jesuit priest -and nuns abused children on indian reservation -for years

The Society of Jesus‘ Pacific Northwest unit and its insurers have agreed to pay a record $166.1 million to about 470 people who were sexually and psychologically abused as children by Jesuit priests from the 1940s to the 1990s, the victims’ attorneys said Friday.
Blaine Tamaki, an attorney in Yakima, Washington, described the payment as “the largest settlement between a religious order and abuse victims in the history of the United States.”

http://theatheistconservative.com/tag/jesuit-priests-and-nuns-abused-children-on-indian-reservations-for-years/

PLIGHT OF THE DUPLESSIS ORPHANS--TORTUROUS DEATH OF CHILDREN

By the 1990s, there remained about 3,000 survivors and a large group formed to start a campaign. They called themselves the Duplessis Orphans after Maurice Duplessis, the premier of the province during that time whose government was responsible for their plight. In addition to government and Church responsibility, the College of Physicians of Quebec came under fire after some of the orphans found copies of their medical records that had been falsified.
Labelled as mentally deficient, many of these children were subjected to a varity of medical experiments including lobotomies and electro shock treatments and hideous intravenous experiments as well as torture and maiming and drowning ( early waterboarding)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8XYjkUZA2M 

'That man was hand-picked by God!' What a six-year-old girl was told by a nun when she tried to report sexual abuse by a priest during CONFESSION

A woman who allegedly suffered horrific sexual abuse by a Catholic priest when she was just six years old has finally broken her silence after almost 50 years.

Gina Swannell claims she was abused several times over a six month period by Father Charles Holdsworth when she was a student at St Francis Xavier's boarding school at Urana, in south-west NSW, in 1966.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3152955/What-six-year-old-girl-told-Nun-tried-report-sexual-abuse-priest-CONFESSION.html 

Philomena Lee: 'To think the nuns never told us my son was searching for me'

As a teenager in Ireland, Philomena Lee (right) was banished to a convent for the ‘sin’ of having a baby out of wedlock, and forced to give him up. As a major new film about her life is released, she tells Catherine O’Brien about their heartbreaking search for each other

Philomena Lee lives in a neat semidetached house on a quiet Home Counties street. Inside her sitting room are photographs of her children and grandchildren, and on one wall set slightly apart is a portrait of a handsome man dressed in a pinstriped suit and tie. As he gazes at the camera lens, his smile is warm and open. ‘Every day I think, “If only I could put my arms around him one more time,”’ says Philomena. ‘He looks to me like the type of chap who would have wanted that.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-2451155/Philomena-Lee-To-think-nuns-told-son-searching-me.html 

Survivors speak out

The biggest public inquiry into child abuse ever held in the UK is due to begin its first public hearings in Northern Ireland later. Some of those who suffered physical, sexual, and emotional abuse tell BBC News NI what they hope the inquiry will achieve.
"The sexual abuse as a child, to me it became normal, it was going to happen. And I couldn't stop it. And then being an adult now, nobody realises that it hurts me much much more than it hurt me when I was a child.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-25709562 

Inquiry hears witness left suicidal after alleged care home abuse

Nuns, described as ‘sadistic’, deny claims of physical abuse at Nazareth Lodge in Belfast.  A man who was put into a Belfast care home when he was six has alleged at the Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry that he suffered physical abuse from “sadistic nuns” which ultimately left him in a suicidal and enraged state.

The man was taken from his parents who were both alcoholics and put into the care of the Sisters of Nazareth in 1982 with his older brother at Nazareth Lodge in Belfast in 1982, the inquiry in Banbridge, Co Down was told on Monday. A younger brother and sister who were also taken into care were fostered, the inquiry heard.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/inquiry-hears-witness-left-suicidal-after-alleged-care-home-abuse-1.2079877 

“Nun at Derry home ‘facilitated’ abuse by priest, woman tells inquiry”

One witness repeatedly broke down yesterday as she described abuse she suffered at the Sisters of Nazareth home in Derry.  A woman waived her right to anonymity at Northern Ireland’s Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry yesterday to reveal allegations of beatings and sex abuse at a home in Derry run by the Sisters of Nazareth.

Kate Walmsley, now in her late 50s, further alleged that a nun identified to the inquiry facilitated the abuse by one of the priests. She said when the girls at Nazareth House residential care home queued for confession on a Saturday, this nun would ensure she was at the end of the line.

http://www.theinquiry.ca/wordpress/rc-scandal/other-countries/ireland/nun-at-derry-home-facilitated-abuse-by-priest-woman-tells-inquiry-related-articles/ 

Germany admits enslaving and abusing a generation of children

Germany has owned up to one of the most disturbing examples of mass child and youth abuse in its post-war history, some 60 years after the first teenagers started being locked away and mistreated by supposedly "caring" foster homes.
The country agreed yesterday to provide a €120m (£101m) compensation fund for the estimated 30,000 victims who were among the 800,000 children in German foster homes in the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-admits-enslaving-and-abusing-a-generation-of-children-2159589.html 

Los Angeles Catholic church files show decades of sexual abuse

Court-ordered release of documents reveal what Catholic orders knew of sexual abuse by priests, brothers and nuns.  In therapy sessions, the priest confessed to shocking details he'd kept hidden for years: he had molested more than 100 boys, including his 5-year-old brother, had sex with male prostitutes, and frequented gay strip clubs.
The admissions of Reverend Ruben Martinez are among nearly 2,000 pages of secret files, unsealed Wednesday, which regard priests, brothers and nuns accused of child molestation while working in the Los Angeles archdiocese.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/los-angeles-catholic-church-decades-sexual-abuse

Child abused in care of Presbyterian Church in Australia

A pensioner has told an inquiry examining child abuse that he was physically and sexually abused as a young boy while in the care of the Presbyterian Church in Australia.

His migration was part of a scheme between the Presbyterian Church in the UK and Australia. Speaking to the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry via video link, he outlined his childhood. He is one of about 50 witnesses giving evidence from Australia.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-29048447 

Catholic nuns to pay out £116million compensation for child abuse

Catholic nuns responsible for child abuse last night offered to pay their victims £116million in compensation.
The Sisters of Mercy is one of 18 orders of Catholic priests, brothers and nuns in the Republic of Ireland who ran schools and workhouses for generations of deprived children until the 1990s.
Five of the order's schools were named and shamed in the Ryan Report into abuse.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1233019/Sisters-Mercy-pay-116million-compensation-child-abuse.html 

6 Allege Abuse at Catholic Home Suits Claim Rapes and Beatings by Priests, Nuns or Staff in '60s

Half a dozen men have filed lawsuits alleging they were sexually molested, beaten and frequently humiliated 40 years ago by nuns, priests and civilian staff members at Madonna Manor, a Catholic home for troubled children in Marrero.
The six lawsuits represent the largest concentration of complaints involving a single institution or individual in the Archdiocese of New Orleans' three-year experience in dealing with complaints of past sexual abuse. The suits are based on plaintiffs' experiences between the ages of 4 and 14. In many cases they name staff members and recount specific beatings or episodes of rape or sexual molestation.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2005_07_12/2005_08_25_Nolan_6Allege.htm 

Questions Raised over Handling of Nun Abuse Woman

Woman Told Morris-Based Order She Was Molested by a Sister Who Is an Administrator. Patricia Cahill says she was sexually abused by a nun when she was a child. As an adult, she says she went to at least a couple of officials with the Morris Township-based Sisters of Charity and told them about the abuse. She says nothing happened for a couple of years. Then she called a lawyer.
More than 10 years after the Sisters of Charity paid her $70,000 in an out-of-court settlement, Cahill said she still is trying to come to terms with her alleged abuse. She said she has battled drug and alcohol addictions much of her life but has been sober for the past year. She has been out of work for the past three years.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2004_07_12/2004_10_24_Koloff_QuestionsRaised.htm 

Inquiry into abuse in NI children's homes and borstals begins

Victims have waited years to tell their stories, senior counsel to the biggest public inquiry into child abuse ever held in the UK has said.

