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.
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.
So, I was in my 30s when O’Connor did her thing on SNL, and I definitely remember the context being discussed here in the US. There was a (brief) national conversation at the time about why she would do this, and a fair amount of attention on the 19th and early 20th century abuses by the church’s schools and workhouses, where “women of questionable virtue” were held against their will and forced into labor. When O’Connor was interviewed about it, she talked about the abuse of women and girls.
I do agree that what the church calls “the crisis” – the revelation that active pedophiles had been using their positions in the church to cover up their extensive crimes – was not well known until the 2000s.
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.
I think she was principled, it doesn’t mean she wasn’t looking forward she was setting herself aside in favour of a justified cause in her eyes. It was selfless not poor forethought.
She said in an article i read today that she was proud because it prevented her from being No. 1 again, which is something she never intended. What a badass punk.
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.
Yes and no. It was known among the churchgoers. The altar boys knew which priests to avoid, and why. The parishioners knew, or at least heard rumors. And when a priest was suddenly transferred across the country/internationally, it was pretty widely accepted as code for “they got caught.” But they didn’t tend to talk about it outside of the church, and the news was still afraid to be labeled as anti-catholic if they reported on it.
So the general public only really heard the jokes, rumors, and speculation. And the church had the plausible deniability to allow them to screech about being unfairly attacked. And it worked. The church happily played the role of the victim, and the general public turned on her.
I watched Goodfellas last week for the first time. Pretty sure that’s who Joe Peeci really thinks he is. I liked things better when I only knew him for My Cousin Vinny.
She called out the shitty catholic church, got her career ruined for it, and 2 months later all the molestation stuff came out. Not once did she get an apology. RIP, Nothing truly did compare to you.
I was just a kid at the time but still remember the media making a huge villain out of Sinead. They made it seem like she was mentally unstable, but she was just years ahead of everyone else. I’m sad that she didn’t get to see this outpouring of support and appreciation while she was alive. She died far too young, and I hope it wasn’t by suicide. I hope she wasn’t in pain.
Wild thing about this picture is that Wikipedia is basically the only permanent place it can be found. The post there says it’s from Getty, with a link, but that link is now broken. SNL sure isn’t letting this footage out. From the WP article: all the rebroadcasts of that episode use footage from the rehearsals, where she held up a different picture and didn’t tear it up.
30 years later and people even on Reddit and Lemmy, fall for the Catholic Church’s bullshit and their pr pope “he’s so progressive this pope” they say, as if the current Pope was any better. He’s also a pedophile defender who refuses to meet with the victims of his clergy.
Just read about all this today in her obit, wow. What a complicated person. I love that she was proud till the end of her act, considered it a success, and told us all that people who get abused as children are gonna be fucked up for life like she was. Hr own son committed suicide. So much pain and sadness, but I think I want to get a poster of her as a reminder of this.
It’s not so much that is falls under AI or DA, but that it doesnt fall under a photograph classification. Do you count still screenshots from a video as a photograph? At the end of the day, we are building a community that we all want. If the community decides screenshots count as photos, then we can move that direction.
Don’t be an ass. I read about this today and didn’t know jack shit. If I didn’t read the newspaper as much as I did I wouldn’t know anything about this. This is worthy content that spread discussion. Why are you acting like there is nothing worthy in this post? some of us want to talk with others about things, not mindlessly search google like some borg collective member.
Dude I just finished a masters degree in social sciences, I don’t need a lecture on the use of search engines. Just trying to tip you off to your lack of social etiquette.
No that’s not what the point is about. You are intentionally confusing issues here because you want to be mad and upset. I was just outlining that I know how to search. I’m sure we agree on more than we do not but you are making it difficult to have a civil conversation that leads anywhere positive. Have a nice day
Of the picture? Or why it’s being posted about today?
Re: the picture - she was the musical guest (or host? Can’t remember) on SNL, and the protested/called out the pedophilia/abuse happening in the Catholic Church by ripping up a picture of the Pope on live TV. People got pisssssed and she got absolutely destroyed in the public eye. Turns out she was right. But it was never publicly addressed nor was she redeemed in any way in the public eye.
Re: why posted today - she died today. And is considered heroic for the above mentioned action so I would imagine OP was memorializing that moment on this the day of her death.
She led a sad life, after years of battling mental illness, she had lost custody of her son which sent her into a spiral and her son died last year from suicide, which turned her into a suicidal wreck. Her cause of death hasn’t been announced but I’m assuming she took her own life
It’s interesting that you ask that because that was the problem with her doing it in the first place- most people weren’t yet aware of the depth of pedophilia scandals the Catholic church was embroiled in, so they just thought she was anti-Catholic. We should have known what she meant when she said, “fight the real enemy,” but the news was just not that prominent, not in the U.S. anyway.
Please don’t get me wrong, though. She absolutely did not deserve to have her life and career totally fucked because people didn’t understand her message.
Most Catholics in the US were keenly aware of the abuse issues, it’s just that they didn’t talk about it openly, and the media was loathe to cover it for fear of being labeled anti-Catholic, as she was.
Source: My mother was a Catholic nun for 15 years before leaving the convent to marry my dad, also a devout Catholic. I was an altar boy, went to Catholic schools through High School, and grew up in the 80’s and 90’s. It was well known among the church and school communities which priests to steer clear of and why.
Performing Bob Marley and the Whalers’ song, War. Haunting performance, libs on here would call her a tankie for this song lol https://youtu.be/X0VpfiMcPPA
She ripped up a picture of the pope live on SNL, while performing one of her songs. It was a protest against all the child rape that the church has hidden. She basically got publicly destroyed for it. She became a pariah, and her career was ruined. It’s worth noting that she was Irish, and Ireland is mainly catholic.
Then a few months later, all the stories of the catholic rapes broke. All the kids (and former-kids-now-adults) started coming forward to say they had been molested by church leaders and the church had covered it up. People started coming forward with decades of stories. It was suddenly too much for the church to cover up. It was a big scandal.
But the damage to her career was already done, and she never got any kind of redemption. She basically went from being an A-list musician on the level of Beyoncé or Taylor Swift, to being completely unemployable overnight. And she never recovered from it even after everything she was protesting about was proven true. She died today.
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