Ireland's Catholic Institutions Scandal

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DUBLIN (AP) -- A fiercely debated, long-delayed investigation into Ireland's Roman Catholic-run institutions says priests and nuns terrorized thousands of boys and girls in workhouse-style schools for decades - and government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation. Nine years in the making, Wednesday's 2,600-page report sides almost completely with the horrific reports of abuse from former students sent to more than 250 church-run, mostly residential institutions. But victims' leaders said it didn't go far enough - particularly because none of their abusers were identified by name.

The report concluded that church officials always shielded their orders' pedophiles from arrest to protect their own reputations and, according to documents uncovered in the Vatican, knew that many pedophiles were serial attackers. The investigators said overwhelming, consistent testimony from still-traumatized men and women, now in their 50s to 80s, had demonstrated beyond a doubt that the entire system treated children more like prison inmates and slaves than people with legal rights and human potential....The leader of Ireland's 4 million Catholics, Cardinal Sean Brady, and religious orders at the center of the scandal offered immediate apologies. "I am profoundly sorry and deeply ashamed that children suffered in such awful ways in these institutions. Children deserved better and especially from those caring for them in the name of Jesus Christ," Brady said.

...More than 30,000 children deemed to be petty thieves, truants or from dysfunctional families - a category that often included unmarried mothers - were sent to Ireland's austere network of industrial schools, reformatories, orphanages and hostels from the 1930s until the last church-run facilities shut in the 1990s. The report, unveiled by High Court Justice Sean Ryan, found that molestation and rape were "endemic" in boys' facilities, chiefly run by the Christian Brothers, and supervisors pursued policies that increased the danger. Girls supervised by orders of nuns, chiefly the Sisters of Mercy, suffered much less sexual abuse but frequent assaults and humiliation designed to make them feel worthless.

..."Victims will feel a small degree of comfort that they've been vindicated. But the findings do not go far enough," said John Kelly, a former inmate of a Dublin industial school who fled to London and today leads a pressure group called Irish Survivors of Child Abuse. Kelly said the report should have examined how children like himself were taken away from parents without just cause, and demanded more answers from Irish governments that ceded control over their lives to the church. He said any apologies offered now were "hollow, shallow and have no substance or merit at all. We feel betrayed and cheated today."

Read the rest of this here. Really, read the entire article. This makes the pedophile priest scandals here in the U.S. pale by compare.

 

[cloudy]

Read the rest of this here. Really, read the entire article. This makes the pedophile priest scandals here in the U.S. pale by compare.

The same kind of thing went on here and in Canada with the residential schools for Native kids. It's horrible, but really nothing new.

 

[3113]

The same kind of thing went on here and in Canada with the residential schools for Native kids. It's horrible, but really nothing new.

Granted, but what is new, and why I posted the article, is that it's being talked about, and reported.

 

[Handley_Page]

Granted, but what is new, and why I posted the article, is that it's being talked about, and reported.

"Sorry" is not enough. What are they doing to change things ?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Who said the Micks deserve better? Theyre fucking lucky the world allows them to live.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

There are excellent reasons for separating church and state in education, too. Really, the record of the Roman church in so many ways is lamentable.

 

[Noor]

Its only been 10 yrs since the the last Magdalen Laundry was closed.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

VM

I vote we include teachers in this proposed segregation, I mean look at the risk they pose to minors via their pedophilic appetites.

 

[R. Richard]

The problem is really not one of religious group(s).

If you have never been through juvie, you don't begin to understand the problem. The minor children in juvie have no rights at all. They are slaves in a system that doesn't legally allow slavery. If problems are discovered, the problems are swept under the carpet, because the people running the system can't afford to let the citizens know how the system is run. Even the people within the system who would like to help can't. The only voice coming out of the system is the system. Once enough minor children are vomited out of the system with really bad problems, then and only then is it admitted that there ever was a problem. Of course, by then the 'bad people' who caused the problem are gone and dead. Thus, "We need to move on to a better future and not dwell on past problems."

 

[Wildcard Ky]

I say it's time to disband the whole fucking Catholic Church.

Seriously, does any other single entity in history have as much blood on it's hands as the Catholic Church? They've committed Genocide, witch hunts, persecution, torture, rape, pedophilia, etc.

History continually shows all of this stuff went on with the knowledge of the Vatican, but somehow the church always gets a pass.

The Catholic Church isn't about God, it's about power.

 

[3113]

"Sorry" is not enough. What are they doing to change things ?

Granted, it's not enough. But the report complies the evidence making it easier for the victims to present that evidence in a court of law, providing that court will hear the case.

The problem is really not one of religious group(s).

I'm in agreement with this as well. It is all about whatever group puts themselves in a position of unassailable power and knowledge. Many a doctor has done the same, asserting his knowledge of science and medicine as authority that must be respected and obeyed, even to the point where children were taken away from parents and put through questionable treatments; likewise other authorities, like those in Australia that took aboriginal children from their parents, etc. Religion isn't required to create self-righteous dictators over children or slave conditions in institutions supposedly there to help children.

That said, the Catholic Church does present itself as a moral authority and political power. It cannot take a moral high ground and attack others for immorality if it cannot protect children from those within its own hierarchy, presumably following its teachings, and under its command. Simply put, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, and the Catholic Church, given this evidence, needs to clean it's own glass house before it starts giving others advice on good housekeeping.

 

[JackLuis]

This is but one example of the CC's 'regard' for the Irish people.

My father was so set aginst the Catholic Church, because of what they had done in Ireland that he almost disowned my sister when she was going to marry an Italian, because he was Catholic.

Having been in Ireland and read English and Irish history a bit I have to say that the Irish have had a hard time with dictatorial tyrants of all stripes.

It took my family two generations, in this country to finally rid itself of the influence of Church.