The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) is examining abuse claims in Northern Ireland children's homes and juvenile justice. It was set up by Northern Ireland's power-sharing executive to investigate allegations dating from 1922 to 1995.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-25697391 

Sex abuse 'endemic' in Catholic institutions

More than 800 priests, nuns, monks and teachers created an "endemic" culture of child sex abuse in Catholic schools and residential homes over almost 80 years, an inquiry has found. 

The state-funded institutions in Ireland were a "secret and closed world run on fear", the decade-long report concluded. However, no new prosecutions are expected.  

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/5356720/Sex-abuse-endemic-in-Catholic-institutions.html

Nuns accused of torture, sex assaults

The Sisters of Nazareth's regional supervisor... Clare Breen, said emotional and financial support... was being offered to the complainants... but this did not mean that the order accepted that their claims are true.... and this is all that we get from these nazareth house nuns... as well as... NO WRONGDOING.... by their order of nuns... in Australia and New Zealand... Ann 

 ================================

The Catholic Church has distanced itself from allegations that children were sexually and physically abused over three decades at one of Queensland's best known church institutions.
A former student at Nazareth House in the Brisbane bayside suburb of Wynnum claimed yesterday that two nuns at the former church orphanage had sexually interfered with several girls on many occasions.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/08/28/1030508071883.html 

Boy Says Abuse; Priest, Ex-Nun Say Slander

About 400 American Catholic clergy have been accused of sex abuse in the last decade - including, in November, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. The cases sometimes sound the same. Children are allegedly betrayed by respected elders of the church. Names are withheld; emotions run high. Questions are raised about repressed memory, the reliability of children's testimony, the veracity of witnesses, the psychological implications.
But one area case, filed in 1989 by the parents of a Northbrook boy and scheduled to come to trial before Cook County Circuit Court Judge Jerome Lerner in May, is unusual on a number of grounds:
The boy's parents are attorneys.   The boy accuses two defendants of abusing him jointly - a priest and a former nun.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news/1994_01_Berkman_BoySays.htm 

Nuns give gifts to sex abuse claimants

 Each time we asked for any help... they turned some of us away... even though a few of us... has asked for the same thing... so in the end I pulled out... it was like being abused over and over again... Lawyer Patrick McPherson... of Grant Cameron Associates, said;  The sisters made payments and apologies to claimants... but did not admit any wrongdoing... Ann

 =================================

Catholic nuns have donated cars, overseas trips, home appliances and other gifts to victims who claim they were abused as children in two New Zealand orphanages.
The gifts are part of an undisclosed settlement reached by the Sisters of Nazareth with 17 complainants who allege physical and sexual abuse while in the nuns' care at Nazareth House and St Joseph's home in Christchurch. The complaints span from the 1930s to the 1960s.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/12/23/1071941730577.html 

Children’s home workers deny abuse claims by residents

Witnesses have vigorously denied allegations of ill-treatment made to the inquiry investigating children’s residential care homes.

A social worker with many years experience at Nazareth House children’s home in Bishop Streetm Derry rejected claims she force fed children and denied she ever saw anyone else mistreat children. She would have reported it had she done so, she told junior counsel to the inquiry Joseph Aiken. 

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/children-s-home-workers-deny-abuse-claims-by-residents-1.1757469 

'Abusive' nuns reluctant to meet victims from Neerkol orphanage

Nuns accused of abusing children at a notorious Queensland orphanage refused to meet the victims as adults because they feared not remembering what happened, a national inquiry has heard.
Members of The Sisters of Mercy perpetrated a decades-long reign of terror, according to former residents of the Neerkol orphanage, near Rockhampton, involving cruel and humiliating punishments to keep children in line.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/abusive-nuns-reluctant-to-meet-victims-from-neerkol-orphanage-20150422-1mqmin.html 

Royal Commission hears shocking evidence of abuse at Rockhampton orphanage

MARK COLVIN: A warning this report contains highly disturbing details. If you’re likely to be affected or are listening with young children, you might want to switch off for five minutes.
The child sex abuse Royal Commission has heard more shocking evidence today of assaults on children at St Joseph's Orphanage Neerkol near Rockhampton in the 1950s and 1960s. Victims have told the inquiry of sexual abuse by priests, nuns and an orphanage worker. And have told of the punishments the nuns meted out when the children tried to report their abuse.

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2015/s4217070.htm 

Don't Hurt Them Anymore (One Abused Orphan's Plea)

This video was compiled by Billy. She so wanted to help give a voice to one abuse victim in particular, Ann Thompson or Ann Free Spirit as she is known to us in our Catholica cyber community. It is yet another plea for the Catholic Church to Say Sorry not just to her but to all it's abuse victims, around the world.
Ann is but one of a number of children that were placed in Catholic orphanages in New Zealand and who were severely abused; sexually, emotionally, physically and spiritually. She does not want hate, only love and forgiveness which is the very least she deserves from the hierarchy of the catholic church. 

 Don't Hurt Them Anymore  (One Abused Orphan's Plea)

The nuns poured boiling water on our heads’

Margaret McGuckin is the stalwart campaigner for victims of historical institutional abuse in NI. In this harrowing interview she talks about the horrendous years she spent in the notorious Nazareth House orphanage.
Margaret McGuckin has a residual fear of going to the hairdresser as it reawakens horrific memories of the Belfast orphanage where she spent her formative years.

http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/features/the-nuns-poured-boiling-water-on-our-heads-1-7368969 

Around 300 children 'used in medical trials in care homes'

Around 300 children were used in medical trials in care homes, it has been claimed.  A reported 298 kids were involved in the experiments in 10 different homes in the 1960s and 1970s.
And in one of the botched trials, around 80 youngsters fell sick after being given vaccine intended for use on CATTLE.

http://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/around-300-children-used-medical-3664858 

Heartless nun tells teen mum as she takes her baby away: "What the eyes don't see, the heart doesn't feel"

Marian Kelly reveals how her son was forcibly taken from her just hours after birth and illegally given up for adoption at Cork mother and baby home.

