Former nun denies boys' home abuse

A former nun interviewed by police investigating alleged abuse at a children's home in Northern Ireland has said she loved the young people, a public inquiry has heard. In the 1970s, the woman worked at Termonbacca boys' home in Derry, run by the Sisters of Nazareth religious order, and admitted witnessing sexual acts.
But she denied causing physical or sexual harm.The treatment of young people, orphaned or taken away from their unmarried mothers, in residential homes run by nuns, brothers or the state is a key concern of the UK's largest ever institutional child abuse investigation being held in Banbridge, Co Down.

http://www.u.tv/News/Former-nun-denies-boys-home-abuse/797ae251-ba77-4dba-a16e-10c48756f374 

We Were Children (Trailer)

Warning: this film contains disturbing content and is recommended for audiences 16 years of age and older. Parental discretion, and/or watching this film within a group setting, is strongly advised. If you need counselling support, please contact Health Canada.
In this feature film, the profound impact of the Canadian government’s residential school system is conveyed through the eyes of two children who were forced to face hardships beyond their years. As young children, Lyna and Glen were taken from their homes and placed in church-run boarding schools, where they suffered years of physical, sexual and emotional abuse, the effects of which persist in their adult lives. We Were Children gives voice to a national tragedy and demonstrates the incredible resilience of the human spirit.

http://www.nfb.ca/film/we_were_children/trailer/we_were_children_trailer/ 

South Dakota Boarding School Survivors Detail Sexual Abuse.

The Dakota expression for child, wakan injan, can be translated as “they too are sacred,” according to Glenn Drapeau, Ihanktonwan Dakota and a member of the Elk Soldier Society on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. “To us, children are as pure as the holy, moving energy of the universe,” he says, “and we treat them that way.”
When Native children arrived at Holy Rosary Mission, founded in 1888 at Pine Ridge to help in the religious conversion of the Oglala Lakota, nuns staffing the school described them as having good “morals” and giving “a tenth of the trouble white children cause,” Raymond A. Bucko wrote in Lakotas, Black Robes, and Holy Women (University of Nebraska Press, 2000). Nevertheless, corporal punishment was meted out regularly at Holy Rosary—“apparently without scruple,” according to Bucko—and a primary goal of the school was to cut the children off from their parents, their language and their culture. 

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/07/28/south-dakota-boarding-school-survivors-detail-sexual-abuse-42420 

Child sex abuse inquiry: Victim had teeth pulled out by nuns with pliers, royal commission hears

Nuns used pliers to pull out the teeth of a child sex abuse victim at a Ballarat orphanage, and he was also locked in a dungeon known as the "horror room" and abused by a priest, an inquiry hears.
Giving evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Gordon Hill - now in his 70s - said he was taken to the St Joseph's Home as a three-year-old.

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/2015-05-20/child-sex-abuse-inquiry-victim-had-teeth-pulled-out-by-nuns-with-pliers-royal-commission-hears/1449538 

Mersey man who claims he was abused by nuns as a child slams police for wrongly telling him they were dead

A dad who says he was abused by nuns for five years as a child has condemned police for wrongly telling him all his alleged tormentors were dead.
Terry Daley was desperate to prosecute the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary convent for physical and sexual abuse at a special school in Ormskirk when he was aged 10 to 15. The nuns are now based in Chigwell, Essex.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/mersey-man-who-claims-abused-8075313 

Child sexual abuse: women make up 10 per cent of perpetrators reported to royal commission

A blind Vietnamese orphan who was five when she came to Australia, 11 when she was sexually abused by a Catholic nun and 35 when she received $15,000 in compensation for her "personal trauma" has spoken out for the 10 per cent of people reporting female perpetrators to the child sexual abuse royal commission.
"I want people to know a small percentage of women are just as capable of abusing power as men are," said Emma Pham, who was sexually abused by Dominican nun Sister Kay Fennell at the St Lucy's School for the Visually Impaired at Wahroonga in 1979.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/child-sexual-abuse-women-make-up-10-per-cent-of-perpetrators-reported-to-royal-commission-20140923-10kznh.html 

Documentary unearths further horrific abuse of adoptees from Catholic nuns' homes

The documentary “This World: Ireland’s Lost Babies” unearths further truths about the 40,000 to 60,000 babies who were involuntarily given up for adoption, many to the United States, from Catholic mother and baby homes in Ireland, during the 1950s and 60s.

Presented by Martin Sixsmith the documentary alternates between Ireland and the US to tell the tales of the parents and children who were separated by the Catholic Church. Sixsmith is the journalist behind the tale of Philomena, which was later made in to a movie by Steve Coogan. His latest hour-long documentary examines the appalling treatment of the Irish women who became pregnant outside marriage and also the adopted children, who were farmed out to parents who had little vetting.

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Documentary-unearths-further-horrific-abuse-of-adoptees-from-Catholic-nuns-homes.html 

Buried In Baltimore: The Mysterious Murder Of A Nun Who Knew Too Much

On a frigid day in November 1969, Father Joseph Maskell, the chaplain of Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore, called a student into his office and suggested they go for a drive. When the final bell rang at 2:40 p.m., Jean Hargadon Wehner, a 16-year-old junior at the all-girls Catholic school, followed the priest to the parking lot and climbed into the passenger seat of his light blue Buick Roadmaster.
It was not unusual for Maskell to give students rides home or take them to doctor's appointments during the school day. The burly, charismatic priest, then 30 years old, had been the chief spiritual and psychological counselor at Keough for two years and was well-known in the community. Annual tuition at Keough was just $200, which attracted working-class families in deeply Catholic southwest Baltimore who couldn't afford to send their daughters to fancier private schools. Many Keough parents had attended Maskell’s Sunday masses