Priesthoods exist to support the Priesthood, doing good is optional.

 

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My father was so set aginst the Catholic Church, because of what they had done in Ireland that he almost disowned my sister when she was going to marry an Italian, because he was Catholic.

So, um, what happened to your sister?

 

[JackLuis]

So, um, what happened to your sister?

My father relented when he met him and my sister is still married to him, 3 girls.
My Dad was and old softie really. He still hated the Church but my Sis switched to Lutherain after she got back to St Louis.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

My father relented when he met him and my sister is still married to him, 3 girls.
My Dad was and old softie really. He still hated the Church but my Sis switched to Lutherain after she got back to St Louis.

That would work. All the lovely liturgy and ceremony without the authoritarianism you get from the Romans. Episcopals are okay, too.

 

[john-the-author]

The same kind of thing went on here and in Canada with the residential schools for Native kids. It's horrible, but really nothing new.

A friend of mine who's an Ojibway medicine person was telling me about his childhood in the Jesuit schools. One boy would run away every night at about the same time (it sadly wasn't hard to get him as a result) until he was 14 until he decided he'd rather die than be caught and he drowned himself).

I'm on a lot of charity lists because of my history of giving and I've had to be VERY SPECIFIC with the Jesuit run schools in the Dakotas that I don't ever want to hear from them and that I'd see them all closed if I could.

 

[cloudy]

A friend of mine who's an Ojibway medicine person was telling me about his childhood in the Jesuit schools. One boy would run away every night at about the same time (it sadly wasn't hard to get him as a result) until he was 14 until he decided he'd rather die than be caught and he drowned himself).

I'm on a lot of charity lists because of my history of giving and I've had to be VERY SPECIFIC with the Jesuit run schools in the Dakotas that I don't ever want to hear from them and that I'd see them all closed if I could.

I lived on an Ojibway reserve for quite some time, and I've heard the personal stories and seen the scars. What went on in those schools, and what was done to those kids...I just don't have the words. That it was done to other humans is appalling enough. That it was done to children is beyond heinous.

 

[Kitty_Schrödinger]

The same kind of thing went on here and in Canada with the residential schools for Native kids. It's horrible, but really nothing new.

I also don't understand why anyone is surprised.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

All of it is so dreadful and yet, I'm sure its continuing in the world, but how do we stop it?

 

[Kitty_Schrödinger]

I say it's time to disband the whole fucking Catholic Church.

Seriously, does any other single entity in history have as much blood on it's hands as the Catholic Church? They've committed Genocide, witch hunts, persecution, torture, rape, pedophilia, etc.

History continually shows all of this stuff went on with the knowledge of the Vatican, but somehow the church always gets a pass.

The Catholic Church isn't about God, it's about power.

Neither of "religions" is ablout God. Faith is.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

All of it is so dreadful and yet, I'm sure its continuing in the world, but how do we stop it?

You cant stop it because its almost human nature to do it.

I recall an incident from the time I worked for the state. We sent kiddies to a medical facility for examination following physical and sexual abuse. The kiddies were stripped and poked & prodded by the nice doctors and nurses there. And photographed and videoed for court....and the kiddie porn market.

 

[WRJames]

Over the years I have come across references to goings on in English boarding schools -- so I did a Google search on "boarding schools" and "sodomy".

A lot of hits, including for example this.

So it may be a problem common to all residential institutions for children?

More reprehensible, though, when the children are there against their will, and the molesters are supposed to be celibate.

 

[cloudy]

Over the years I have come across references to goings on in English boarding schools -- so I did a Google search on "boarding schools" and "sodomy".

A lot of hits, including for example this.

So it may be a problem common to all residential institutions for children?

More reprehensible, though, when the children are there against their will, and the molesters are supposed to be celibate.

It would somehow be "better" if the kids were there voluntarily, and the molesters hadn't taken a vow of celibacy? Really?

 

[3113]

It would somehow be "better" if the kids were there voluntarily, and the molesters hadn't taken a vow of celibacy? Really?

No, of course it wouldn't be better. I think we all know that. The point is that the priests represent and speak for an institutionalized religion that condemns certain sexual practices as abnormal and sinful (including masturbation), but then their own priests, the ones supposedly remaining sexually pure to prove their faith in their church and all it teaches, are engaging in pedophilia.

So, no it makes it no better for the kid if he is raped by a married teacher at a boarding school or a celibate priest, but it does undermine the trust of the faithful and public opinion in general of an institutionalized religion if their celibate priests, preaching abstinence and heterosexual marriage from the pulpit are raping children. And not only getting away with it, but being aided and abetted by the church itself! How can anything the church says or preaches, thought such priests, be trusted or believed?

In the case of the boarding school, we only have an untrustworthy boarding school and teacher (or teachers). We do not have an untrustworthy religious institution. That, I think, is what James meant.

 

[lass714]

What I find appalling is the fact that not 1 of those pedophiles will ever see the inside of a courtroom or prison. That will never be held accountable for their actions. These criminal acts have occurred for decades and will continue with the churches blessing. Once a mention of improper contact with a child is suggested the Church, removes the accused from the area and "reassigns" them to a different church half a world away. They will never be held responsible for the innocence they have stolen, the little lives they have destroyed, and the dreams of those children they have shattered. They then move on to a new selection of victims and gratify their deviant urges yet again. The Catholic Church allows it and denies any culpability for its lack of action. There is no greater institute with such arrogance and blatant disregard for humanity and children as the Catholic Church.

The sexual abuse and rape of child is the most heinous of all crimes known to man. Almost all over the world preying on a child for sexual gratification is an unacceptable and criminal act. Even within the prison system across the nation where people have been convicted of the most unspeakable acts against humanity, all persons are accepted with one exception and that is the pedophile.