A heartbroken mum whose baby son was taken from her hours after birth, has revealed how heartless nuns told her: “What the eyes don’t see, the heart doesn’t feel.”  The growing outrage over the treatment of children in State religious homes intensified yesterday as it emerged vaccines meant for cattle were tested on kids.

http://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/politics/heartless-nun-tells-teen-mum-3668345 

The Catholic church sold my child

Unmarried mother Philomena Lee was forced to give up her son to Irish nuns, who sold him on to rich Americans. For decades she tried to find him. A chance meeting with Martin Sixsmith eventually uncovered the truth
It began with a chance encounter at a New Year's party in 2004. I was trying to leave, but a woman said she had a message for me. She knew I had been a journalist and she had a friend who wanted my help to solve a family mystery. I agreed to a meeting, and found myself embarking on a five-year quest for a man I had never met.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/sep/19/catholic-church-sold-child 

Nun accepts ‘grave injustice’ done to children sent to Australia

The Sisters of Nazareth have accepted that there was a “grave injustice” done to some 130 children who were sent to Australia from care homes in Northern Ireland as part of a child migration programme that mainly ran from the late 1920s to the mid 1950s.

Sister Brenda McCall, representing the Sisters of Nazareth, acknowledged the suffering caused to the children who were sent to Australia as part of a scheme by the Australian government to bring “white” children of “good stock” into the country.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/nun-accepts-grave-injustice-done-to-children-sent-to-australia-1.1925444 

Catholic nuns also abused children

So far, reports of abuse within the Church have focussed 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 it was 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://www.abolishsexabuse.org/index.php?option=com_content&id=512:catholic-nuns-also-abused-children&Itemid=179 

Review: ‘We Believe the Children,’ on Child Abuse Hysteria in the 1980s

From 1987 to 1990, in the longest criminal trial in American history, prosecutors tried to prove that Virginia McMartin, who owned a preschool in Manhattan Beach, Calif., and other school employees, including her daughter and grandson, had raped or abused 13 children, taken pornographic pictures of them and forced them to watch the mutilation of animals.

One witness in the preliminary hearing, a 10-year-old boy, testified that he had seen hundreds of animals slaughtered, and that priests and nuns had abused him in a dozen satanic rituals. Vigilante parents went through people’s garbage and used a backhoe to excavate a lot next to the school, looking for the skeletons of slaughtered classroom pets.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/07/books/review-we-believe-the-children-on-child-abuse-hysteria-in-the-1980s.html?_r=0 

Church insurers scolded nuns for ‘prejudicial’ abuse apology

The Catholic Church’s insurers scolded Rockhampton’s Sisters of Mercy for issuing a “prejudicial” unreserved apology to hundreds of children who suffered alleged sexual abuse and bashings in their orphanage decades earlier.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse yesterday heard ­evidence of shocking abuse — ­including rapes by priests, public floggings, ritual humiliation for bed-wetters, and scant education — at the nuns’ Neerkol orphanage, which housed about 4000 children between 1885 and 1978.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/in-depth/royal-commission/church-insurers-scolded-nuns-for-prejudicial-abuse-apology/news-story/98f574353572f384c8d3bda021fa4ed1 

Heartless nuns snatched new mum's baby saying 'What the eyes don't see, the heart doesn't feel'

Marian Kelly was just 18 when her son was forcibly taken from her and given up for adoption without her consent.

A devastated mum has revealed heartless nuns took her baby boy away and told her 'What the eyes don't see, the heart doesn't feel'. The growing outrage over the treatment of children in state religious homes in Ireland intensified yesterday as it emerged vaccines meant for cattle were tested on kids.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/heartless-nuns-snatched-new-mums-3668793 

Nuns 'forced children as young as 5 to eat own vomit in exchange for holiday'

Even when we went to the police for help... they took us back and we were whipped that night across the bed... until we passed out...  Ann

 ====================================

The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry also heard lamb stew was made but the meat was off and the nuns at Nazareth House, Belfast, forced them to eat it.

Nuns allegedly forced children as young as five to ear their own vomit in exchange for a holiday.  The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry heard how youngsters at Nazareth House in South Belfast had been promised a holiday if they ate their dinner.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nuns-forced-children-young-5-5515989 

Church Spent Decades Stealing or Coercing Babies from Unwed Mothers

The nuns stole the babies... and sold them worldwide... I am one of them... St. Vincent De Paul... who were working for the catholic church orphanages... snatched me away from my mother's arms... at the catholic hospital for unwed mothers... in Wellington New Zealand... took me down to Christchurch... to Mount Madgala orphanage... beside one of their Magdalene laundries... their other Magdalene laundry.. in New Zealand was in Wellington... my mother kept hold of me for as long as she could... I was 2 and a half months old at that time... and it affected her... for the rest of her life... she was raped at 15years old...  Ann

===========================

Ever the bastion of mercy and forgiveness for wayward women, Catholic church-run charities around the world stand accused of forcing unwed mothers to give up their babies for adoption — or lying and telling them their babies had died and then giving the babies away, anyway.
Depressingly, Operation Hand The Baby Over, You Hellbound Adultress wasn't a relic of Torquemada-era moralizing; the most recent cases of forced or coerced adoption are said to have occurred in the late 1980's. And punitive tactics used on pregnant women then sound oddly like language used in laws designed to be abortion deterrents today.

http://jezebel.com/5896835/church-spent-decades-stealing-or-coercing-babies-from-unwed-mothers 

Nuns told don’t co-operate as Bishop tried to thwart probes into Bessborough scandal

MONTH after month, year after year we peel away another layer of the sordid history of Ireland’s mother and baby homes.  In a country where falling pregnant outside marriage was viewed as something worse than a crime, thousands of women and girls were instead hidden away and their children taken from them. With no real solution to the ‘problem’ of ‘illegitimacy’, the State was happy to leave it to religious orders and a system of mother and baby homes where, even by the standards of the day, the physical and psychological treatment of women and the removal of their children bordered on criminal.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/analysis/special-report-nuns-told-dont-co-operate-as-bishop-tried-to-thwart-probes-into-bessborough-scandal-366416.html 

State feared public scandal over infant deaths at mother and baby homes

The State feared a “public scandal” in relation to the alarming number of children dying in mother and baby homes — 70 years before the Tuam babies scandal made worldwide headlines.  The revelation is contained in a letter sent on behalf of parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Local Government and Public Health Dr Con Ward in 1945 to the Bishop of Cork Daniel Cohalan.
The letter was in response to an angry letter sent to Dr Ward by Bishop Cohalan where he questioned the department’s request that the order remove the head of Bessborough over the “trouble” of infant mortality at the institution.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/state-feared-public-scandal-over-infant-deaths-at-mother-and-baby-homes-366523.html 

Nun placed on leave after abuse allegation

A Dominican nun who has served in five parishes in Greater Boston for the past 34 years has been placed on leave after being accused of sexual misconduct with a fifth-grade girl in an Indiana classroom 40 years ago.
Sister Ann Daylor, 67, director of religious education at St. Mary's Church in Georgetown in northeastern Massachusetts, appears to be the first nun to be removed for such an allegation this year. About 300 priests nationwide have been removed this year because of sexual abuse allegations.

http://archive.boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse/stories3/111402_nun.htm 

Where Are The Children? We Were So Far Away, 100 Years Of Loss, Forgotten Métis

The following is a selection of Survivor stories drawn from the Our Stories…Our Strength video collection. We are grateful to the men and women who have shared their personal and often painful accounts of their experiences of residential school and its legacy. It is by sharing these truths that we can all continue to work toward understanding and healing.
Please contact us info@legacyofhope.ca if you are a Survivor who participated in the Our Stories…Our Strength project and would like to have your video posted on this site. If your story appears here and you would like it removed from the site or the collection, please do not hesitate to contact us at info@legacyofhope.ca

http://wherearethechildren.ca/en/stories/

The children who didn't stand a chance

They didn't stand a chance. The aboriginal boys and girls who were forced to attend Canada's residential schools and ended up being the targets of physical and, devastatingly, sexual abuse, were truly victims.

