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UNDERSTANDNG THE PSYCHOLOGY / PSYCHOSIS OF STREET PREACHERS.

Over the past three Tuesdays, I have been exposed to nine hours of street preaching of the HATE variety in my home town of Larne in Northern Ireland.

I was shocked and saddened to hear my LGBT brothers and sisters being told that they were going to burn in Hell for all eternity.

I was shocked and saddened to hear a disabled child being called “a curse from God”.

All these street preachers are former prisoners with sentences as long as ten years.

The rumour is that some were paramilitary prisoners – which would give a chilling aspect to them claiming to be BLOOD-WASHED.

THE PSYCHOSIS ASSOCIATED WITH STREET HATE PREACHERS;

Some people think street preachers are evil.

But I think they are sick – mentally ill.

And of course people can be both mad and bad.

And you cannot punish people for being ill.

But that does not mean that we have to let them do and say what they want.

Sometimes mentally ill people have to be “RESTRAINED” for their own good and for the safety of others.

In my opinion the Larne Hate Preachers should be restrained from what they are saying.

That requires new laws as there is a very thin line between free speech and have speech.

These Larne preachers are accused of telling the mother ofa disabled child that the child was “a curse from God”.

They are also telling LGBT that they will burn in hell for all eternity.

If you examine the lives and backgrounds of these street preachers look out for the flowing:

Low intelligence.

Poorly educated.

Poor language skills.

Sexually conflicted.

Inferiority complex.

Unhappy relationships.

Craving conflict.

Past addictions.

Father / Mother issues.

Victims of abuse.

The difference between a nuerotic ( all of us ) and a psychotic is – nuerotics build castles in the air. Psychotics live in them”.

208 replies on “UNDERSTANDNG THE PSYCHOLOGY / PSYCHOSIS OF STREET PREACHERS.”

I suppose a parallel would be the hermit (I think called Damian) who kept getting arrested. I believe that group has been excommunicated now.
If you want something done about them report them to the police – there doesn’t seem to be any other recourse.

If the preachers are actually ex prisoners they’re likely to have all sorts of problems. 😮

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How do you know, Pat, that these street preachers have low intelligence? Is it because yo object to what they say?

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I think regarding a disabled child as a curse and taking the Sodom story literally is not exactly a sign of high intelligence.

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Low intelligence is a factor but I know intelligent men and women who hold equally fundamentalist views on the scriptures. It has a lot to do with being afraid to think for themselves.
You might well argue that being afraid to think for oneself is a sign of low intelligence but that is not the case. Likewise, having a high IQ or being a member of Mensa is not a sign of intelligence.

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Your list of ten points sounds like a clergyman I knew, now on another continent – especially “craving conflict” like Gramsci, in fact he had a large number of associates just the same.
His training was outside Britain and I infer it was bad for him.
Plus he would brag about his feet of clay, and I know you said that but you were just taking the mick of the sort I’m thinking of.

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The lads have an opinion that differs from yours Pat, they could be doing worse. You don’t have to listen to them if you don’t want to.

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I do, because they are preaching with equipment that makes them heard for a long distance.

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9.12: You are heard too Pat in your preaching anti hatred sentiment through your blog. There can be no arguing that some of your content in your blog is tantamount to inciting violence and hate towards clerics. I’m not being antagonistic when saying this but I know for certain the damaging effects of some vulgar, ugly, offensive words spoken through this blog. Let’s be honest about our own rhetoric. TRUTH can be a very subjective thing and each of us has our own version.

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This blog does not promote hate against priests. Its about exposing corruption in the church and clergy.

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Every Magna post says the same hateful things, which we all know by heart now, and it directs hatred towards an entire group – priests – in revenge for being booted out of Maynooth when they identified the serious character and psychological problems that he displays daily.

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2:59.
Rubbish. Every Magna post says the same thing – that Jesus did not intend a priesthood. This is not hatred (unless you think anything except total submission to the priesthood is hate) but is the standard priesthood position of the majority of Protestants.
I suggest you Google ‘should Christians have priests’ to see that this is true and then sit the fuck down.
…. except you really just want to shut Magna up because he sees the priesthood for what it is.

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3.58pm. You can’t deny, MC, that you display daily on Pat’s blog (it’s not yours, btw) very serious character faults and psychological problems, of which being an incel, repition and imperviousness to hints (autism?) alcoholism, anger management issues, friendlessness and narcissism are tips of a huge iceberg.

Whether you were booted out of Maynooth or left voluntarily is less important than the fact that by the grace of God you are not a priest. What a shipwreck you would have made of priesthood.

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2.59
You may hate what I say about priests, but this does not mean that it shouldn’t be said.
The Pharisees, by and large, hated what Jesus said and conspired with their enemies, the Sadducees and Herodians, to have Jesus murdered. Like you, these all would probably have classed as hate speech everything Jesus said.
Are you a priest? Your attempt to censor what this blog publishes suggests that you are.
But this is no suggestion; it’s a fact: you are a liar, something else which suggests that you are a priest. If you are sure that I was ‘booted out’ of Maynooth, then name me. If you don’t, then you are adding yourself to the ever-growing list of priests here who have lied about my past in order to defame me.
Name me, you lying coward.

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3.23

I can indeed deny what you suggest of me, because it’s reeking bullshit.

