once again, the RCC shows itself to morally and ethically well beneath the sewer. They are supposed to be gods representatives on earth, yet they are as an institution a very sad and pathetic lot.
Fuck the RCC and all their apologists.
The cover up was ordered by the UK Government.
We don’t know for certain but it looks like the RCC had this presented as a fait accompli by Willy Whitelaw. So while the RCC deserve to be bashed on many many issues I don’t think this is one of them.
Just, BTW, is the priest still alive?
I confess that I don’t see that in the linked article.
But regardless of that, the RCC believes it’s answerable to God rather than to the principalities and powers of this world. It had choices it could have made, it had agency, and it deserves to be judged by the standards and values inherent in its purported worldview.
No, he died in 1980.
Is time for another “The RCC is Evil” thread already?
It is all a plot by BP to distract us from the Libyan who did not die of cancer.
(I swear just when you think it could not get any worse.)
Did they defrock him? No. Did they punish him? No. Same old, same old.
And we have no idea if it was a ‘fait accompli’ or not.
And the arrest of 1 catholic priest would not have caused a ‘civil war’. (What did they think was going on anyway?).
I tell you what - when the RCC stops being evil we’ll stop the threads.
Well they do keep pulling this kind of shit, so it’s pretty much low hangin’ fruit all the way.
Aahh so you think that the conservative government of Edward Heath conspired with the catholic church to cover up the fact that one of thier priests was a high ranking member of the IRA in Londonderry.
Perhaps, maybe Whitelaw and Heath passed over the chance to show that they where beating the IRA becuase the church asked them nicely maybe?
This being the pit, bollocks, they did it because they where scared of the alternative.
Nothing. tagos is apparently a moron. If he actually understood the article that he linked to, he would also grasp that this isn’t a ccover up by the church, either. The report the story is describing was written by Al Hutchinson who…
As important as that detail is, I suppose it got in the way of tagos’s moronic recreational outrage so he conveniently left it out.
He’s demonstrated a pattern of pretty damned suspicious activity, clearly said that if the participants were still alive, “their actions would have demanded explanation, which would have been the subject of further investigation,” but that he didn’t actually have evidence that their intent matched the clear implications of their actions.
Your post looks like a variant on Bricker’s old, tired game of “you can’t personally nail them in a court of law, so shut up already.”
You didn’t read the article either, did you? Let me break it down:
A guy researches a cold case, writes a report, concludes mistakes but no criminal wrongdoing, and tagos links it to pedophilia.
And who has “demonstrated a pattern of pretty damned suspicious activity”? Hutchinson, who wrote the report? The same guy whose words tagos is using to criticize the RCC? You are reaching here.
Was it Chesney, who died thirty fucking years ago?