Whom could the young aboriginals trust? The list of their residential school tormentors is shocking: It starts with teachers, staff and especially dormitory supervisors, many likely part of a network of British pedophiles.

http://www.canada.com/story_print.html?id=9e138fee-1f32-457f-b946-fd4397df858c&sponsor= 

Abuse spotlight on Australian nuns

Sister Clare Breen... regional superior of the order in Australia and New Zealand... said the payments were not an acknowledgement of guilt... and in their apologize... as well on TV and in the papers... they wrote and said... that there was NO WRONGDOING... by the order of nuns... the Nazareth house nuns... will not admit to abusing us boys and girls... in New Zealand... so their apologize are empty words.. this order of nuns... have a heart of stone... well they have no heart at all... MONEY IS THEIR GOD...  Ann

 =============================

Fresh allegations of sexual abuse, this time involving a group of nuns, have hit the Catholic Church in Australia. The Poor Sisters of Nazareth order has admitted paying up to $A75,000 (US $41,400) to women who claimed they were abused in an orphanage.
But Sister Clare Breen, regional superior of the order in Australia and New Zealand, said the payments were not an acknowledgement of guilt. "It is a way of reaching out to the girls to try to help in the healing process," she told Reuters news agency.

http://poundpuplegacy.org/node/22702 

Submission - Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care

Synopsis
The Good Shepherd and then the Nazareth House nuns took the place of my family. They told me my mother was dead. In the two orphanages life needed to meet the nun's requirements. In part this meant that, because my mother was sinful, if I was not beaten to change me, I would be too. So they said when they beat me.
As a child I was different from some of the other children who the nuns loved, praised and pampered. I understood myself as stupid - someone who could not expect teaching in a classroom. This was a privilege for girls who were worthy of it.

http://annfreespiritnunsabusedchildren.blogspot.co.nz/p/submission-inquiry-into-children-in.html

2 Demanding justice for women and children abused by Irish nuns

An inquiry last year into Ireland's Magdalene laundries, where for decades thousands of women were forced to work by nuns, found no evidence that workers were abused. But those who experienced life inside laundry walls angrily reject this, and are insisting that the nuns be held accountable.
For decades, Ireland ignored the stories told by the former Magdalene laundry workers. After all, weren't people told by the priests that they were just fallen women, or the criminally insane, who deserved to be locked up for most of their adult lives and work, without pay, to atone for their sins?

http://www.buzz50.com/q-a-home-page/2-serious-discussion/1495504-demanding-justice-for-women-and-children-abused-by-irish-nuns 

No thinking in the Institution

Institutional abuse of women and children in Irish institutions, run by nuns, first came to light

in the 1990s. This led me to question the paradoxical nature of religious life. Firstly, there was the perception of nuns as holy, perfect and beyond reproach; women who had publicly vowed, in God’s name, to love and care for the poor and secondly, the reality of wounded and often cruel human beings who had little compassion for those entrusted to their care.
This motivated me to undertake an exploration of the life and work of religious women in Ireland in the 20th century.

http://aspd-incontext.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/NO-THINKING-IN-THE-INSTITUTION-C-Metcalf-Feb-2016-003.pdf 

THE CONVENT OF MERCY Sexual and Satanic Abuse

This is what the Roman Catholic church did for me. This is what they really stand for---
Ever since I arrived, I was beaten daily for bed wetting. First thing each morning I was dragged from bed onto the floor. More often that not my bed was wet and I was punished and I was layed prostrate on the bed naked with two girls to hold my arms and two to hold my legs. I was beaten until I was numb and could no longer cry out. After this I was sent to the school room, but told by the Head Nun that I must be at the stairs by 9pm that evening at which time I would receive another beating. This happened every single day. 

http://www.hiddenmysteries.org/themagazine/vol6/mercy.shtml

The Redemption of Sinead O'Connor

Twenty years ago today, Sinead O'Connor tore up a picture of the pope on Saturday Night Live—and the media largely misunderstood why. Is America finally ready to hear her out?
In the weeks and months after Sinead O'Connor tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II on live television, commentators in the media sought to explain the motives of her protest. Very few, however, made use of the traditional tools of journalism: interviews, research, and textual analysis. Instead, most commentators seem to have consulted their own imaginations.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/10/the-redemption-of-sinead-oconnor/263020/ 

Nuns facing abuse claims

A BBC documentary has revealed that an order of Roman Catholic nuns is facing more than 250 claims for compensation from former children's home residents who allege they were abused.

The Poor Sisters of Nazareth, which ran homes for disadvantaged children in Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Kilmarnock, could face a bill running into millions of pounds amid allegations of abuse.  A total of 263 people are involved in the allegations against the order, whose home in Aberdeen has been investigated by the police. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/55127.stm 

Thousands raped and abused in Catholic schools in Ireland

The shocking scale of sexual and physical abuse in educational institutions in Ireland run by the Catholic church was revealed today in a report describing how thousands of boys and girls were raped, abused and exploited by the religious brothers and nuns who were supposed to look after them.
The 2,600-page report by Ireland's Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse found that for decades rape was "endemic" in more than 250 Irish Catholic care institutions from the 1930s to the 1990s, and that the church in Ireland protected paedophiles in its ranks from arrest.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/may/20/child-abuse-catholic-schools-ireland 

Treatment of children by nuns in industrial school 'intolerable'

DAMNING letters from the Department of Education setting out the serious neglect of children at Newtownforbes industrial school, Co Longford, in the early 1940s, were presented to the Commission on Child Abuse yesterday.

The letters catalogued attempts by the Department to improve conditions at the school up to the mid-1940s, when their efforts began to bear fruit.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/treatment-of-children-by-nuns-in-industrial-school-intolerable-26003655.html

Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry: 131 NI children sent to Australia

One hundred and thirty-one children from Northern Ireland, some as young as five, were sent to Australia as child migrants, an inquiry has heard.

The experiences of 50 of them will be heard by the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) either by oral or written evidence. It is examining the extent of child abuse in religious and state-run institutions in NI from 1922 to 1995.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-29006251 

Abuse inquiry told nun forced young girl to perform sex act

Witness says older girls gave frequent beatings and once made her eat her own vomit.  The Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry has heard claims that a child was forced to perform oral sex on a nun.