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/14/cesnik-nun-murder-maskell_n_7267532.html 

The latest child abuse scandal is as Irish as it is Catholic

One of the most delicate questions surrounding the wicked child abuse by Irish Catholic clergy, brothers and nuns is this: how much of the abuse was Irish and how much of it was Catholic?
The question of Irishness has been hovering over the Catholic abuse scandals for years, ever since journalists noticed (but scarcely dared point out) that they seemed concentrated among the Irish Catholic diaspora of the United States, Canada and Australia. We always knew that terrible things happened in Ireland, too, though it was not until the publication of a 2,600-page report last week that we realised their extent.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/9918669/The_latest_child_abuse_scandal_is_as_Irish_as_it_is_Catholic/ 

Abused by nun, native woman tells commission

P.E.I. survivors of Indian residential schools had an opportunity Tuesday to testify about their horrific treatment at the hands of the federal government and the church.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission held an all-day hearing at the Rodd Charlottetown Hotel. The commission gives people an opportunity to speak openly, or privately, about the residential school system that existed in Canada for more than 100 years.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/abused-by-nun-native-woman-tells-commission-1.1100929 

Lawsuit filed on behalf of Shakopee man, allegedly abused by nun as a child

Attorneys filed a civil lawsuit against an order of nuns and the Diocese of New Ulm, alleging sexual abuse of a 10-year-old boy repeatedly molested by a nun at a Catholic school in Madison, Minn.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of a 58-year-old man from Shakopee, alleges that a nun repeatedly abused the boy in his fifth-grade year, from the fall of 1967 through spring 1968, at St. Michael’s Catholic School in Madison. Court papers say Sister Mary Regina repeatedly fondled the boy’s genitals during school hours, according a news release issued Tuesday by the Minneapolis law firm of Patrick Noaker.

 

http://www.swnewsmedia.com/shakopee_valley_news/news/public_safety/lawsuit-filed-on-behalf-of-shakopee-man-allegedly-abused-by/article_3e21a4ab-7931-5f81-bb82-a831f8e4fe69.html 

Writing meditations for pope, nun gives voice to abused children

The cloistered Augustine nun who has written the meditations for Pope Benedict XVI's Way of the Cross service said she strived for simplicity to give a voice to children who have been abused in the church and beyond.
Mother Maria Rita Piccione, president of the Italian Federation of Augustinian Nuns, told Vatican Radio that she wanted "to give space in this prayer of the church to the voice of children and teens, who sometimes are offended, injured and exploited. Here I am referring not just to the cases of abuse that have been talked about so much, because the problem is much vaster and regards all humanity."

http://www.catholicnews.com/services/englishnews/2011/writing-meditations-for-pope-nun-gives-voice-to-abused-children.cfm 

Nun sexually abused boy, New Ulm lawsuit says

A man is suing the Archdiocese of New Ulm on accusations a nun who’s now dead sexually abused him in the 1960s.
It’s the first case involving a nun filed under a state law temporarily lifting the statute of limitations on child sex abuse lawsuits.

http://www.twincities.com/2015/04/29/nun-sexually-abused-boy-new-ulm-lawsuit-says/ 

Sex Abuse by Nuns Alleged at Md. Protest

Four women and a man who say they are victims of child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic nuns held a news conference yesterday outside the Silver Spring headquarters of an organization of nuns to spotlight what they contend is an unrecognized problem.
"I'm here today because I'm concerned that in the midst of the sex abuse scandal about priests . . . people are not paying attention to the fact that people were sexually abused by nuns and sisters," said Mary Guentner, 46, a social worker from near Milwaukee who said she was sexually abused by a nun for four years, beginning in her senior year of high school.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47415-2004Jul13.html 

Paedophile priest Brendan Smyth abused children in care of nuns

A Catholic religious order has accepted that a notorious paedophile priest abused children while they were in the care of nuns in Northern Ireland, a lawyer told a public inquiry.
Fr Brendan Smyth visited two south Belfast residential homes at the centre of the independent probe into wrongdoing stretching back decades. The serial molester was later convicted of dozens of child abuse charges.

http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/northern-ireland-news/paedophile-priest-brendan-smyth-abused-children-in-care-of-nuns-1-6503914 

A Brief Examination of Pedophilia and Sexual Abuse Committed by Nuns Within the C tholic Church

As a child, my father was a little hellion.' He's told my sisters and me countless stories of his early years, which were mostly spent tormenting his younger siblings. He would, however, occasionally take a break to torment instead the nuns who ran his Catholic school.
One of my favorite stories concerns my father's practice of putting massive amounts of Butch Wax 2 in his hair. On one par- ticular day, he was acting up in class. A nun grabbed him by his flat-topped hair and slammed the back of his head into a black- board. His hair product left a grease spot that never came off the board, rendering it unable to be written upon ever again

http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1103&context=wmjowl 

Blind orphan abused by nun speaks out

A BLIND Vietnamese orphan who was five when she came to Australia, 11 when she was sexually abused by a Catholic nun, and 35 when she received $15,000 compensation for her ‘‘personal trauma’’, has spoken out for the 10 per cent of people reporting female perpetrators to the child sexual abuse royal commission.
‘‘I want people to know a small percentage of women are just as capable of abusing power as men are,’’ said Emma Pham, pictured, who was sexually abused by Dominican nun Sister Kay Fennell at the St Lucy’s School for the Visually Impaired at Wahroonga in 1979.

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/2579670/blind-orphan-abused-by-nun/ 

The girls, the paedophile and Cardinal Pell. Nazareth House.