What character faults do I express on a daily basis?

What psychological problems?

What ‘anger management issues’? Expressing anger does not turn it into an ‘issue’, whatever that means.

‘Friendlessness’? You don’t know even my name, let alone me, and my social circumstances. How, then, could you possibly know that I am friendless?

Narcissism? What? Because I’m clever, erudite, and perceptive? Others would call that crass, and you stupid, but I have the grace to do neither.

Your post says a great deal about you, and extremely little about me.

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MC, you do express your views most strongly and it can be thought of as a hatred of priests ?

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4.00pm – Magna.

Denial is also one of your problems.

Come out of the shadows and say who you are and then we can judge how well-adjusted you are, based on our recollections of you and current knowledge.

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C’mon, Magna, don’t be shy. It would give your oft-repeated comments more authority if you attached your real name to them, otherwise they look like the crazed rants of a spoiled priest.

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5.01
Pat, earlier this year you called Pope JPII (and I am quoting you directly) ‘an old bastard’.
Hateful or loving words?
I don’t understand this, yes, narcissistic expectation of priests that they be loved, regardless of what they do, or condone, or wilfully ignore.
You cannot separate the office from the man. Every Roman Catholic ordinand KNOWINGLY promised or vowed obedience to one of the most shameful, inglorious, and criminal institutions in history; you yourself have called it (and I’m quoting you directly again) ‘the Roman Empire Mark II’.
There is no such thing as a good priest, anymore than there was a good Nazi.
I’m confident that you wouldn’t claim to love any Nazi.
Roman Catholic priests, to protect their vested interests and privileges, have very, very largely remained publicly and openly silent in face of some of the worst moral corruption and practices ever exercised in their church. You can bet that very many of the men you are now defending know, at this moment, of corrupt, even criminal, practices among their colleagues, but are ‘keeping mum’ out of loyalty to the priestly fraternity, and, of course, to protect those interests and privileges I mentioned earlier.
It is hard not to hate such hedonistic, overly entitled, indolent, self-serving, and morally gutless men. But, as I said some weeks ago on the blog, were I to come across one of these wasters in need of help, I wouldn’t hesitate to help where I could.

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4.11
But I am not in the shadows, ‘Father’, since you, and your fellows, all claim to know my identity.

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5.18
My comments already have all the authority they require, because they are truthful; and you, ‘Father’, would rather these truths were put to bed.
Please, don’t insult me by calling me a ‘priest’. ‘Crazed’, ‘rants’, and ‘spoiled’ I can live with, but ‘priest’…😯

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Magna : clever, erudite and perceptive? In the first instance, who would say that about themselves unless they were suffering deep inferiority?
Secondly, this is the google-reliant and wikipedia-dependent charlatan who can’t weigh what he finds in these sources. It’s axiomatic that the internet doesn’t differentiate between fact and fancy.
And he can’t name a historical or contemporary authority on matters biblicalor theological. He has no familiarity with any secondary literature. And why not? Well, Jesus didn’t need it when commenting onexisting scripture.
Scholars and their work are admired for their balance and measured conclusions. No one here would predicate either of those epithets of mc.

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What makes you think that you speak for the people of Larne Pat? You disagree with Salvation on the Streets, I don’t see the people of Larne joining in your protest? Live and let live.

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10.11: You are equivocating on hate speech against priests. Think MC, reread your own caca, Mulvihill and others, all facilitated by you. Stop equivocating. You supply the platform. You allow the commentary which is brutal, nasty and discriminatory. Stop fooling yourself.

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The Roman Church could be described, since the mid 1920s and more so the 1980s, as making people into Sexual Obsessives in “the” Cause Against Contraception. The latter (which up till then had been neither here nor there) their pretext to pry and intrude in marriages (and after that, children’s private emotional development) which is what the oppression everywhere was about (even if it partly passed me by early on).
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Three of my grandparents turned RC in WW I and in the decimation weren’t getting instruction anyway. In my old home town the RC had only just begun to officially “colonise” in my own day. Then prayer and belief got stopped, then liturgy was stated to be both important and unimportant (in the same way) at the same time. A puzzle without even an enigma inside. Emptiness, nihilism, literally vanity. Zero sum.
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NCW / almost all RCC have no verticality except the swords dangling over our heads, and no horizontality except the jogging elbows. Religion is solely manoeuvring (a.k.a “inserting”) (to the alarm of good bishops).
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The publicists are still going to say to me, I’m pooping the party because I’m waging a style war. No, for me it’s never been about style, only the substance that doesn’t interest them.
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I’ve stepped out of the bear pit, I’m no longer weaponised. The NCW bible says, In the beginning was the Excuse, while the special private one I use says In the beginning was the Reason (Logos) in Person.
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Street preachers don’t explain how to count the good cost, they don’t talk the walk (if they’ve got one). Designer outlet religion is solely the regulation length mind numbing rock concert. NCW / almost all RCC walk the talk and not the walk. All three have got permanently stuck at the Schleiermacher “need of a god” stage.
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Breathe the clear blue sky of sunlit uplands, and start over. Your religion has got to be yours, and not some big bloke’s that hogs the camera.

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@ 8:45 Or Lord you do go on. I stopped reading half way through your obsessive. You even managed to make Deaf Guy look intelligent, which is say something indeed.