A witness, who was a resident at Nazareth House in Derry’s Bishop Street during the 1960s, said she was between the ages of four and five when she was made to lie on her back on the floor by a nun who straddled her, lifting her habit and forcing the child to perform a sex act on her.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/abuse-inquiry-told-nun-forced-young-girl-to-perform-sex-act-1.1687648 

Revealed, six decades of 'ritual' child abuse: Catholic schools and orphanages damned in report

Church leaders and government watchdogs covered up 'endemic' and 'ritualised' abuse of thousands of children in Roman Catholic schools and orphanages in the Irish Republic, a shocking report revealed yesterday.
For six decades, priests and nuns terrorised boys and girls in the workhouse-style schools with sexual, physical and mental abuse.  But officials in Ireland's Catholic Church shielded paedophile staff from arrest to protect their own reputations despite knowing they were serial attackers, according to the 2,600-page report, which took nine years to complete.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1184828/Revealed-decades-ritual-child-abuse-Catholic-schools-orphanages-damned-report.html 

FILM; An Abuse Scandal With Nuns As Villains

WHEN the Scottish actor and director Peter Mullan was growing up in a working-class Roman Catholic family, goodness was embodied in the clergy. It was the clergy of his pious mother, who contended with eight children and an alcoholic husband.
It was the clergy of the Hollywood films the Mullan children watched on television: ''Boys Town'' with Spencer Tracy, ''Angels With Dirty Faces'' with Pat O'Brien, ''Going My Way'' with Bing Crosby.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/27/movies/film-an-abuse-scandal-with-nuns-as-villains.html?pagewanted=all 

Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry: Child migrant 'sexually abused' in Australia

A 70-year-old former child migrant from a Catholic-run home in Londonderry has said he was sexually abused after being shipped to Australia.

Des McDaid, who has waived his right to anonymity, was giving evidence to the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry. He had travelled from St Joseph's Home, Termonbacca in Derry to the Clontarf orphanage in Perth, when he was eight.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-29030746 

Ireland Child Abuse Report Leaves Country In Shock

DUBLIN — Irish newspapers struggled on Thursday to convey the enormity of the horrors inflicted for decades by religious orders on the country’s most vulnerable children following the release of a long-awaited official report.

The usually restrained Irish Times headlined its editorial, “The savage reality of our darkest days.” The Irish Independent’s splash headline read “State of Shame.” The Irish Examiner front page said simply: “Shattered Lives.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/21/ireland-child-abuse-repor_n_206436.html 

UK Nuns face child abuse claim

Fourteen people who claim they were abused at a children's home run by nuns are to seek compensation at the High Court.
Peter Garsden, the solicitor representing the 14, is expected to press for compensation in excess of £50,000 at Manchester High Court on Tuesday. The claim comes after Andrew Christian, a voluntary worker at St Gabriel's Convent in Liverpool, was jailed for 11 years last February for indecently assaulting 13 boys.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/346667.stm 

Ex-nun 'denied abuse at boys' home' - BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

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 heard.
In the 1970s, the ex-nun worked at Termonbacca boy's home in Londonderry, run by the Sisters of Nazareth religious order, and admitted witnessing sexual acts. But the woman denied causing physical or sexual harm.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/exnun-denied-abuse-at-boys-home-30285399.html 

Roman Catholic girls were abused by nuns, molested by priests: Dutch commission

A commission investigating abuse of children linked to Dutch Roman Catholic institutions says girls were sexually abused by members of the clergy in their homes and in church, while they suffered physical abuse and intimidation at the hands of nuns at homes for young women.
The report follows a previous study focused on boys, which found boys were especially vulnerable to sexual abuse in boarding schools.

http://www.snapnetwork.org/roman_catholic_girls_were_abused_by_nuns_molested_by_priests_dutch_commission 

The abused - in their own words

The voices of the abused emerge raw and bleak from pages 113 to 119 of Volume V of the Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. They told their stories to an interviewing team. In an introductory note to the section, the team acknowledged their courage: “We were deeply moved, inspired and humbled by our contact with you.
Although we spent only a few hours with you, meeting you and listening to your stories was a moving and enriching experience for all of us. We felt privileged and honoured that you trusted us with such intensely personal and private experiences. . .” Here are sample extracts – unedited – of what the team heard.

http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/the-abused-in-their-own-words-1.769156 

Nun Accused in Catholic Church Sex-Abuse Case

SAN DIEGO -- There were new allegations Tuesday of sexual abuse against the Catholic Church in San Diego, and for the first time locally, a nun was named as an abuser. NBC7/39 reported that the San Diego diocese might face as many as 80 more sexual-abuse lawsuits by the end of the year.
The boy referred to in the civil complaint as John Roe was 10 years old in 1969. He was a resident student at a boarding-house school next to the San Diego mission that was run by a Roman Catholic order of nuns at the time.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2003_07_12/2003_10_14_NBC_NunAccused.htm 

'Cruel Nuns Stole My Childhood'

At the age of two, Frances Reilly was abandoned by her mother and brought up in a convent where relentless mental and physical abuse drove her to the brink of despair. Now living in Essex, she's written a book about how her childhood innocence was destroyed. Steven Russell met her. These are her allegations and this is her story.
"WE have a pagan in the convent!" screams Sister X - not her real name - as she sweeps into the dormitory, waving a stick. "Where is she?" She points at a small girl. "Reilly! You are a heathen, a child of the Devil! Nobody is to come anywhere near you!" Frances Reilly's knees give way and she begins to tremble from head to toe. She doesn't know what "heathen" means and she doesn't know what she's done wrong, but she knows what's coming. "Please, Sister . . ." she starts to say.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2009/01_02/2009_01_13_Russell_CruelNuns.htm 

Attorney: 1 in 4 Nuns Abused Deaf Kids

William Ross says he was 9 years old when a nun at the now-closed Boston School for the Deaf in Randolph force-fed him soup, causing him to vomit. And when he was 12, the same nun locked him in a dark closet for long periods of time, according to a lawsuit filed in Boston Tuesday.
Ross, now of Taunton, also charges that when he was 16 and attending the school, another nun fondled his genitals, put his hand to her breasts and had sexual intercourse with him.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2004_01_06/2004_05_12_Connolly_Attorney1.htm

Sex abuse by nuns: the unknown story

The crisis over child sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church has cost the organisation both in terms of levels of public trust and compensation payouts. When American bishops decided in 2002 to conduct an audit of the scale of the problem, their initiative was given a cautious welcome by survivors of sexual abuse. But one part of the church was not part of the audit. Nuns, officially known as "women religious", do not always fall under the authority of their local bishop. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7022694.stm 

‘We Believe the Children,’ on Child Abuse Hysteria in the 1980s

From 1987 to 1990, in the longest criminal trial in American history, prosecutors tried to prove that Virginia McMartin, who owned a preschool in Manhattan Beach, Calif., and other school employees, including her daughter and grandson, had raped or abused 13 children, taken pornographic pictures of them and forced them to watch the mutilation of animals.