In 1973, a young Father George Pell, flushed with success from his recent studies in Rome and Oxford, returned to his home town of Ballarat and took up residence in the St Alipius presbytery; a place, it would be publicly revealed more than 20 years later, that was a paedophile’s paradise and a child’s nightmare.
His housemate that year was the tall, rowdy and popular parish priest, Father Gerald Ridsdale. What the parents and parishioners who worshipped God and obeyed the sanctity of the church and its messengers did not know was that from early in his priesthood, Ridsdale was subject to a psychiatric report. He was already a serial child abuser who sodomised children at will, picking them off when and where his desires dictated: in front of a church altar, at the presbytery, or on camping or fishing trips.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/feature/girls-paedophile-and-cardinal-pell 

A decade later, struggle for accountability within LCWR on abuse continues

Last week, we in the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests celebrated our 25th anniversary. This week, we take note of another, less positive milestone.
It's now been 10 years since we first began prodding the largest group of U.S. nuns to take action on abuse by women religious. It's been a frustrating and fruitless decade.

http://ncronline.org/blogs/examining-crisis/decade-later-struggle-accountability-within-lcwr-abuse-continues 

Child abuse by Catholic nuns examined at Australian and Northern Ireland inquiries

Children abused while living in the care of two well-known Catholic orders are having their stories recorded by the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse and the Northern Ireland Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry this month.

The Royal Commission is holding public hearings in Rockhampton this week to hear accounts of abuse inflicted on children by the Sisters of Mercy at the St Joseph’s Orphanage, Neerkol. One survivor, Mary Adams, told ABC Radio that in addition to the sexual abuse of children by some priests at the Orphanage, the nuns regularly held public floggings.

http://rct-law.com.au/legal-blog/2015/child-abuse-by-catholic-nuns-examined-at-australian-and-northern-ireland-inquiries 

New lawsuit accuses Mont. nuns of abusing Native American children

A new sex abuse lawsuit filed Tuesday against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena is one of the first involving abuse by nuns toward Native American children, the plaintiffs' attorney said.
The latest suit, which also names the Ursuline Sisters of the Western Province as a defendant, is the second in as many weeks that claims child rape and molestation at the hands of clergy decades ago in western Montana.

http://www.reznetnews.org/article/new-lawsuit-accuses-mont-nuns-abusing-native-american-children 

£15,000 compensation for Runcorn man abused by Ormskirk nuns as child

Terry Daley was physically and sexually molested, but police wrongly told him his tormentors were dead. A pensioner abused by nuns at a special school as a child has been awarded £15,000 compensation after his tormentors escaped punishment when police told him they were all dead.
Terry Daley tried prosecuting Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary convent for years of physical and sexual at their hands, aged 10 to 15.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/15000-compensation-runcorn-man-abused-10677310 

Beyond Secret Tears

I was 4 years old and my brother was 5-1/2 years old when we were first separated from our parents and placed in a Protestant orphanage in Belgium. I was a depressed and confused child, but with the passing of time, I began to believe that all children lived away from their parents.
After several months, the director of the orphanage had reason to suspect that the Germans might discover the few Jewish children hidden there and my brother and I were suddenly returned to our parents. Eager to surprise them, I was happy again. 

http://archive.adl.org/children_holocaust/story_beyond_tears2.html 

Nun laughed after priest's abuse: victim

A NUN laughed after a five-year-old orphan was abused by a priest at a Victorian Catholic home, the sex abuse royal commission has heard.
GORDON Hill, 72, told the commission he was sexually and physically abused at St Joseph's Home in Ballarat, in what he called horror rooms and dungeons.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/ballarat-abuse-victims-tell-of-horror/news-story/32051b7c198447e0095fa6c88dac7f76 

Catholic child abuse - nuns also accused

Following recent reports about sexual abuse of children by Dutch priests, it now appears that some nuns also took advantage of their charges. Tuesday’s edition of newspaper De Telegraaf contains the story of Herman Harends, who says he was abused by nuns at a Roman Catholic boarding school he attended in the 1950s.
Radio Netherlands Worldwide and newspaper NRC Handelsblad published their report on sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic church two weeks ago. Since then, more and people have come forward, saying they, too, were childhood victims.

https://www.rnw.org/archive/catholic-child-abuse-nuns-also-accused 

Are Catholic priests and nuns murdering their own children?

Today Nun-in-training Sosefina Amoa sat in a Washington D.C. jail awaiting 23 May sentencing for voluntary manslaughter in the death of her newborn. According to The Washington Post Sister Amoa admitted to smothering the baby she named Joseph after giving him birth at the Catholic Northeast Little Sisters of the Poor Convent.
Although the nuns reported Sister Amoa to police, Catholic authorities have not always been transparent about homicides committed within their secretive walls. According to child abuse survivors of Catholic institutions, it was common for priests and nuns to rape and kill children, especially a newborn. There was assurance from the Vatican that anyone tarnishing the Roman Catholic Church by reporting such crimes would be excommunicated and thus live in eternal Hell.

http://childabuserecovery.com/are-catholic-priests-and-nuns-murdering-their-own-children/ 

Habits of Sin:An Expose of Nuns Who Sexually Abuse Children and Each Other

'In recent years, revelations of childhood sexual abuse by Catholic priests have broken out from behind a well-guarded wall of secrecy.  Despite the publicity of hundreds of such cases, one area of healing and investigation remains:  that of women religious who also are guilty of sexually abusing children and each other.
As one pastoral psychotherapist with whom I have had contact put it, this is the next area in which sexual abuse accounting will take place.Indeed, accounts of women in general who sexually abuse children are nearly non-existent, and research on the topic of nuns and sisters who abuse children presently has not been available.

http://www.amazon.com/Habits-Sin-Expose-Sexually-Children-ebook/dp/B005D7TPAQ 

Northern Ireland abuse inquiry focuses on Christian children's home

An independent abuse inquiry in Northern Ireland has turned its attention to a former children's home linked to the Church of Ireland.