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Is there not an element of illness from anyone that preaches inside or outside of the church, or envelopes religion 24 hrs a day… clearly some more sick and delusional than others!

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8.57
There is a religious order dedicated to preaching. The Order of Preachers. Do you think there’s an element ofillness about them. And it’s a 24/7 vocation.

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10.38
The new Irish head Fr John Harris scored his first strategic success tecently. Some wets had expected he’d appoint the runner-up in the election as his deputy to unite the troops. He didn’t go for that option probably expecting that the divisions in the order would be ironed out by the biological solution.

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10:31 I wouldn’t be able to say, since I’ve never seen one of them preach even once!

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9.50: And you say this with a straight face? I don’t call constantly harassing, intimidating and hating certain people as a job!! Crazy values.

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ubi mors ibi spes: Harris must be praying for the death of two of his predecessors, tom lady Jordan and larry Collins: both hid, moved and facilitated a dangerous child rapest for over 30 years! They didn’t know that a grown man inserting his penis into a childs rectum was wrong! Yet both men preached against marriage equality, though in lady Jordan’s case that a bit funny, if you know what i mean. Larry likes to watch teenage boys play ruby even though none of the players are related or known to him. Odd.

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They are entitled to their opinions and beliefs Pat as are you and I. They are harming no one. If they helped Billy get off the gear well done to them.

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They are not denying the Holocaust Pat they are expressing their religious beliefs as do you.

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I do not believe that people should be allowed to describe disabled children as a curse from God in public. I think such beliefs and expressions are hateful and abusive.

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And there you are Pat freely expressing your opinions and beliefs as everyone is entitled to.

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So you think thats its ok to tell the mother of a disabled child that the child is a curse upon her from God ?

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And there they are freely expressing their opinions and beliefs just as you express yours Pat.

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Plenty of people on this blog and the CINOs who voted to repeal the 8th believe that disabled babies are unwanted, a burden and should be aborted. They must consider them to be a curse?

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3:03. Fake parallel. A more accurate one would be to ask if pro-choice people try to force other people to have abortions or make them legally mandated. Of course they don’t.
FYI a friend of my mother’s tried to persuade her to have me aborted and I wish she had done, because a number of disabilities run in her side of the family. I suffer significantly from two of them.
In previous relationships I have made it plain that children were out of the question because I know they would lead an agonising life and painful drawn out death.

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5.30

Well said, MMM!

This is exactly how some (perhaps many) Roman Catholics speak of children born with disabilities: that they are a gift from God. And it is often done in the abstract, i.e, by those who have absolutely no direct experience of raising such children.

This view is an inversion of that which considers these children ‘a curse’. In my opinion, it is just as crass.

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MMM: Excellent point as ever, bringing attention in part to the historical background where a disabled child would very literally be seen as a curse and the nearest suspected witch burnt for causing it. However rather than attempt to correct the history by seeing every child as a blessing, I don’t see why there has to be a reason we know of that these things happen. Parents have children because they have sex, not as a gift, and wanted and unwanted events can just happen, without their being a bigger plan or reason.

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+Pat, your comment @ 10.09, ” that people should not be allowed to describe a disabled child as a curse from God” had me wondering. Could instead we regard such matters as a ” gift from God?”
After all this merciful caring God of Christianity sends us many wonderful gifts, like the eye parasites that blind innocent children or the cancers that inflict vicious suffering on the ill and their carers. The odd tsunamis and earthquakes show us just how kind and thoughtful He really is.
Ye know that apple eating business in Eden has a lot to answer for!
MMM

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Thankfully, I have not come across any of these hate preachers in Edinburgh, but I read this on a Q&A page about the new Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill.
MYTH: The Hate Crime Bill will prosecute me for practising my religion and preaching about it.
FACT: The Bill does not criminalise religious beliefs or practices. No one can commit a stirring up of religious hatred offence if they do not act in a threatening or abusive manner. And if you do act in that way it will only be an offence in the Bill if a court considers by your actions that you intended to stir up hatred or it is likely that hatred will be stirred up in others.

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At least one other Irish bishop in the midlands dyes his hair once a month. Another rinses his wig regularly.

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I remember former England football manager, Glen Hoddle, talked himself out of the job by expressing a series of eccentric religious beliefs, including when you die you come back disabled if you have bad karma.