One witness in the preliminary hearing, a 10-year-old boy, testified that he had seen hundreds of animals slaughtered, and that priests and nuns had abused him in a dozen satanic rituals. Vigilante parents went through people’s garbage and used a backhoe to excavate a lot next to the school, looking for the skeletons of slaughtered classroom pets.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/07/books/review-we-believe-the-children-on-child-abuse-hysteria-in-the-1980s.html?_r=0 

Shock new revelations about Mother Teresa

n January, 2012, documents obtained by an investigative journalist working at SF Weekly, a successful alternative weekly newspaper in San Francisco, California, revealed that an Albanian nun, Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, better known to the world today as Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997), supported and praised a Catholic priest knowing that he was an accused serial abuser of young boys in his care.
He was Fr. Donald McGuire, and he was associated with Mother Teresa and her nuns since 1981. He was subsequently appointed a confessor and spiritual advisor to Mother Teresa and her religious order, the Missionaries of Charity.

http://www.vatileaks.com/vati-leaks/shock-new-revelations-about-mother-teresa 

Mother Teresa nun accused of torture

The Missionaries of Charity, the organisation founded by the late Mother Teresa to help the poor and dying, was facing grave embarrassment last night after the order and one of its nuns were accused of torturing a seven-year-old girl. The nun who allegedly carried out the torture, Sister Francesco, has mysteriously vanished. The order's head, Sister Nirmala, was summoned on Friday by a court in Calcutta in connection with the allegation. She was given conditional bail in the sum of $110 (£79) and asked to return on October 2.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/sep/20/raekhaprasad.lukeharding

Years later, some charge sexual abuse by nuns

A half-century after his Catholic school boyhood, John Kerrigan says he is still haunted by the memories: a figure draped in the mantle of the church, finding sexual gratification through his fearful 12-year-old body.
Though his story echoes countless others in the ever-widening church molestation scandal, it differs in that the alleged abuser was not a priest.  Rather, it was a nun.

http://www.robinwashington.com/articles/articles_nuns.html

Church in Crisis Victim, experts tell of abuse by nuns

Myra Hidalgo was 12 when she met Sr. Cheryl Porte, a young, charming nun who was her teacher at Opelousas Catholic Middle School in Southwest Louisiana.
Porte, a member of the Marianites of the Holy Cross, taught her about “theology, the Beatles, Carl Jung and social justice,” said Hidalgo.  And, after earning her trust, Porte taught her about sex -- coaxing the 12-year-old into a sexual relationship that lasted more than two years.

.http://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2002d/110102/110102h.htm

Woman beaten by nuns attacks probe into abuse

The embattled Laffoy Commission into child abuse sent a victim subjected to 15 years of beatings and humiliations by nuns for counselling to a nun.
May Henderson, who was sent to the notorious Goldenbridge orphanage at the age of two, described the commission's decision as 'the final insult after a childhood of abuse'. Speaking publicly for the first time about her time at Goldenbridge, the London-based pensioner accused the government-backed commission of being 'totally insensitive' towards victims like her.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/sep/14/childprotection.children 

Father wants to cleanse you, 29':

Father wants to cleanse you, 29': Nun's chilling words to a young boy, 5, who was given a NUMBER instead of a name when he was raped by a priest in 'horror room' for the first time.  A victim of horrific sexual abuse at the hands of a paedophile ring involving Catholic clergy in Ballarat has told how he was assigned a number and a locker number, instead of a name, and that nuns used to pull out his teeth with pliers.

Speaking at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Gordon Hill, 72, described how he was sexually and physically abused at Ballarat's St Joseph's Home in what he called 'horror rooms' and 'dungeons', and did not know his own surname until he was 10 years old

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3088900/Father-wants-cleanse-29-NUN-told-little-boy-didnt-know-taken-dungeon-known-horror-room-sexually-abused-priest.html 

Abuse spotlight switches to nuns

Canberra - The Catholic Church in Australia, already investigating allegations of child abuse by its most senior cleric, has been hammered with further claims of brutality and sexual abuse. Former residents at a Brisbane orphanage run by the Sisters of Nazareth have made public allegations including rapes by priests and a nun using a flagstick, whippings with staple-studded belts, and the forced eating of faeces.
Although not admitting liability, the Church reached out-of-court settlements with some of the 17 women who lodged claims against the Order in the Brisbane Supreme Court three years ago. The women were paid up to A$75,000 ($88,000), depending on the level of physical and sexual abuse, The Bulletin magazine said in a report of the allegations.

http://www.peterellis.org.nz/church/2002/2002-0829_NZHerald_AbuseSpotlight.htm 

New Zealand’s dirty secret of physical and sexual abuse by religious and lay staff

New Zealand’s dirty secret of physical and sexual abuse by religious and lay staff and the ongoing battles with the Catholic Church to accept responsibility for their wrong-doings revealed in a new biography about one woman’s harrowing childhood.
In June 2009 Penguin Group NZ will publish Ann Thompson’s biography Say Sorry. Her name will not likely be familiar to most New Zealanders but her story is one that all will be shocked to read about.  Say Sorry is a moving insight into Ann’s horrific upbringing including on-going abuse — physical, sexual and mental — and bullying at two orphanages in Christchurch, and her on-going battles with the authorities within the Catholic Church to accept responsibility for the past abuse of children in its care.

 http://annfreespiritnunsabusedchildren.blogspot.co.nz/p/blog-page_10.html

Child abuse claims 'disgusting'

A Christchurch based nun has described as "disgusting" the allegations that she was involved in child abuse 40 years ago at a Brisbane orphanage run by the Sisters of Nazareth.
"I find some of (the claims) quite disgusting - that anyone could even think those thoughts," said Sister Bernard, who now runs a Sisters of Nazareth old people's home. 

http://www.peterellis.org.nz/church/2002/2002-0919_DominionPost_ChildAbuse.htm 

Mother and baby homes: Plenty of information about adoption records to be found if State wishes to look

HIS Government has consistently repeated the mantra that an audit of adoption records held by the State was “of very limited benefit” — despite revelation after revelation from this newspaper.
An examination of just a fraction of these records revealed that a religious order reported significantly higher levels of infant deaths to the State than it recorded privately, and that child victims of rape were present in mother and baby homes right into the 1980s.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/analysis/mother-and-baby-homes-plenty-of-information-about-adoption-records-to-be-found-if-state-wishes-to-look-369318.html 

‘The nuns poured boiling water on our heads’

Margaret McGuckin is the stalwart campaigner for victims of historical institutional abuse in NI. In this harrowing interview she talks about the horrendous years she spent in the notorious Nazareth House orphanage  Margaret McGuckin has a residual fear of going to the hairdresser as it reawakens horrific memories of the Belfast orphanage where she spent her formative years.
She recalls how the sadistic nuns in Nazareth House, a dour, cruel institution on the Ormeau Road, used to cut the children’s hair off as punishment.  ‘‘Everyone used to line up, you were trembling in fear, because they (the nuns) came with big jugs of boiling water that they poured right round your scalp.’’

http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/features/the-nuns-poured-boiling-water-on-our-heads-1-7368969 

Are Catholic elites practicing Black Mass Child Sacrifice?