The Historical Abuse Inquiry (HIA) will be examining allegations of abuse at Manor House in Lisburn, near Belfast. Manor House was run by the Irish Church Missions group, which particularly focuses on evangelism.

https://www.premier.org.uk/News/UK/Northern-Ireland-abuse-inquiry-focuses-on-Christian-children-s-home 

Complaints of Sex Abuse by Nuns Begin to Emerge

Even now, decades later, the victims' voices falter as they describe the encounters that damaged them in ways they cannot fully cast off.
Mary Dunford tells of a molester visiting her dormitory bed when she was 15. Susan Pavlak speaks of the teacher who talked to her of love, then seduced her at 16. Siblings Christine Bertrand and Karen Britten and their childhood friend Patricia Schwartz describe how their piano teacher touched them in ways no adult should touch a child. In each case, the perpetrator was, or recently had been, a Roman Catholic nun.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2006/05_06/2006_06_24_Miller_ComplaintsOf.htm 

Smyth abused children in nuns' care, inquiry is told

A Catholic religious order has accepted that a notorious paedophile priest Father Brendan Smyth abused children while they were in the care of nuns, a lawyer told a public inquiry.
Smyth was at the heart of one of the first paedophile priest scandals to envelope the Catholic Church on the island of Ireland. The priest visited two south Belfast residential homes at the centre of the independent probe into wrongdoing stretching back decades.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/smyth-abused-children-in-nuns-care-inquiry-is-told-30884912.html

Man claims Minnesota nun sexually abused him in the '60s

The Archdiocese of New Ulm faces a lawsuit over alleged sexual abuse by a nun in the 1960s. It's the first case involving a nun filed under a Minnesota law temporarily lifting the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse lawsuits.
Doug Devorak claims Sister Mary Regina Hebig repeatedly fondled him when he was a fifth grader at St. Michael's Catholic School in Madison, Minn.

http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/04/29/nun-sexual-abuse-suit 

Catholic nuns also abused children

So far, reports of abuse within the Church have focused almost exclusively on male clerics. But many young children also suffered at the hands of Catholic nuns.

In the late 1950s, the Roman Catholic Hospital of Our Dear Lady Mother of in Eindhoven was hell for Petra Jorissen. The reason had a name: sister Johanetty. "We will break that little will of yours, break it," she would squeal, as she forced the remains of a meal Jorissen had just thrown up back down her throat.

http://vorige.nrc.nl//international/article2530647.ece/catholic_nuns_also_abused_children 

Nuns 'abused hundreds of children'

FOR MORE than 100 years, the Poor Sisters of Nazareth cared for children in the order's dozens of homes across Britain. Orphans, abandoned babies and children deemed uncontrollable or accused of petty crimes were all put in the hands of the nuns who, to the outside world, epitomised kindness and compassion.
But today, many of those who were in the sisters' care have come forward to claim that, behind the locked doors of Nazareth House (all the homes had this name), the nuns maintained a ruthless regime. Beatings and acts of extreme cruelty were commonplace, they say, and together with the spartan existence in the home, gave them lives of utter misery.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/nuns-abused-hundreds-of-children-1171988.html 

Child abuse inquiry: Finally victims get the hearing they deserve

Charges likely as 300 prepare to give evidence. Criminal prosecutions are likely as a result of the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, which is now under way.
If a prosecution is imminent, the inquiry will go into closed session in order to avoid prejudicing a fair trial, the inquiry's chair Sir Anthony Hart stressed yesterday.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/child-abuse-inquiry-finally-victims-get-the-hearing-they-deserve-29913474.html 

Nuns on the run

A woman who says she was tortured by the Sisters of Nazareth at a Christchurch orphanage wants them to pay for her alleged suffering. Defenders of Nazareth House say she is driven by greed, not grief. Ann Thompson is the latest in the swelling ranks queuing for compensation from the Catholic Church.
Thompson's target is Christchurch's Sisters of Nazareth, whose charity work in the city dates back nearly 100 years.  The 61-year-old grandmother, from Whangarei, last week appeared on prime-time television alleging she had been tortured by sadistic nuns as a girl at Nazareth House in Sydenham in the 1950s.  As well as regular thrashings, the nameless sisters would use her as a human toilet brush, flushing the loo while her head was shoved down the bowl.

http://www.peterellis.org.nz/church/2002/2002-0914_ThePress_NunsOnTheRun.htm

I can still hear the kids' screams'

As a film examines the injustices of the child migration schemes, Susan Chenery talks to those left scarred by the shame of two countries.  In the winter the children left blood on the frost. Their bare feet stumbled on rocks that peeled the skin, but they were so numb with cold that they barely felt the pain.
They were children forced into hard labour; being punished for being born without hope. And punished again if they protested.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/i-can-still-hear-the-kids-screams-20110611-1fyap.html 

Catholic hierarchy stand by while nuns’ orders seek to obstruct justice for their abuse victims

Following the failed attempt to obstruct the historic child abuse inquiry in Scotland, Keith Porteous Wood exposes the continuing reluctance of the Catholic Church to face up to and pay for its crimes.

