| CB27
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| 898348. Mon Apr 02, 2012 10:08 am |
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There's a story doing the rounds in various papers and media about a priest in County Tyrone who "inadvertently" displayed 16 indecent images of men to a group of parents during a presentation at a primary school.
You can catch a version of this story here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-17582542
Normally, I'd have little interest in this story, it's one for the authorities to deal with, but what did catch my attention was the spin which the Irish Cardinal gave on the story.
Part of his statement read: "The priest has stated that he had no knowledge of the offending imagery. The archdiocese immediately sought the advice of the PSNI who indicated that, on the basis of the evidence available, no crime had been committed."
This, along with the rest of the statement suggests the police don't think the priest had anything to do with the images (as I've seen suggested in much plainer terms in some media), but that's not what's actually being said.
The PSNI do not think that a crime has been committed, and the report states these are images of men. Calling them indecent images could simply mean that they are images of naked men, which AFAIK is not a crime, and if there is no suggestion they were shown to the public in purpose, I doubt any police authority will consider chasing it up as a crime. This does not mean the images were not owned by the priest.
This is an example of how organisations, and people, from all walks of life, use spin to deflect attention in one way or another. Politians and the media are doing what the rest of us do all the time :) |
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| Starfish13
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| 898358. Mon Apr 02, 2012 10:48 am |
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In the report that I heard, it was mentioned that a child was in the audience.
It is a crime, in the UK, to cause a child to observe a sexual act, under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Scotland has the Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences Act (Scotland) 2005, which makes it illegal to cause a child to look at sexual images, including still photographs, or giving a child anything relating to sexual activity. I don't know the Irish law on this matter.
Whether the images are indecent or merely graphic (depicting naked men with no sexual context) would be much less clear-cut, as the law doesn't define what it means by indecent. |
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| Sadurian Mike
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| 898368. Mon Apr 02, 2012 11:31 am |
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Well obviously the Catholic Church will want to cooperate fully with the authorities to bring the priest to justice here....
Surely the images are, at the very best extent of spin, highly inappropriate to be shown to parents in these circumstances. |
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| suze
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| 898455. Mon Apr 02, 2012 4:39 pm |
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| Starfish13 wrote: | | Whether the images are indecent or merely graphic (depicting naked men with no sexual context) would be much less clear-cut, as the law doesn't define what it means by indecent. |
We are not told just what was shown in these photos, but we do know that parents who saw them considered them "indecent" while the PSNI does not believe that a crime has been committed.
To me that suggests that the photos were people with no clothes on, but nothing more explicit. While I'd agree with Mike that the occasion was hardly an appropriate one to be exhibiting pictures of naked people, it certainly isn't illegal.
An offence is only committed if a child is exposed to "sexual activity" (whether in the flesh or on photos or video), and only if this is done deliberately for the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification.
So no offence is committed if a child who was supposed to be in bed walks in on his parents having sex, and no offence is committed if a child is simply shown pictures of naked people. (The term "nudity and nothing more" is often used.)
My guess is that person or persons unknown put these pictures onto the priest's flash drive as a "joke". But even if the photos were the priest's for his own private entertainment, there can be no suggestion of a criminal offence. (Although if that were the explanation, the bishop would probably like a quiet word.) |
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| exnihilo
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| 898595. Tue Apr 03, 2012 5:48 am |
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| When, no doubt, said bishop would prescribe the harsh punishment of obliging the priest to mumble a few words into the aether and promise to be a good boy; that does appear to be the extent of the Church's willingness to reprimand errant priests. |
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| suze
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| 898636. Tue Apr 03, 2012 6:31 am |
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That would rather depend on just what was in the pictures. If it was nothing more than adult men with no clothes on, then there's no reason why there should be any significant punishment.
The bishop knows perfectly well that practically all men - including priests - have been known to look at pictures of either naked men or naked ladies according to taste. The only mistake this particular priest (hypothetically) made was to get caught, and the bishop would just tell him to be a bit more careful in future.
The way that the matter is being reported tends to suggest that the pictures did not depict illegal acts of, for instance, child abuse. But if they did, then the bishop needs to set into motion both the firing-a-priest process and a police investigation, and by now he probably will.