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Anon@ 5::19 above: Your comment’s last sentence is an absolute reality. Thank you. I quote:
“EVENTS CAN JUST HAPPEN WITHOUT THERE BEING A BIGGER PLAN OR REASON.”
Let me explain my perceptions.
The vast majority of our experiences reinforce our human perception of no effect without a cause: if something happens, something else MUST have caused it. We transfer that largely physical perception of cause and effect in a simplistic, but emotionally reassuring way, to “explain/understand ” many apparently inexplicable events. We ascribe cause and effect, with an underlying assumption of an “effector” , (someone who causes) into much that happens in the random happenstance of everyday life. In effect, we humans emotionally and psychologically create what has been called the “God of the gaps” to emotionally comfort our inability to understand central realities of our life.
A good example of filling in the inexplicable gaps, is the religious argument that since something cannot be created from nothing, therefore God MUST have created it. We humans invent this Creator God to explain the inexplicable! But who or what created God?
We intelligent humans feel we SHOULD be able to understand the mysteries of our existence. So what we don’t understand, we intellectually, but primarily emotionally explain, as the actions of a mysterious unseen all powerful God, ………because He moves in mysterious ways!
We imagine that there MUST be a plan, a purpose, and a reason behind our own existence and intelligence. Conceit or what?
Some might say we have an inflated sense of our own importance, and that our conceited intelligence simply finds it too difficult to accept our insignificance. We tend to think of ourselves as centrally significant to the reality of existence. There are indeed some who claim that the vast cosmos of billions of galaxies beyond Mothership Earth is simply a backcloth to our human central significance to all of creation, all that we see, know and understand. They believe we are so important that the Almighty Creator of it all needed to come down ( to this insignificant planet Earth) to rescue us, …………in that weird and wacky concept of vicarious redemption via that crucifixion business…….. a non independently historically unsubstantiated mythology.
Indeed I have to smile at many of the clerical comments to this blog. Many are concerned with arguing the tittle tattle of clerical appointments. Some more intelligent ones debate the interpretations of that arcane collection of ancient biblical writings as if they are absolutely central and relevant to human behaviour. I enjoy Magna’s clinical dissection of their simplistic understanding.
There are huge hurricane effects now devastating South USA . There are thousands now left abandoned to the Taliban in Afghanistan. Millions in sub Sahara Africa and the East face rampant covid.
Is all this devastation, pain, and misery, the workings of a caring, benevolent all powerful Creator God? I think not.
If all the suffering is part of the plan and workings of an all powerful God, then I say that He, She, or It must be the most evil, vicious and sadistic being imaginable. And I want no part of it.
For those who are religious believers or otherwise: have a nice Bank Holiday.
MMM

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I’m not. I am opposed to the preaching of hate by people regardless of religion.

“Prejudice is ok if its called religion”

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Pastor McConnell preached hate against Muslims calling them Satanic. He was another hate preacher! These guys on the streets, some who are ex convicts often find God in prison. It does impress parole boards!!

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10.20 am. I don’t believe he is. The point is that with all our rights and freedoms come our corresponding obligations. Hurting others by the exercise of our freedoms and rights is to abuse not only others but also our rights and freedoms.

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There are occasions when out “freedoms” need to be restricted for the common good.

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And you decide who constitutes a right thinking person Pat, I assume a right thinking person is one who has the same belief system as you?

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Rabid preachers of any persuasion (Muslim, Protestant, never Catholic) skirt close to hate speech whilst enjoying freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech is a cherished principle of a free democracy and I welcome and defend it – you know, I may not agree with you, even find it offensive and deeply so, but I defend your right to the privilege to say it.

The police are never good at deciding what is freedom of speech and what is hate speech – invariably cases need to go through the courts to test it and even stretch it to breaking point if necessary.
Evidence (video) and reporting to the police begins this process – protesting, challenging are all healthy too – indeed all part of a free democracy.

Stand up comedians can skirt the law and good taste but they are funny – check out Jimmy Carr or Frankie Boyle on You Tube – – the problem with street preachers is there is no fun in their fundamentalism.

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10.39 am: “There are occasions when out “freedoms” need to be restricted for the common good.” The problem is that, like common sense, the common good is not that common. By that I mean we live in a diverse and fractured world/ society; where is the consensus about what constitutes the common good? That lack makes restricting freedoms a very thorny issue.

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‘Never Catholic’ as if!
The intimidating harassment and guilt tripping of women seeking safe medical termination is exactly the same as these nuts.
BTW look carefully at your automatic reaction to what I just said, because that is exactly what these guys would say about their preaching.

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This people honours me only with lip-
service, while their hearts are far from me.
The worship they offer me is worthless, the
doctrines they teach are only human
regulations.
You put aside the commandment of God to
cling to human traditions.’
He called the people to him again and said,
‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand.
Nothing that goes into a man from outside
can make him unclean; it is the things that
come out of a man that make him unclean.
For it is from within, from men’s hearts, that
evil intentions emerge: fornication, theft,
murder, adultery, avarice, malice, deceit,
indecency, envy, slander, pride, folly. All
these evil things come from within and make
a man unclean.’
Pure, unspoilt religion, in the
eyes of God our Father is this: coming to the
help of orphans and widows when they need
it, and keeping oneself uncontaminated by
the world.
The hatred of the religious nuts who are the topic of today’s blog story is disgusting. Shame on them. They must catch themselves on.
Is mise le meas,
Séamus
PAX

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Mother of God what is wrong with you people. if you go on these people’s own Facebook you will see multiple protests and confrontations.
You’re just caught out because you want to make out Pat is a nut while not saying these preaching idiots aren’t nuts.

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I’m not implying Pat is a nut, far from it, I agree with him that the lads can be offensive but the point I am making is that they have the right to free speech just like Pat.

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Can we allow them to tell the mothers of disabled children, in the street, that their child is a curse on her from God?

I dont think we can let them get away with that.

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Where I live you get hysterical fundament-alist Christian preachers (the little I have heard was about damnation) on one side of the street and much calmer Moslem preachers on the other.
These guys do more to further Islam than any Moslem does.

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BREAKING NEWS:
Pen Farthing, the founder of an animal shelter in Afghanistan is “safe” after leaving the country, his charity has said.