Two orders of nuns have sought and failed to frustrate the appointment of the chair of the Scottish child abuse inquiry. Maybe they hoped no one would notice their shocking record of heinous abuse and ponder on their motives. As could be expected from the Scottish Catholic hierarchy's brazen and disgraceful record on denial and covering up abuse, it conspicuously did not distance itself from the appointment challenge.

http://www.secularism.org.uk/blog/2015/07/catholic-hierarchy-stand-by-while-nuns-orders-seek-to-obstruct-justice-for-their-abuse-victims 

Sisters of Nazareth deny sexual abuse allegations

Were the nuns trained... to abuse children... they did the same things to children... boys and girls... in every one of their catholic church orphanages worldwide... this abuse and forcing us children... to eat our own vomit... was so horrible... very degrading in front of the other girls... and painful in the way they did this to us... Ann

 =======================

Woman alleges rape by priests and nuns forcing her to eat her own vomit. The Sisters of Nazareth have denied claims by a 65-year-old woman that while under their care as a child she suffered serious abuse.

The woman, now living in England, has told the North’s Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry that while in care as a child she was raped by two priests, sexually abused by two nuns and also forced to eat her own vomit.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/sisters-of-nazareth-deny-sexual-abuse-allegations-1.2096904 

Nuns admit sexual abuse of children took place under their care

Sisters of Nazareth acknowledge emotional abuse and neglect in its residential homes in Northern Ireland.

A Catholic order of nuns has admitted that emotional abuse and neglect took place in its residential homes in Northern Ireland. The Sisters of Nazareth have already acknowledged and apologised for physical and sexual attacks which occurred within their properties, a focus of the UK’s largest ever institutional child abuse public inquiry.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nuns-admit-sexual-abuse-children-3574925 

'I was abused by nuns in a Dublin Catholic-run orphanage'

A woman who was physically and sexually abused by nuns throughout her childhood in a Catholic-run orphanage has described the experience as "cruelty beyond belief".
"Irene Kelly" - author of Sins of a Mother - was abused at an orphanage in Dublin on various occasions in the 1960s, between the ages of six and 11.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34075164 

Child sex abuse inquiry: Senior Catholic nun apologises to victims from Neerkol orphanage in Queensland

A senior Catholic nun has apologised to victims of sexual abuse at St Joseph's Orphanage at Neerkol, near Rockhampton, during her testimony at a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse hearing.

Hundreds of children were beaten, molested and raped at St Joseph's over three decades up until the late 1970s.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-22/catholic-nun-apologises-to-victims-of-orphanage-child-sex-abuse/6411204 

How Prevalent is Sexual Abuse By Nuns [Part 1 of a 3-part series]

Most of the attention regarding sexually abusive clergy members has focused on sexual abuse by priests. Most media reports and most research involve abusive priests.
The 2004 John Jay College study was limited to diocesan and religious order priests. Consequently, information about sexual abuse by nuns is not widely discussed or understood. This article discusses what is known about the prevalence of nun sexual abuse of children.

http://noakerlaw.com/how-prevalent-is-sexual-abuse-by-nuns-part-1-of-a-3-part-series/ 

Sexual Abuse By Nuns: Why Are There So Few Lawsuits? [Part 2 of 3]

As is discussed in part 1 of this series, Nun sexual abuse is more prevalent than most originally thought. If that is the case, then why have there not been as many lawsuits for sexual abuse involving nuns? This article discusses some of the unique aspects of bringing civil claims relating to sexual abuse by nuns.
There is no question that civil lawsuits have played a major role in exposing and understanding clergy sexual abuse. In fact, Fr. Thomas Doyle, one of the heroes of the child protection movement in the Catholic church stated “The twists and turns of the civil discovery process have been the most important factors in exposing the extent and nature of clergy sexual abuse.” [1]

http://noakerlaw.com/sexual-abuse-by-nuns-why-are-there-so-few-lawsuits-part-2-of-3/ 

Victims of a ‘reign of terror’ conducted by nuns at central Queensland orphanage to tell their stories

A FORMER resident of a central Queensland orphanage has told a national inquiry how nuns administered public floggings and forced bed-wetting children to stand with soiled sheets draped over their heads.
Retired nurse Mary Adams, 64, suffered repeated emotional, physical and sexual mistreatment at the hands of nuns and priests at the Neerkol orphanage near Rockhampton in the 1950s and 1960s, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/victims-of-a-reign-of-terror-conducted-by-nuns-at-central-queensland-orphanage-to-tell-their-stories/news-story/673cad0044f0831afcdaa485cdcdd6c0 

Irish woman who was adopted as a child by paedophile says nuns condemned her to years of sexual abuse

When Mary Monaghan, now 64, was sent to live in America aged two, the Irish Catholic nuns who put her on the boat thought they were sending her to a better life.

Tragically, nothing could have been further from the truth for not only was her adoptive father William O'Brien violent, he was a predatory paedophile as well.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2759604/Woman-adopted-paedophile-child-says-nuns-condemned-years-sexual-abuse.html 

Victim had teeth pulled out by nuns with pliers, royal commission hears

Nuns used pliers to pull out the teeth of a child sex abuse victim at a Ballarat orphanage, and he was also locked in a dungeon known as the "horror room" and abused by a priest, an inquiry has heard.

Giving evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Gordon Hill - now in his 70s - said he was taken to the St Joseph's Home as a three-year-old.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-20/child-sex-abuse-victim-says-teeth-pulled-out-by-nuns-with-pliers/6483562 

Conservative Roman Catholics are often child abusers and Nazis.

Conservative Roman Catholics are often child abusers and Nazis. The Catholic Church in Scotland has been deeply involved in child abuse. 

"When I was eight years old I was regularly locked in a darkened room by the nun who was my carer and told I was being punished because no-one loved me.  "The same nun sexually abused me." "I told the priest in confession, the priest told the nun and together they raped me.  "I was still only eight years old."