I don't doubt for a second that there are still occasions on which such things are swept under the carpet, but I really do believe that by now it's the exception rather than the rule. |
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| Jenny
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| 898700. Tue Apr 03, 2012 7:28 am |
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| suze wrote: |
I don't doubt for a second that there are still occasions on which such things are swept under the carpet, but I really do believe that by now it's the exception rather than the rule. |
I wish that were true, suze, but I'm not convinced it is. The Wikipedia article about it goes into the extent of cover-up both in the past and more recently. |
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| Sadurian Mike
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| 898718. Tue Apr 03, 2012 8:17 am |
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Does anyone know what these pictures actually were of? I know it was naked men, but in what sort of situation?
If they were draped languidly over a bed and staring meaningfully into the camera then it would be a different situation to showing naked indians standing with a spear in a remote Amazon rainforest, and different again from showing overweight louts being drunk and naked in a rugby club bar.
Not that it is a good thing to show inappropriate pictures at any (alright, mostly any...) time, but 'pictures of naked men' does cover a lot of ground. |
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| bobwilson
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| 898841. Tue Apr 03, 2012 10:00 pm |
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Maybe I was reading a different story to the rest of you but none of the above fits to what I heard.
What I saw was a story about a presentation by a priest, and during this presentation various images were displayed which were not intended to be part of the presentation. As suze says – we are not told what was in the images but we’re also informed that some (but apparently not all) parents considered them indecent. (I think we can assume that everyone considered them inappropriate).
The (brief) report I saw also mentioned that “a child” (note the singular) was present in the audience.
My experience of news reports that don’t contain the full facts is that the failure to report the full facts is usually for one of two reasons: a) there’s a possible sub judice issue or b) reporting the full facts would make the majority of reasonable people respond with “oh ffs, get real”. I think we can instantly discount the first possibility in this case.
So putting this all in context, what almost certainly happened is that the priest displayed a slide show to a group of parents – and included in this slide show, unintended by the priest, were images of naked men. Quite why images of naked men, or even images of adults engaged in sexual acts, should be considered indecent is one of the mysteries of life that I haven’t fathomed yet.
In the OP CB mentions spin. On that point, I’d like to emphasise that the news reports refer to the fact that “one child was also present”. We’re not told the age of this child. Two-year old? Four-year old maybe? One thing we can be absolutely sure of is that the child in question was nowhere near the age of puberty – because if he/she was that would undoubtedly have been mentioned and the parents of said child would have been quoted ad nauseum.
I’m no apologist for the Catholic priesthood (or any group of people who refer to an invisible friend) – and certainly not for the reprehensible behaviour of certain Catholic priests that has recently come to light. I do, however, draw the line at salivating at a story simply because it contains the terms “Catholic priest”, “indecent images of men”, and “one child was also present”.
If we’re going to be that pathetic then can we also pick up on the news report linked in the original post which says “a memory stick the parish priest had inserted” – ooo-er missus, he said “inserted a stick”. Stop sniggering at the back of the room or we’ll send you on a course in Journalism and you'll be condemned to work as a stringer for the BBC for the rest of your life.
In short – non-story by a pre-pubescent 30 year old idiot masquerading as a journalist. I notice there’s no byline on the original story – pity. |
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| CB27
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| 898844. Tue Apr 03, 2012 10:41 pm |
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To clear up some points, I was not interested in the story about catholic priests, etc, that some others might have jumped to, what really caught my attention was the spin involved and trying to show how acceptable the practice is for everyone, yet people love to have a go at journalists and politicians when the do so (no offence bob, but the last few lines of your post show that...).
Re-reading the BBC report I linked to, I failed to note the inclusion of the "child" because I originally saw the news on a couple of news channels (I like to flick through them sometimes to see what different perspectives are), and there was a lot of emphasis about the priest claiming innocence and the PSNI claiming no crime had been committed, both in the same breath, that it wasn't until I read the report I realised they were separate issues - the reporting on TV was not so clear (I don't think it was BBC news as I was flicking around at the time). I then looked for the first link I could find to include in the OP.
Reading around a little more I note that the child present was 8, and that there were 16 pictures of what some people described as gay porn (which to some can simply be pictures of naked men).
As I said, the incident itself is not what caught my eye, it's not the kind of story that interests me, it was the way it was spun by the church, which the TV coverage swallowed up, even though it might not have been clear by the BBC link I included. |
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| bobwilson
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| 898847. Tue Apr 03, 2012 11:31 pm |
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Fair enough CB - you're an intelligent chap so it's reasonable to assume that your response is one that "the man on the Clapham Omnibus" might agree with.