“I saw the former CatholicPope Joseph Ratzinger murder a little girl″ stated a survivor of Black Mass rites to Kevin Annett of the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State. “It was at a French chateau in the fall of 1987. It was ugly, horrible and didn’t happen just once. Ratzinger, (Dutch Catholic Cardinal) Alfrink and (Bilderberger founder) Prince Bernhard were some of the more prominent men who took part.”

www.itccs.org

There has been great reluctance to damage the reputation of the Holy See by reporting the abuse of children. Under a 1980s Vatican decree still in effect called the Crimean Solicitations, Catholics faced excommunication and even jail time if they reported abuse.

http://childabuserecovery.com/are-catholic-elites-practicing-black-mass-child-sacrifice/ 

Tony’s Story Abuse at St Stanislaus Boys Home, Adelaide, South Australia

We were just a normal middle class family. Mother stayed home looking after four children with another on the way. Father was an electrician by trade. Then my little sister was born. I was now the middle child.  Unfortunately my mother died as a result of complications giving birth to the last child. I was three years old. The new baby was put up for adoption. 
My father could not work and look after four young children.  He started drinking and drank himself into a stupor for the next eight years. He became a chronic alcoholic. The four children were separated and each stayed with a different aunty. I stayed with an aunty until I was five. I was a happy child, still in a family environment. At this stage my father decided that the children should be together. We were all placed in a children’s home where the nuns would look after us and give us a good private school education.

http://netk.net.au/AbuseCases/StanislausTony.asp 

Cruel and excessive': Commission finds that nuns subjected children to abusive treatment including public floggings

Former residents at a Queensland orphanage would have urine soaked towels placed on their heads and be publicly flogged, a royal commission has found.

Last year, the child sex abuse royal commission investigated the 'cruel and excessive' treatment of 13 residents at St Joseph's Orphanage at Neerkol, near Rockhampton between 1940 and 1975.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3552201/Royal-commission-nuns-Queensland-orphanage-abused-residents.html 

MO - Sex abuse victims to protest outside nuns’ conference

As hundreds of American Catholic nuns meeting this week in St. Louis, clergy sex abuse victims will protest outside urging them to address the under-reported issue of clergy sex crimes and cover ups by nuns.
A nationwide self-help group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is upset with the main organization of nuns, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR). SNAP says the LCWR “refuses to take any real steps to heal the wounded or protect the vulnerable.”

http://www.snapnetwork.org/mo_sex_abuse_victims_to_protest_outside_nuns_conference 

Ireland finally says sorry to the 10,000 'Magdalene Sister slaves' of its Catholic workhouses who were locked up and brutalised by nuns

Women who had their childhoods ‘stolen away’, locked up in Catholic-run workhouses received a qualified apology from the Irish government yesterday.

Over a period of 70 years, an estimated 10,000 were sent to the ‘Magdalene laundries’ to carry out unpaid manual labour under the supervision of nuns. Some were sent because they were the children of unmarried mothers, others for crimes as minor as not paying a train ticket.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2273961/Ireland-says-sorry-10-000-women-slaves-Catholic-workhouses-locked-brutalised-nuns.html 

Praying for Peace Two Cloistered Nuns Reach out with the Help of Technology to Help Victims of Priest Abuse

They love the Catholic Church. But they also ache for victims hurt by it. Mother Veronica Sweeney and Sister Angela Ferry, diocesan nuns of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Knoxville, have opened up their cloistered lives to reach victims of sexual abuse and the victims' families through the Internet and e-mail.
"People say it's a gay issue. It's not," Ferry said. "Gay men molesting boys, heterosexual men abusing girls, nuns abusing children: They're all abusing the vulnerable." "Abuse continues when people do not listen to you," Sweeney said.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2004_01_06/2004_02_28_Hunter_PrayingFor.htm 

Protecting Children from the Church’s Abuse Of Power

The world continues to watch with genuine interest as the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church parades masks of contrition before the media, in an effort to convince the faithful that the Church has turned the corner on the clergy sexual abuse crisis.
On Nov. 19, a gathering of Cardinals from every corner of the Church’s influence will convene in Rome at the request of the Supreme Pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI. This meeting of Cardinals will include a discussion about the Vatican’s response to sexually abusive priests.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-f-mcmurry/institutional-secrecy-is-_b_785546.html 

Irish nuns 'forced children to eat their own vomit and put soiled bedsheets on their heads as punishment at care homes'

Children were forced to eat their own vomit and put soiled bedsheets on their heads as punishment at care homes run by nuns, the largest public inquiry into institutional child abuse was told.

The investigation into the behaviour of Catholic nuns from the Sisters of Nazareth children's homes in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, heard children were also forced to bathe in disinfectant and were beaten for wetting the bed.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2547145/Nuns-forced-children-eat-vomit-soiled-bedsheets-heads-punishment-care-homes-largest-inquiry-institutional-child-abuse-told.html 

Ireland finally admits state collusion in Magdalene Laundry system

Taoiseach Enda Kenny fails to formally apologise for involvement over female enslavement causing more outrage. After more than seven decades of exploitation and a 10-year struggle for justice, Ireland on Tuesday admitted its role in the enslavement of thousands of women and girls in the notorious Magdalene Laundry system, but stopped short of issuing a formal apology from the government.
A long-awaited report headed by Senator Martin McAleese said there was "significant state involvement" in how the laundries were run – a reversal of the official state line for years, which insisted the institutions were privately controlled and run by nuns.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/05/ireland-magdalene-laundry-system-apology 

Man describes 'psychotic' behaviour of Derry nuns at children's home

Northern Ireland abuse inquiry told Sisters of Nazareth thumped and kicked children and regularly humiliated them.  Nuns at a care home for children in Northern Ireland behaved like they were psychotic, the largest ever inquiry in UK legal history into child abuse has heard.
A former child resident told the inquiry on Tuesday that the Sisters of Nazareth in the Termonbacca care home thumped and kicked children. In his evidence to the historical institutional abuse inquiry, the witness described the Derry home as a "hellhole" and akin to a concentration camp.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/28/derry-nuns-psychotic-former-inmate-northern-ireland-abuse-inquiry 

Nuns did not believe girl was sexually abused

Witness to inquiry tells how she has been trying to find her sister for almost 50 years. A witness to the inquiry investigating historical institutional abuse in Northern Ireland has recounted how nuns refused to believe her when she told them of how she was sexually abused when she was a young girl.