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Pat,
Still No media coverage of Murray’s conviction . What’s going on ?
I don’t accept your reason that the trial finished on a Friday at 4.30pm and it was too late for journalists to cover story on bank holiday weekend . We live in an era of immediate online media coverage . Is there a media block on this very important conviction ?

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Thanks Pat
It merits media coverage and please keep us posted when it does .
Great work from you in supporting the victims

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In a free democracy we don’t have a right not to be offended.
Only lawmakers can frame when the speech encroaches on the common good and even then a successful prosecution is based on an interpretation and subject to an appeal until it reached the Supreme Court for a final, definitive judgement.
It’s imperfect but it’s better than the court of public opinion or Sharia Law.
Personally I either press the remote – a little excercised human right or walk away and deny the offender the oxygen of attention – they will soon run out of steam.
I loved Speakers Corner in Hyde Park for its robust and at times incendiary debate and free for all.
Freedom of Speech can be a bitch but it’s a price we pay for a free democracy.

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The right to protest is also a cherished freedom too – but Woke culture is making a virtue of being offended and taken that to a Totalitarian level.

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I agree with the litany of psychological flaws in street preachers but regrettably they are the same flaws of almost every preacher/sermon giver and homilist in most churches in the land.
The art of preaching has gone, if it ever existed outside of a few honourable mentions (Wesley, Sheen (maybe) and Chrysostom (Golden Tongued).
Most homilists have major psychological hang ups and haven’t a clue about public speaking.
If the Confessional is a torture chamber the homily is the Rack.

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Chrysostom was a rabid anti-semite. There was nothing ‘golden tongued’ about his preaching on such matters, except to like-minded listeners.

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2:49 Did you say the creed this morning? And who does it say will judge the living and the dead – was it you?

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To compound the puzzlement yet further our consciences are now supposed to be burdened by “dicasteries”, “institutes”, quangoes, “charisms” and “policies” developed by strange personalities to encroach on our bishops’ discretion. Then the big men Paul VI and JP II had to seize mass media to get in our faces and our rooms, no matter that McLuhan had told them not to. I’m told that the sole purpose in “confession” is to give myself an excuse to readmit myself to the queue for smarties I don’t want. I’ve read that before 1840, catholics didn’t even need sacraments – they prayed and read Scripture at home – they wouldn’t see priests for years.
.
The dodgy street preacher phenomenon looks different but is just a variation: innovate religion to whip up demand, and make it absurdly intense, and make it make no sense. Strange nonsequiturs imposed by sleight by the council-within-the-council (to which Cardinal Emeritus Ratzinger belonged) and council-after-the-council (however suavely those were dressed up) were NOT endorsed by the forward looking Heenan. Once you are comfortable with your need for God, you have got to go on your own search for your own grounds and quality of belief that will help you keep close to Him and not rely on the celebs.

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And have regard to Galatians 5:14 The entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” (NIV translation)

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An anti-abortion protester is a different kettle of fish than a street preacher.
Firstly, they hunt in packs and secondly the notion of a Catholic preaching on the street, on a soap box, with a sound system, from a Bible is entirely the preserve of Protestants. As I say Never Catholics it isn’t in their DNA – protesting about abortion and pro life is bit that isn’t street preaching in the conventional way that’s protesting an entirely different forum and expression.

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Oh you have to have a bible! Interesting to see you suddenly create a goal post.
You don’t need a bible, you just need to want to impose your religion on other people, do it in a public place, and bingo… street preachers.
Your reaction is interesting because you are just trying to distance abortion harassers from these nuts. My point was that they are the same and that realisation of how other people see your religion is a shock to you.

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Bishop Buckley, you have criticised others here for making ‘diagnoses’ of mental ill health when they weren’t qualified to do so. What qualifies you, professionally, to diagnose these street preachers as ‘mentally ill’, and all the rest? You are showing double standards.

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1.54pm

Ah you are sweet, I feel a bit embarrassed for you, your suffering from that predictable and rather passé affliction of ‘assumptionitis’ – you’ve assumed I’m a Roman Catholic and you think I’m walking into your little trap as you rattle my cage etc.
I don’t believe in God, Man or the Devil but I do believe in free speech and accuracy – in my view, a Protestant Street Preacher is cut from a different cloth than a Roman Catholic anti abortion protester for reasons I’ve explained.
Sorry to disappoint ya – me old mucker!!
I wished I could tell you me hackles rose and ya got me all hot under the collar but frankly I don’t give a damn!!

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And there’s your problem right there in the last sentence.
As for not being Roman Catholic – who are you trying to kid!

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“The difference between a nuerotic ( all of us ) and a psychotic is – nuerotics build castles in the air. Psychotics live in them.”
.. I have just read the above and immediately thought of Canon Paul Nener and his chums!
Indeed!; there’s nothing more frightening than a dangerous psychopath – but a dangerous psychopath with friends in “high places” is even more the frightening! Extremely frightening and dangerous – and in lots of different ways.
People, especially innocence, have the right to be protected from these dangerous psychopaths – including being protected from their evil and sadistic chums in “high places.”
Like any task life throws at us, it just takes a little extra effort to overcome. It CAN be done!

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I am a liberal. Im sure calling disabled children a curse is as repugnant to liberals and conservatives?

