Sinéad O’Connor 1966-2023
Which was recently proven true too. She was basically cancelled for being a good human and trying to call out some shitty things.
Some of the abuse was well-known at the time. The mistreatment of women and children in Church-run Irish schools and workhouses throughout the 19th and 20th centuries was increasingly well documented by the 1990s. Mass graves were discovered in the 1970s, although in the 1990s the church was still publicly denying any responsibility. Hence Ms. O’Connor’s protest.
I don’t know what Ms. O’Connor knew about the ongoing abuse of children by priests and the church coverup efforts. But I’m sure she wasn’t surprised, as she was well-acquainted with the Church’s perfidy.
Iirc she was put into a catholic asylum type place when she was a teenager, and treated terribly. Presumably it’s where she saw up close and personal what the church was really doing.
It’s been a long time, but in the 80s, I recall the Catholic Church being known to be exactly what we know it’s to be now, but not in the same way. It wasn’t as widely accepted. As much as I despise this statement, it was also a VERY different time.
Thanks for bringing perfidy to my vocabularies’ attention. What a good word.
“Don’t give that Loch Ness monster perfidy!”
It was well known in Ireland, but not in the U.S. That’s why it was such a shocking moment and National headline. It wasn’t until the early 2000s that the scandals started popping up across the US and people decades later realized she had a point.
The issue was that it wasn’t really widely known at the time. Or at least, it was easier to handwave away as rumors and speculation. The church was still doing a pretty good job of keeping a lid on all their issues. So when she did it, all the Catholics immediately disregarded the protest and jumped on the “she hates God and Catholics” bandwagon. Some of the abuse was well known, but it wasn’t recognized to be anywhere near as pervasive and ubiquitous as it is these days.
She essentially made herself an easy target by not explicitly clarifying what she was protesting. Lots of people simply saw her ripping up the photo of the pope without any context as to why, so it was easy to take out of context.
Sorry to disillusion you but this was well known in the 70’s. It was a standing joke. People knew they just never confronted the issue because ethical standards were pretty low back then.
Iirc she was a pretty young adult when she did it. Not the age bracket for thinking ahead.
I get what you’re saying, but at the same time, even young me wanted to know more about what she was saying because it was clearly real.
I also agree it was a different time and the way info was handled and disseminated was wildly different too.
She just got the absolute shit end of the deal though.
