I read this interesting article in the Irish Times. At the end of the article I was left asking myself – Do Catholics Commit more crimes than Protestants? I see little evidence that this is true – it is easy to compare the crime rates between the UK and here – but hold on, there is massive under-recording of crime in Ireland, due to the differences in reporting.
But what about corruption? Are Catholic countries more corrupt? It does appears do.
The hypothesis behind this argument goes like this; the Catholic Church believes that sin is inherent in humans, therefore they have placed themselves as the forgiving big daddy, Catholics go to confession and are absolved of their “sin” and guilt. In summary Catholics can walk away from their “sins” and commit more without the restraining feelings of guilt.
Protestants apparently do not have this luxury; they must live with their guilt and “sins” – therefore their feeling stop them “sinning” again. (Though they may now be using counselling as a replacement for Priests)
The empirical evidence illustrates that Catholic countries are more corrupt, Spain, Italy, and Ireland. In the last twelve years of living in Ireland I have not seen one high profile minister resign from office due to their wrong doings or even just incompetence or mistakes. It does not happen in Ireland. With all the money spent on tribunals and committees to find the truth we have come no closer to convicting anyone of the certain theft by politicians, by way of bribes.
The ex-taoiseach Bertie Ahern stood in front of a tribunal telling his stories about cash he received from “friends” and his dealings with foreign exchange – no one believed him – but now I hear talk that he would be a great President for Ireland – how low can a country go. The idea that he should command the respect that Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese have is abhorrent to me.
I do not think that British politicians are angels, but I see them forced out of office and forced to resign when they have over stepped the mark – this does not happen in Ireland. In this country I do not hear backbench politicians speaking out again the greed of TD’s. In part this is due the censored inept news reporting by RTE, the national broadcaster, but also due to the TD’s being paid off with committee and junior minister posts that pay them more salary for keeping quiet and not rocking the boat.
Personally I do not think in general that Catholics commit more crimes, but I do think that Catholic Counties are more corrupt. What do you think?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I read that article and I did not even bother to dwell over it. It is a terrible correlation between religion and corruption. Protestants/Catholics, its an individual choice to be corrupt or not, the important thing being that neither condones it.
Austria is majority Catholic and it is nominally seen as not corrupt, same goes with Australia, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Slovakia, Canada, and many more.
It is too biased, too sketchy the conclusions drawn from it. Besides, just the point of the Catholic Church being heirachial then pointing to the British Protestantism that makes them less prone to corruption, is ambigious AND wrong since the British Protestantsm is the most heiarchal of all Protestant sects and thus its just plain foolish to correlate any of this. It just goes to show that the British and Dutch are just really good in business. Just as the Chinese are just really good in business while Malay I would come to see it are not as good.
http://dubaiforvisitors.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/corrupt-countries.jpg
Ah, but it is fun to run with some of this sometimes and see where it goes.