Saw this spectacular sunset as I was driving home from Carlingford yesterday. Thought I would get an interesting shilouette of St Andrew's Church at Bush but the trees had grown since I last took a similar photo about twenty years ago.
Thought it was quite suitable as I've been seeing a lot of red lately. I've had a lot of problems getting pictures to upload which is very frustrating. I love pbase, I love the community here, I love looking at other people's photographs, I love learning from the many great photographers here. I was patient when the site crashed, after all accidents do happen, but I really wish everything would be fixed soon.
Then I really started to see red last night when I thought more about the scandal of clerical abuse which has taken place in Ireland for decades and decades. I thought of the victims whom I've spoken to. One young man, well maybe not so young but younger than me, who had been abused by the notorious Fr Sean Fortune. Of the woman who told me how her mother, who had grown up in an orphanage, had been so haunted by the abuse and neglect she had suffered that it had returned to haunt her on her deathbed.
I thought of all the lives ruined. I thought of the children who had lost their innocence. And I thought this had happened because of the privileged role which the Catholic church had in Ireland, of how parents had entrusted their children into the care of priests in a way they wouldn't with other people, of the children's whose complaints were ignored by teachers and police.
I know not all priests and nuns were guilty - I had a much loved aunt who was a nun - but I am now firmly in the camp of Richard Dawkins.