 

http://aanirfan.blogspot.co.nz/2015/08/bloody-catholics.html 

Nun faces 87 charges of sex abuse

A judge has ordered a special sitting of the Circuit Court to hear a case against a nun facing 87 charges relating to the alleged sex abuse of primary school girls, writes Greg Harkin.
The woman appeared at Sligo Circuit Court yesterday in what is thought to be the first case of its kind in the State. Publication of her name has been banned.

http://www.vatileaks.com/announcements/nun-faces-87-charges-of-sex-abuse 

Nuns Who Commit Sexual Abuse and the Annexation of Mercy

Steve Theisen, 61, is the Iowa director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). Unlike the vast majority of men and women whose lives have been positively affected by the support SNAP provides to victims of clergy abuse, Theisen was not sexually abused by a Catholic priest: he was sexually abused by a Catholic nun.
The abuse began in the 4th grade, when Theisen was just nine-years-old. He stayed after class one day to wash the blackboards. Alone with the nun in the classroom, she showed him how the Eskimos kiss: by rubbing noses. Some weeks later, she then showed him how Americans kiss. Then a few more weeks passed. The nun then said to the boy, “This is how the French kiss.” And with that, the forty-something nun stuck her tongue in the boy’s mouth. It escalated from there. As Thiesen recalls, the nun never touched his genitals, and neither of them were ever disrobed. But from 4th through 6th grade, after school and sometimes on weekends, the nun would have him on the floor, French kissing and necking. Sometimes the nun would be on top of him, other times she put the boy on top of her.

http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2013/08/15/catholic-nun-sexual-abuse-and-the-annexation-of-mercy/ 

The Execution of the Holy Spirit

The year was 1964. I was 14 years old and had just entered Bergen Catholic High School in Oradell, New Jersey. I did not want to go to Bergen but my domineering father whose self-interests for me showed no concern whatsoever for mine, or anyone else's, feelings forced me into the school.
I remember taking a long test for placement in the school in the gymnasium and I recall receiving the acceptance form. I had mixed feelings about this, having just spent eight years under the tutelage of Dominican nuns and the Sisters of Charity.

http://www.bergencatholicabuse.com/ 

Catholic Nuns, Child Abuse and Vows

It’s time to acknowledge that there is something sick to the core of the Catholic Church in its relationship to children. It’s time to close it down. It’s time to sue it to death. Let’s leave a better world to our children by eliminating a destructive spirit.
Something in the essence of either the Church’s philosophy or its execution is terribly flawed. Its most influential positions attract disturbed individuals who then act out forms of rage against children, often expressing it sexually.

https://firetender.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/catholic-nuns-child-abuse-and-vows/ 

Devotion and Deceit [Sr. Cheryl Porte, St. Joseph's Orphanage in Burlington VT, and Sr. Andre

We've read a lot about sexual abuse by priests. There is a new website www.bishop-accountability.org which has been formed and is updated all the time with information that is coming out from suppressed documents from Cardinal Mahoney et. al of cases of child sexual abuses., however this is the first I've seen regarding sexual abuse by nuns, but apparently that has occurred also.
Over the last decade, more than 100 nuns have been accused of molesting children. Most victims
remain silent, but The Times tracked down two, and the mother of a third, willing to talk about their
journey of recovery.

http://onesearch4-2.newsvine.com/_news/2013/03/08/17239962-devotion-and-deceit-sr-cheryl-porte-st-josephs-orphanage-in-burlington-vt-and-sr-andre 

Sisters of Nazareth's mortgages irk abuse claimants

I have pulled out of this fund... because it was another way for these nuns... to keep a hold over me... when I asked for the same things... as quite a few of the other ladies... had ask for... most of my request  were turned down... I call this re-abuse... the Nazareth House nuns... Christchurch new Zealand... had a few of us men and women... tied to them... for the rest of our lives... I could not cope with this... as it was the same rejection... I had gone through as a child... in their care... They still have our family home... they gave me a mortgage... which I had not asked for... Ann

 ============================

Financial loans a Catholic order of nuns has granted to abuse complainants, secured over their homes, have been questioned as "unethical" and "inappropriate" by a victims' advocate group.
The Sisters of Nazareth have paid for cars, overseas trips, new kitchens, home appliances and hearing aids for people who claim they were physically abused as children in two Christchurch orphanages. Over 40 former residents have had their claims settled.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/national/293869/Sisters-of-Nazareths-mortgages-irk-abuse-claimants 

Bessborough order claims it was ‘told destroy vaccine files’ in 2013

The order that ran the Bessborough mother and baby home has claimed it was instructed in 2013 to destroy “all documents” it held in relation to vaccine trials carried out on children.
The Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary made the claim via its solicitors in a letter to Tusla from January of this year which has been released under Freedom of Information.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/bessborough-order-claims-it-was-told-destroy-vaccine-files-in-2013-370082.html 

Magdalene Laundries inquiry move welcomed

Sinn Féin Foyle MLA Maeve McLaughlin has welcomed a new working group to look into a possible inquiry around Magdalene Laundries and mother and baby homes.
The Magdalene Laundries in Ireland were institutions run by the Catholic Church for decades with the knowledge of the State.

http://www.derryjournal.com/news/magdalene-laundries-inquiry-move-welcomed-1-7226422 

Probe into mother and baby homes costs €1.8m

The commission of investigation into mother and baby homes has cost the State €1.78m to date, Children’s Minister James Reilly has revealed.
The commission, which is due to publish its findings in February 2018, was set up last year to determine whether women and children in mother and baby homes were subject to forced separation or mistreated, and if these abuses were subsequently covered up.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/probe-into-mother-and-baby-homes-costs-18m-379398.html 

AUDIO: Mum tells of being reunited with adopted son through Tubridy show competition

Letters always mean a lot when they come from loved ones, but when they come from a son you lost to adoption over two decades ago they are priceless.
As part of the An Post competition that is running on The Ryan Tubridy Show on 2fm, a woman from Tralee. Co Kerry, entered with a 1997 letter from her son. The woman, Marian, was 16 when she gave birth to John, but held him for just an hour before he was taken away for adoption.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/audio-mum-tells-of-being-reunited-with-adopted-son-through-tubridy-show-competition-369152.html

Tapes prove cruelty and neglect at Tuam Home was widely known

A shocking recording made by a woman who spent 36 years at the notorious Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway has confirmed there is an unmarked grave on the grounds of the institution. Julia Devaney reportedly entered the Mother and Baby Home in Tuam as an orphan when she was nine years old and spent 36 years there (later working as a domestic servant for the Bon Secours nuns) until the home finally closed in 1961.

