DUBLIN — Four years ago, this city on the Liffey River hosted the formation of the ITCCS: a grassroots movement that has successfully prosecuted and deposed one pope and rallied survivors of church crimes in twenty one countries.
Today, Dublin is once again witnessing the birth of an historic movement, an offshoot of the ITCCS: a network of Roman Catholic priests who are aiming to break away from Rome, and establish an independent Irish Church that is free of any complicity with the crimes of the Vatican.
The new group is called Not in Our Name (NON), and it formed at a closed meeting in Dublin soon after Pope Benedict, Joseph Ratzinger, resigned last February, following his public indictment for Crimes against Humanity by the ITCCS affiliated Common Law Court of Justice in Brussels.
Ciaran Ui Niall is the pseudonym of a serving Catholic priest who lives near Wexford, Ireland. NON was his brainchild, along with a group of other clergy who, to quote Ciaran, “can’t stand the stench of Rome anymore”.
Ciaran spoke to ITCCS Central today from his home.
“Our own Cardinal Sean Brady actually told us last year that we’d face purgatory and suspension if we ever named the name of any child abuser in our ranks. For him to even say such a thing is a crime, as I understand the law. And I’m talking God’s law, not just man’s. Once Pope Benedict stepped down, forced down really, that was a sign for me. I knew someone had to start saying no, church law be damned”.
Since March, Ciaran has united more than twenty fellow priests across Ireland behind his group, and soon they’ll be going public with a demand that the government cancel the tax exemptions and privileges of the Roman Catholic church as long as it’s tied to a “proven transnational criminal body like the Vatican”.
And already, Ciaran and his group have support from outside the church.
Mary Hennessey lives in Connemara, and is a single mother and an organizer for the ITCCS in Ireland.
“A group of other moms got together with me and we linked up with the ITCCS when we heard about them taking out Ratzinger,” she said.
“We’re just sick and tired of these bastard priests and Bishops getting away with harming our kids and the law looking the other way. Soon enough we heard from Ciaran and we got together. But we’re fighting on a broader front than Not in Our Name. For one thing, we’re pressing for the defrocking of every priest who harms a kid. And we want the kind of mass graves inquiry the ITCCS has pressed for in Canada, to find the kids who died in Catholic schools and sweatshops, like the Magdalene Laundries. But just like in Canada, the fuckers are covering up their filth over here too.”
Not in Our Name and ITCCS Ireland will announce a joint campaign early in the new year, at a Dublin press conference. Among their plans are to push for a national “Disaffiliate from Rome” referendum, public rallies at known mass grave sites of children who died in catholic facilities, and the public naming and citizens’ arrest of known child raping priests anywhere in Ireland.
“We’ll be pressing for every priest to take a public oath to unconditionally defend children by naming and exposing child rapists in the church, even if that means defying the present church policy of ‘don’t tell,’” said Ciaran.