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Pat at 3:40 – I’m not sure they actually would. You’ve got a real shut down discussion crowd in today.

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As revealed exclusively on this blog yesterday, it is now official that chief papal MC Mgr Guido Marini (the good Marini) has been appointed Bishop of Tortora, a northern Italian diocese near his home diocese of Genoa.

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12.37 and 2.59
Priests have no legal entitlement not to be hated.
If priests do hateful things, like rape children and have other priests cover up for them in obedience to Canon Law, then they, as a whole, are going to be hated.
What is sown is reaped. And priests, collectively, have reaped for themselves a harvest of global loathing.

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3.01
A person intent on serving Jesus would not promise or vow obedience to the bishop of one of the most worldly, pretentious, corrupt and corrupting, criminal organisations in human history, the Roman Catholic institutional church.
Those priests you believe good are, in fact, ‘good’ only WITHIN THE PRESCRIPTIONS OF CANON LAW.
Bishop’s laws, not God’s.

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MC 4:43,
The priest is not the bishop’s slave. The bishop cannot demand that anyone, even a priest, do that which is evil, immoral, illegal or contrary to their informed conscience or their human dignity.
Think of all the bad liturgies, heretical homilies and teachings, poor confessions, child and teen molestation, cover-ups, bribes and so many other things being found among bad priests and bad bishops. If they were obedient, none of this would ever happen.
Assuming a good bishop inherits bad priests, he still has authority over them. He can place conditions and restrictions on them and even terminate them. Why does he not do so? Cowardice? He wants to be liked. He may even feign that there is nothing he can do. He is too weak. Weak bishops should not take the job if they can’t do it. Good priests and parishioners deserve better.
The bad clergy will pay for their disobedience before God.
PAX

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MC 6:42,
When there is a bad priest with a bad bishop, they are probably in bed together, figuratively and literally. They simply work together as they are both disobedient to the Magisterium and to God. In other words, he gets away with bloody murder, sexual assaults, heresies, mistreatment of faithful Catholics and many other things.
Bishops have the authority and the power to right this ship. They just have to man up and be faithful and obedient to God and the Magisterium, tradition, doctrine and all that makes us the Catholic Church. Knowing how embedded the bishops are in modernism and the modern culture today, I would not hold my breath.

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6.07
Your naivety is almost touching, like that of an child abroad.
A romanist bishop can demand (and, historically, many HAVE demanded) whatever they choose to demand, regardless of its moral pros or cons. It is why so many romanist priests, including John Brady, conspired to keep in-house the sexual abuse of children.
Roman Catholicism is a vile cult, and its cult leaders, the bishops, have long insisted on absolute and unquestioning obedience to what is portentously called the ‘Sacred Magisterium’, i.e., the collective will of the bishops.
Under the submissive constraints of this psychological conditioning, truly terrible acts were committed by Catholics, urged on by the doctrines of bishops and enforced by priests.
If you want to remain in your utopian world of priestly moral integrity, you are free to do so. But you will be struck the harder when the penny eventuall drops. And it will.

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Seamus at 6:07
‘The bishop cannot demand that anyone, even a priest, do that which is evil, immoral, illegal or contrary to their informed conscience or their human dignity.’
Sadly the bishops blew any chance of anyone believing this by protecting criminal priests for decades. All of them.

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As always, a sensible and measured, reasonable comment. The point you make about natural consequences will go right over their heads of course.

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There have been a few comments on the holocaust and abortion today.
Are Pro-Life people who compare abortion to the holocaust entitled to their opinion and to publicly express it?
We live in a society which rightly abhors the holocaust and yet votes in favour of abortion.
Pro-Life people should be conscious of fair protest. Protest should NOT cross the line into harassment.
People will rejoice in two teenagers being recovered alive at sea. It’s a sign that society has an appreciation of life but at the same time they make a skewed choice to end innocent life. A mixed up world. ☹️
PAX

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4.49: What a ridiculous question for others You need to ask yourself that question really seriously. You don’t believe there are limits to free speech except when YOU are hurt but “feck others if they’re hurt” is your motto. Isn’t that correct, Pat?

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No I would not. Instead, I am working on it with the local authority and police.

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By Post Author

I don’t think I have much to contribute re the physcology of these men. However, thinking of the Gospel for this Sunday, extreme legalism always hinders us from getting to the heart of the matter. An overly robust legal system imposed on faith numbs the mind and heart allowing any act or omission to be justified. It applies to how we read God’s word in the scriptures and to how we organise communities. “Let us then follow Christ’s paths which he has revealed to us, above all the path of humility, which he himself became for us. He showed us that path by his precepts, and he himself followed it by his suffering on our behalf.” (St Augustine) The main rule of Christian living is a radical self giving after the example of the Lord himself. How much negatively could be overcome, how many problems in the church and the world could be solved if we really took this to heart.

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Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins.

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No, because giving the power to control speech to the state or self-appointed censors is dangerous. Imagine if, say, in the early Stonewall/”Gay lib” periods people had successfully got the state to shut up and suppress their views because people didn’t like the views or were hurt by their expression. They would have been the “right-thinking” and majority view at the time.

Oppressive states exercise censorship, free states tend not to.

The answer is to debate with people you disagree with, not cancelling them, doxxing, deplatforming them and denying their freedom of speech or arresting them.