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Tapes-prove-cruelty-neglect-Tuam-Home-widely-known.html

Child rape victims were in Bessborough maternity registers show

Children as young as 12, pregnant as a result of rape, were in Bessborough Mother and Baby Home into the 1980s. Details from maternity registers, released under freedom of information, reveal between 1954 and 1987, young girls were pregnant in the institution. The youngest child in the registers dates from 1968. The girl is listed as being just 12 and had been transferred from Bessborough to St Finbarr’s Hospital in Cork, where her child had been stillborn in January 1968, as a result of “ante-partum haemorrhage”.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/child-rape-victims-were-in-bessborough-maternity-registers-show-369151.html

HSE knew of ‘quasi illegal’ Bessborough adoptions in 2011

A senior HSE social worker revealed in 2011 that Bessborough Mother and Baby Home files contained information on the “quasi-illegal deportation and adoption” of children to the USA, Britain, and Australia.
The revelation is contained in a business plan prepared by principal social worker in the South Lee region, Pat O’Dwyer, in 2011 in preparation for the HSE’s takeover of about 15,500 adoption files from the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary Order which ran the Bessborough, Sean Ross Abbey, and Castlepollard Mother and Baby Homes.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/hse-knew-of-quasi-illegal-bessborough-adoptions-in-2011-371680.html 

Senator Jillian van Turnhout asks if gardaí told of Bessborough rape cases

Questions have been raised in the Seanad as to whether the cases of pregnant children in the Bessborough mother and baby home, in Cork had been reported as rapes to gardaí.
Details from maternity registers, released under the Freedom of Information Act by Tusla — the Child and Family Agency, reveal that between 1954 and 1987, girls as young as 12 had been pregnant in the institution. The youngest child mentioned in the registers dated from 1968, and was listed as being aged 12 when transferred from Bessborough to St Finbarr’s Hospital, where her child had been delivered stillborn in January.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/senator-jillian-van-turnhout-asks-if-gardai-told-of-bessborough-rape-cases-369341.html 

Margaret died of her slave-related injuries’: a Magdalene daughter shares her story

HER FIRST TWEET simply said: “My mother was Magdalene No. 322. Real name Margaret.” It was met by a number of reactions, including disbelief that Magdalenes were given numbers.
“Yes,” replied Samantha Long. “I was looking over her records today and thought I’d share that. Awful.” The Twitter user was talking about her late mother, Margaret Bullen, a woman taken into the Magdalene Laundries system when she was just two years old.

http://www.thejournal.ie/margaret-died-of-her-slave-related-injuries-a-magdalene-daughter-shares-her-story-780887-Feb2013/ 

The house of tears:

The house of tears: Secret tapes of woman who spent years at controversial Irish home for unmarried mothers reveals there WAS an unmarked mass grave for up to 800 children. A shocking recording from a woman who worked in an Irish home for unmarried mothers where almost 800 children died confirms there is an unmarked grave on the grounds of the infamous institution.

Julia Devaney entered St Mary’s Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County  Galway when she was nine years old and spent 36 years there until it closed in 1961. She worked as a domestic servant for the Bon Secours nuns.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3374922/The-house-tears-Secret-tapes-woman-spent-years-controversial-Irish-home-unmarried-mothers-reveals-unmarked-mass-grave-children.html 

Church accused of failing to stop Smyth's abuse of children

Three people sexually abused by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth want the Supreme Court to permit them to sue a Catholic bishop.
The case is over the Church's alleged failure to act to prevent Smyth abusing children. Michael Counihan, SC for the three, argued it is of significant public importance if the Church had kept "under wraps" facts that would have identified Smyth as being an abuser.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/church-accused-of-failing-to-stop-smyths-abuse-of-children-34456517.html 

Claim for industrial school abuse redress can be reconsidered

A 58-year-old man can have his claim for compensation over abuse he says he suffered as a child in an industrial school reconsidered by the Residential Institutions Redress Board, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
Mr Justice Gerard Hogan, on behalf of the three-judge Appeal Court, yesterday quashed a High Court decision agreeing with the Redress Board that the man had applied too late under the compensation scheme.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/claim-for-industrial-school-abuse-redress-can-be-reconsidered-379923.html

Banished

Philomena Lee’s lost son was one of thousands of Irish babies forcibly adopted and sent to America—many of them, as it turns out, to St. Louis. A woman, in hat and pearls and smart checked suit, smiles radiantly at the camera and holds twins in her lap, little girls with fat, rosy cheeks, their heads tucked into white caps.
Behind her, another woman in matching hat and suit smiles down at a tiny blonde girl, whose head is tilted, her expression inscrutable. NEW YORK, Feb. 15­– BUNDLES FROM IRELAND, the caption reads. The women, the paper explains, flew in from St. Louis; they’d come to Idlewild Airport to meet these Irish orphans, who they hoped to adopt. On first leg of their journey, on February 9, 1952, the Dublin Evening Mail reported on the twin’s departure:

http://www.stlmag.com/The-Banished/ 

Woman challenges Magdalene redress refusal

A woman who claims she was forced to work unpaid in a Magdalene laundry for 10 years has challenged the minister for justice’s decision excluding her from the State’s redress scheme for victims of those institutions.
The woman claims she was used as forced and unpaid labour from the age of eight to 18 at two laundries, in Waterford and Dublin, during the 1970s and early 1980s.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/woman-challenges-magdalene-redress-refusal-378311.html 