Your first point (in the OP) was about the spin that was placed on the story by the Catholic hierarchy. Given that, I'm a bit baffled by your statement
| Quote: | | yet people love to have a go at journalists and politicians when the do so |
Erm - the story was clearly spun by journalists to indicate wrongdoing by catholic priests - so what's the problem with pointing out that journalists are lying toerags?
| Quote: | | As I said, the incident itself is not what caught my eye, it's not the kind of story that interests me, it was the way it was spun by the church, which the TV coverage swallowed up, even though it might not have been clear by the BBC link I included. |
Read it again CB - the story wasn't spun by the church at all. It was spun by some second rate "journalist" (who quite rightly didn't put his name to the report as he'd be justifiably targetted by any right-minded person investigating every aspect of his pathetic life).
The actual story seems to be that a priest displayed some images inappropriate for the audience. It's the second-rate reporter who's imagined this is some sort of Catholic conspiracy and adduced a connection between pictures of naked men, homosexuality, and paedophilia. That tells us a lot about the mindset of the reporter in question.
Not to put it too mildly - he's a sick fucker who thinks that displaying images of naked men means you're a paedophile. (Either that or he's a sad fucker who thinks it's entertaining to pick up on any story that he can shoehorn in to whatever happens to be the current scandal). Either way, he doesn't deserve to be employed. |
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| soup
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| 898878. Wed Apr 04, 2012 6:01 am |
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It used (maybe still is) to be de rigeur to include a ""zany" pic into a slideshow presentation usually accompanied with a "oh how did that get there"to wake up the audience and to make the presenter look "humourous". Sometimes these pics weren't so much zany as verging on the pornographic (semi nude females etc). Maybe this priest felt his presentation was heavy going and decided to jush it up a bit or maybe a third party mischievously put the pictures into his presentation .
I feel we need to know what pics were involved and what type of priest he was (is he a parish priest or is he the youngish type of priest who runs a local youth club gets gang members of the streets etc). Before we can pass any sort of judgement |
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| Strawberry
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| 898883. Wed Apr 04, 2012 6:18 am |
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| bobwilson wrote: | Fair enough CB - you're an intelligent chap so it's reasonable to assume that your response is one that "the man on the Clapham Omnibus" might agree with.
Your first point (in the OP) was about the spin that was placed on the story by the Catholic hierarchy. Given that, I'm a bit baffled by your statement
| Quote: | | yet people love to have a go at journalists and politicians when the do so |
Erm - the story was clearly spun by journalists to indicate wrongdoing by catholic priests - so what's the problem with pointing out that journalists are lying toerags?
| Quote: | | As I said, the incident itself is not what caught my eye, it's not the kind of story that interests me, it was the way it was spun by the church, which the TV coverage swallowed up, even though it might not have been clear by the BBC link I included. |
Read it again CB - the story wasn't spun by the church at all. It was spun by some second rate "journalist" (who quite rightly didn't put his name to the report as he'd be justifiably targetted by any right-minded person investigating every aspect of his pathetic life).
The actual story seems to be that a priest displayed some images inappropriate for the audience. It's the second-rate reporter who's imagined this is some sort of Catholic conspiracy and adduced a connection between pictures of naked men, homosexuality, and paedophilia. That tells us a lot about the mindset of the reporter in question.
Not to put it too mildly - he's a sick fucker who thinks that displaying images of naked men means you're a paedophile. (Either that or he's a sad fucker who thinks it's entertaining to pick up on any story that he can shoehorn in to whatever happens to be the current scandal). Either way, he doesn't deserve to be employed. |
bob wilson did once say that work was a way of keeping stupid people off the streets. So maybe the reporter does deserve to be employed. |
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| Neotenic
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| 898887. Wed Apr 04, 2012 6:21 am |
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| bobwilson desperately needs a job. |
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| CB27
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| 898951. Wed Apr 04, 2012 10:39 am |
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I find that when you don't see a reporter's name on an article it's something that came through the wire and picked up, so a responsible editor will not put a name to it. A quick look around will show a very similarly worded article in a number of media websites.
My point about spin, journalists and politicians was about how they are vilified in general for spin, when it's something that we accept so readily from other people. |
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