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5.02

Some people sometimes need time to come round. But there is a right way and a wrong way of doing so. If you simply attempt to shut them up through censorship, they will dig in their heels.

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Think of the priests taking up appointments this week and next. Shitting themselves going somewhere new whilst others are rejoicing they are escaping from a tyrant. Some perhaps becoming PP and let loose on the laity especially if they are control freaks and like the money. Some just being shifted from place to place especially north to south of the border and vice versa. Think of the problem clergy just moved around the chess board to unsuspecting laity and there are a few moves like that afoot already. Think of the priests who have stamped their clog down and refused to move for selfish reasons. The next few weeks will be squeaky bum time for clergy but the lay faithful also. What sort of priest is the bishop sending your way ????

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Yes, God help St Matthew’s in Northwood with Monty. He is already sporting a fancy collar from Wippells in London as the ex Anglicans still show loyalty to the Anglican tailors.

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Watch out Dungannon, Amy is sending an old perv to you soon. Fiddling with his bits online ughhh.

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At the start of my teaching career, in a non-denominational school, I taught Religious Education. The very religious form tutor of a class of 13-14 year olds who insisted on preaching to the class from the Bible every morning had told them that disabled children were demon possessed. I was asked for my opinion by members of the group who were from different backgrounds, races and religions. Not wishing to comment on my colleague and her behaviour, I said that there were many different ways of interpreting the Bible, some much more conservative than others, and that I personally didn’t share her views or interpretation. The boys looked at me knowingly as if to say “Thank goodness you think she’s crazy too”.
The gospels, to my mind, contain a message of unconditional love from a God who does not seek to punish and is no sadist. If he were, he would not be perfect and would not be God.
Preaching on very rigid lines reminds me of Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church in America which feels more like a cult than a faith.
Such hardline preaching, whatever you think about contemporary moral issues, does nothing to encourage anyone to engage with religion and only encourages hate crimes. I see in The Guardian today that hate crimes against members of the LGBT+ community have risen sharply since 2015.
The Jesus I see in the Gospels would not encourage such behaviour. Even in a case where he is faced with a clear case of sexual sin with the woman detected in adultery, he’s not at all supportive of those attempting to stone the woman to death, even if he tells her to go and sin no more in this regard.
Personally, I do not equate those who commit adultery with those who feel same sex attraction or are in long-term committed same sex relationships. I think they are very different – though I accept that opinions may vary and people should be able to discuss politely and temperately their different views.
This sort of street preaching is as harmful as other forms of mindless religious preaching and oppression and should be called out as such.
Well done to the 50+ people in Larne who are offering an alternative view and to my mind something that is a much better form of evangelism.

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5.32 have you heard, personally, what those preachers have said, or are you just taking your lead from Pat’s oprobrium?

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3.59pm
Er, nobody, but me thinks your so fixated that you will decide my religious affiliation regardless- why? because it suits your fixated narrative and mindset – God love ya and good luck to ya!
Ps. Your not a Protestant Street Preacher are you? See Litany above!!!!

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Bishop Pat, that picture is priceless! Lol 🤣
The two poster cards are spot on.
I’m sorry to hear people have been upset by the hate preachers – it’s understandable people being upset after watching a few of their videos on FB.

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Fred Phelps was converted shortly before he died – he came out as gay and was excommunicated by Shirley.
All his ranting and raving was all about repressing his own homosexuality – I suspect represssrd homosexuality or unhappy sexuality is wrapped up in street preaching – as for disabled children that’s a new one on me – there is no biblical passage which could be interpreted as suggesting they weren’t anything other than beloved children of God. Or am I missing something?
Bibles that are falling apart, because they are well thumbed, are often read by people whose lives are falling apart.

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There isn’t a direct text saying that, largely because disability as we see it wouldn’t have been seen as such in biblical times. However there is a tradition that because Jesus healed illness then illness must equal an evil spirit or punishment from God. In a lot of the poetic books (e.g. all over the Psalms) there is a lot of seeing suffering and setbacks as being sent by God.
To make a comparison – there is a tradition of thanking God for food before meals. I have a real problem with this because it implies that God gave us food but not to starving people.
At times in Christian theology this has been made explicit, such as the verse usually omitted from All things bright and beautiful:
The rich man in his castle, The poor man at his gate, God made them, high or lowly, And ordered their estate.
There are genuinely people who believe poverty and disability are made thus by God and then go on to see a reason for it.

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6.29

That tradition comes from Judaism itself.

Suffering of any kind was understood as a personal or atavistic (concerning some ancestor or other, such as, a parent) punishment directly imposed by God himself rather than through others for a moral transgression.

When Jesus was asked, ‘Who sinned, Lord? This man, or his parents?’, he replied that no one had sinned (this was not a punishment from God), but that this suffering was an opportunity for God to heal and to make known himself, and his providential compassion and care, for an afflicted person.

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6.17

I don’t think that Fred Phelps came out as gay in the end…so to speak. I think he came round to the view that he had treated gays too harshly.

Wasn’t he suffering with dementia at the time?

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6.08pm
And what style might that be?
Seeing as your clearly our resident syntax expert.
I’m all ears and eager to be edifies!!!!!