Sexual abuse alleged in 70 percent of German orphanages

A new report has found that suspected cases of sexual abuse have been registered in 70 percent of German orphanages over the last three years. Child protection agencies have expressed alarm at the findings.
Just over a year ago Germany was rocked by reports of widespread child abuse in the years immediately following World War II. The allegations were targeted at the Catholic Church and church or state-run orphanages in particular.

http://www.dw.com/en/sexual-abuse-alleged-in-70-percent-of-german-orphanages/a-15231885 

The death of an Irish schoolgirl in childbirth at a grotto 32 years on

I sometimes think that Ann Lovett’s name has been lost to time now, but I’ve thought about her a lot over the decades. Her death changed the way I thought about Ireland, about what kind of people we were.
I was almost the same age as her when the 15-year-old schoolgirl from Granard, Co. Longford, stepped out of her classroom one afternoon and went for a walk. It was January 31, 1984, a cold wet winter’s day across Ireland. It was already getting dark the way it used to in the countryside in the 1980s with fewer streetlights. It certainly wasn’t the weather for an afternoon stroll.

http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/cahirodoherty/The-death-of-an-Irish-schoolgirl-in-childbirth-at-a-grotto-30-years-on.html 

No effort was made to save Protestant orphans from neglect

Conal Ó Fátharta’s indepth article (Irish Examiner, November 23) exposed the scandal of child mortality in Bessborough mother and baby home during the 1940s. 
He showed how the state had to battle with the Roman Catholic Church to bring in reforms. Ó Fátharta demonstrated how even Bessborough’s medical officer, Dr O’Connor, tried to justify death and illness, because the children were ‘illegitimate’.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/yourview/no-effort-was-made-to-save-protestant-orphans-from-neglect-366809.html 

Anne Biggs was banished by Catholic Church to US at the age of four

An author is using her real-life story of being banished to the U.S. by the Irish Church as the basis for an upcoming novel.

Anne Biggs’ mother was only fourteen when she was raped, sent to a home and force to sign documents for her daughter’s release. Biggs, who was born in County Westmeath in 1949, was sent to St Patrick’s Home in Dublin, which secretly exported 254 Irish children to the U.S. for adoption from the 1940s to the 70s. Biggs was adopted and sent to America at the age of four.

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Anne-Biggs-was-banished-by-Catholic-Church-to-US-at-the-age-of-four.html 

Margaret died of her slave-related injuries’: a Magdalene daughter shares her story

HER FIRST TWEET simply said: “My mother was Magdalene No. 322. Real name Margaret.” It was met by a number of reactions, including disbelief that Magdalenes were given numbers. 
“Yes,” replied Samantha Long. “I was looking over her records today and thought I’d share that. Awful.” The Twitter user was talking about her late mother, Margaret Bullen, a woman taken into the Magdalene Laundries system when she was just two years old. 

http://www.thejournal.ie/margaret-died-of-her-slave-related-injuries-a-magdalene-daughter-shares-her-story-780887-Feb2013/ 

Five unmarried mothers were buried in an unmarked mass grave alongside 796 babies

How five unmarried mothers were buried in an unmarked mass grave alongside 796 babies who went missing at Irish nuns' Mother and Baby home of horrors. The bodies of five women who died at a home for unmarried mothers are believed to be buried in an unmarked mass grave with nearly 800 missing children, according to new research.

The single mothers, aged between 24 and 42, were inmates in the controversial Tuam institution run by the Bon Secours nuns in County Galway, Ireland, from 1925 to 1961.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3208567/Five-mothers-buried-mass-grave-tuam-New-dark-secret-home-796-babies-died.html 

Church worker's threat to abuse inquiry witnesses

LAWYERS for Susan Sharkey, who runs the counselling, co-ordination and support office for the Catholic Church in Melbourne, have sent threatening letters to two witnesses to the state inquiry into how the churches handled child sex abuse.
The letters warn victims' advocates Helen Last and Judy Courtin that if there is ''any publication'' by them to a journalist or anyone that defames Ms Sharkey ''our client will not hesitate to take legal action against you without further notice''.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/church-workers-threat-to-abuse-inquiry-witnesses-20121118-29kaw.html 

Ireland's Lost Babies

The movie Philomena told the story of Philomena Lee, who was forced by the Catholic Church to give up her son for adoption. It showed her journey with journalist Martin Sixsmith to find her child 50 years later.
The movie won public and critical praise, but it also shone a light on a shocking period of Irish history - a time when the Church wielded enormous political and cultural power, attempting to control even what happened in the bedrooms of Ireland.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2014/11/10/4123123.htm 

Survivor of an Irish Industrial *School*.

I’ve just learned from a very private source that my uncle Willie has died. He passed away after suffering a heart-attack on the 9th of January. He was 76 years old. I’m feeling very distraught and thought that it might help me to talk to myself about it in my journal. His room was the last one to the right of the blue flag on the top floor. I had just tweeted a while before hearing the terrible news that my life was an open book.
The reason I said that was because most of my life was kept a secret. I quite simply refuse any longer to be stifled by a hostile world that was so ashamed of me. I suffered because my uncle was a priest. I bore the brunt of it as a child in Goldenbridge, because of the nuns who kept hush-hush about my background.

https://goldenbridgeinmate39.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/