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Pat I did try to look at these people’s videos on Facebook but couldn’t stand it. Did they also talk about other things, such as illness, being a curse from God and things like health and prosperity being the gift of God?
Are they preaching the prosperity gospel is what I’m getting at or where they just accentuating evangelicals hot topics?

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I think it’s all about projection, projecting the things in your own life which you find it hard to deal with. Projecting hate on gay people is often about repressing you own tendencies. Not that you are gay, but perhaps you feel uncomfortable if you have feelings or urges you find shameful, although they are natural.

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5.30pm

Thank you -I’m flattered – now she had sartorial didn’t she and like myself a woman who enjoyed her pussies.

Mind you I could have sworn we were talking about syntax and the like.

Are you sure your not a Protestant Street preacher you don’t seem v bright?

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I’ve listened to those street preachers on Facebook; they don’t, to me, sound unintelligent, mad, or anything else derogatory about them that is said on this blog today.

I admire their zeal and courage.

I may not agree with all they proclaim, but they are, however repugnant this appears to some, being entirely scriptural in their denunciation of homosexual acts.

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8.00
Mag Car is not a good judge of character. If he were he eould have some inkling of how his bile sounds to others and would seek help.

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How many posts has he done today? I suppose, being friendless and not in a relationship with anyone, the blog is his social life.

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8.00: Magna, so you admire the deal and courage if these street preachers. So do I. Can you give us the opportunity of commending your supposed zeal and courage by appearing at a street corner to say what you say on this blog? Or would this be too much of a moral challenge, laptop coward?

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10.50

I was about to consider your suggestion, but then you turned to insult.

Oh, dear! Life is full of missed opportunities, isn’t it?

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The video was cracking – the guy said he belonged to the Irish Repentance Army and Jesus was his Red Commander!!
Loved Pat going ‘blah, blah, blah – and for defo former prisoners but not IRA more loyalist – WBMA We’re Barking Mad Army.
You couldn’t reason with those lads if you talked to them all day long.

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Great turnout on the comments, Bp Pat, but I am looking forward to more tawdry tales from the priory or the abbey. Both would be nice.

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There has been much comnentary today about the right to free expression and protest. I honour these principles and freedoms but I have recently observed a huge transgression of these freedoms. Social media platforms and various blogs have indiscriminately attacked others viciously under various pseudonyms. Much that is written has been of a nasty, vituperative kind, often mortally ruining and damaging others. Even today, the issue of street preachers has evoked particularly offensive and poisonous judgments about priests, much of it hate inciting comments. While we value our freedoms we must never forget the moral and social responsibilities attached to such freedoms. Can we say what we like on platforms or blogs any horrible, debasing, derogatory and inaccurate comments, which can have a life changing effect on targeted people, groups or categories of people? If we are suggesting that street preachers should be banned because of their unacceptable, hate inciting rhetoric, should we also call out this same destructive activity on blogs and various platforms? Some of today’s rhetoric about priesthood have one purpose only: to incite hatred against priests. I do not accept that speaking what we term as “my/our truth” is acceptable when it transgresses boundaries of tolerance, human decency and accuracy and opts instead for untruths and lies. Striking a happy balance is difficult but we cannot condemn what we deem as visibly spoken hate speech and hide our own hatred, racism, bias and prejudice behind “anonymous”…!! And I’m not just referring to Pat’s blog…

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Funny how the cathbots are reduced to asking Magna Carta who he is after repeated statements they know and the times they have tried being wrong. Yesterday’s attempt so obviously so that even I knew it was wrong and have no idea who he is.
You have to laugh at the poor dears – they tell Magna not to make it about him then go on to talk at length about how much they hate…him.
And he does have a point – they don’t noticeably value truth.

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The Westboro Baptist Church is an eloquent expression of repressed and frustrated sexuality – which always leads to hatred and division.
Shirley is a minx behind all that rhetoric!!
Protestant Street preachers the same – the trail always leads to sex in one way or other – and always an unhealthy, frustrated or repressed sexuality.
They all need to get laid or have a wank and calm down.

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Pat, I think today’s discussion illustrates something I’ve thought for a while. In the name of freedom of speech you don’t control the discussion on here enough, so that personal insults, damning people, and abuse disfigure the discussion.
You yourself say that free speech shouldn’t be unrestricted but you don’t restrict it nearly enough on here.
My advice would be to adopt a clear policy, make it clear you are the judge and don’t have to justify your decisions, and stick to it. you would have fewer comments but it would force people who really want to say something sensible to say it politely.

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I’ve been reading the blog from day 1, years ago. It used to be lighter and with far less abuse, until a certain person arrived, took over and changed the tone. Most of the old hands who used to comment, often in a highly intelligent and hilarious way, were driven away. MMM, one of the few original commenters, will verify that.

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@10:19: Indeed the blog used be lighter in tone while still delivering cutting criticism where appropriate. I enjoyed wry comments from Dalriada D, amusingly sly observations from the ladies of West Belfast and the like.
I regret the descent of the blog into an almost bitchfest slanging match, virtually gibberish one liners, and incessant focus on sexuality. I agree with those who criticise +Pat’s too lax control of contributions. The recent spate of one line repetitive comments, 15+ or thereabouts from the same person in one day was off-putting and boringly tedious. And yes, I scroll past many.
A few months ago I chose to ignore the blog for a month. I’m thinking of moving that way again, for a longer period
MMM

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