The 58-year-old woman also told the inquiry today how for almost 50 years she has been trying to locate her older sister who was with her in the Sisters of Nazareth home in Derry.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/nuns-did-not-believe-girl-was-sexually-abused-1.1686325 

Nun recounts rape, abuse by priest in memoir backed by Catholic Church

ROME (RNS) The Catholic Church, under scrutiny for its response to clergy sex abuse scandals, is backing the publication of an Italian nun’s shocking account of her rape as a teenager and years of subsequent abuse by her parish priest in Milan.
The 40-year-old nun, who has not been identified, claims the unnamed priest raped her when she was 14 and continued to abuse her for another seven years.

http://religionnews.com/2016/03/21/nun-recounts-rape-abuse-priest-memoir-backed-catholic-church/ 

The stolen children: Abuse scandals, thefts of newborns contribute to increased distrust in Chilean church

Santiago, Chile  Officials in Santiago, Chile, are investigating a series of cases in which newborn babies were purportedly stolen from the poor and given to the rich over many years' time, mostly in the 1970s through the '90s.
At least half a dozen Catholic sisters and one of the country's most popular priests have been implicated in these long-hidden crimes. The following is the final article in a three-part series that looks at how this appropriation of children happened and how it stayed secret for so long. Read part one and part two.

http://ncronline.org/news/accountability/stolen-children-abuse-scandals-thefts-newborns-contribute-increased-distrust 

Magdalene laundries report ‘not accurate or respectful’ to women who suffered

The McAleese report is “neither accurate nor respectful” in the suffering women endured in Magdalene laundries, it has been claimed.  The comments were made by Claire McGettrick of Justice for Magdalenes Research, accepting a Dublin Lord Mayor Award on behalf of the Magdalene women.
She said survivors felt vindicated by an apology from Taoiseach Enda Kenny, but repeated the group’s claim the McAleese report did not disclose the full story with regard to the Magdalene laundries. “On the surface, the women have been vindicated since Enda Kenny’s emotional apology in 2013.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/magdalene-laundries-report-not-accurate-or-respectful-to-women-who-suffered-397597.html 

Orphans scared to report abuse at Neerkol Orphanage:

 Children housed in a notorious central Queensland orphanage were subjected to repeated physical and sexual abuse and allegedly punished if they spoke out, a national inquiry has heard.
Thirteen former residents of the Neerkol Orphanage near Rockhampton are set to describe their traumatic experiences at a public hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/orphans-scared-to-report-abuse-at-neerkol-orphanage-inquiry-20150414-1mkoo3.html

Catholic Church shamed by Irish abuse report Nine-year probe says child beatings, molestation, rape were endemic.

DUBLIN — Eleven-year-old Tom Sweeney kept skipping school. Eight-year-old Mannix Flynn got caught stealing a box of chocolates. And Christine Buckley, barely a month old, was found guilty of being the child of an unwed mother.

In the morally rigid Roman Catholic Ireland of old, such sins were sufficient to land all three children — and more than 30,000 others throughout the 20th century — in Dickensian workhouses for girls and boys run with an iron fist by Catholic religious orders.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/30838320/ns/world_news-europe/t/catholic-church-shamed-irish-abuse-report/#.VyvkNEc1eUl 

Judge dismisses sex abuse lawsuit filed by 2 elders against N.J. Catholic orphanage

Frank Fioretti (age 82) and Henry Coffey(age 81) who are testifying in Superior Court in Essex County about the sexual and physical abuse they received from nuns at the old Sacred Heart Orphanage in Kearny. A judge in Newark today dismissed a lawsuit filed by two men, saying the statute of limitations had run out on their claim they were sexually abused more than 65 years ago at a Catholic orphanage in Kearny.
Henry Coffey, 81, of Colonia, and Frank Fioretti, 82, of Florida, said they waited until 2004 to file their lawsuit because one had repressed the claimed sexual abuse for decades and the other hadn’t fully comprehended its impact

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/09/judge_dismisses_sex_abuse_laws.html

Betty’s story Abuse at Goodwood Orphanage, Adelaide, South Australia 1950s

My time at the Goodwood orphanage has left emotional scars for life, and anger at being forced to endure and witness many beatings on myself and others. A childhood devoid of any love, kindness and understanding by these carers; fear being the only emotion that was readily displayed by the children.
Anger at the Catholic order for allowing nuns with obvious psychological problems, no self discipline, ignorance, inexperience, lack of ability and a callous indifference in looking after children and their needs. Being allowed to treat children in the way in which they did has had a devastating effect on my life, and that of many of the other children who passed through their hands.

http://netk.net.au/AbuseCases/GoodwoodBetty.asp 

St. Ignatius woman tells of abuse at orphanage

In the dark, spartan room lit only by an oil lamp, the priest gave the little girl a piece of candy and told her to keep her mouth shut.

"He told me it was our secret," that little girl said recently. "He told me to be quiet or I'd be in serious trouble."  She was 7 and she'd just been raped.

http://missoulian.com/news/local/st-ignatius-woman-tells-of-abuse-at-orphanage/article_037bd902-b8ac-11df-b495-001cc4c002e0.html 

Nuns set to face trial over alleged abuse at approved school in 1970s

TWO nuns accused of abusing girls in their care at an approved school are to stand trial. The Court of Appeal has overturned a sheriff’s ruling that the case had taken too long to come to court and should not proceed.

Nuns Anne Kenny, 77, and Agnes Reville, 75, claimed a trial would breach their human rights because documents had been lost and witnesses had died. The pair, who now both live in the north of England, are charged with a string of offences at Dalbeth Approved School in Bishopton, Renfrewshire, in the 1970s.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/nuns-set-to-face-trial-over-877827#WAkY74xWHtsMtjlp.97

Religion 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 

Suffer The Little Children: The True Story Of An Abused Convent Upbringing

The heartbreaking yet inspiring account of a young girl who suffered at the hands of nuns in the Nazareth House Convent in Northern Ireland.
Frances Reilly and her sisters were abandoned by their mother outside Nazareth House Convent - a Belfast orphanage run by nuns. Little did they know the unimaginable cruelty they'd endure within its walls.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Suffer-Little-Children-Convent-Upbringing/dp/0752880802 

Carmelites comment

I would like to thank The Press for calling the Catholic Church to account for the ills that have impacted worldwide. We are all grateful when other unjust and dysfunctional issues are brought to light and individuals helped.
I'm sure I speak on behalf of the vast majority of Catholics -- almost one billion of us -- (minus the paedophiles!) who stand stunned and shamed by all that has happened. I cannot help but liken it to the twin-towers calamity. It feels as if something like this has hit the Church, with a particular focus on the priesthood and celibacy. 

http://www.peterellis.org.nz/church/2002/2002-0810_ThePress_Carmelites.htm 

When child cruelty reigned

Nazareth House was a great grim building, its brick walls rising from the Brisbane suburb of Wynnum North, softened only by a sparse cluster of palms. Inside, its pious austerity moved one Queensland child-care officer to report:

 "The design of the building itself is along the lines of a monastery, with cloisters, crucifixes, statues etc in great abundance.  "First impressions of it are that it is a very cold, imposing place, and it must be extremely frightening for a child, especially one of tender years, to be placed there."

http://www.peterellis.org.nz/church/2002/2002-0831_NZHerald_WhenChildCruelty.htm 

Top nun speaks out in denial

One of the Catholic Church's most experienced nuns is publicly denying claims of abuse from women in New Zealand and Australia.
At least five New Zealand women are threatening court action against the Sisters of Nazareth order over claims of abuse at a Christchurch orphanage.  Sister Mary Bernard, 69, has spoken publicly for the first time to deny that she and other nuns abused children in their care in the 1950s and 60s. 

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

DNA test suggests priest rapes and impregnates 11-year-old, priests gang rape another and nuns sexually assault kids, tweens and teens'

SAN FRANCISCO, May 10 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a new oral and investigative journalism book addressed to Angela Merkel, Michele Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Alessandra Mussolini and Oprah Winfrey, parents, legislators, reporters and clergy are unaware cliches of "clergy child abuse" mask violent sexual assault of children, including rape, serial rape, gang rape, prostitution, pregnancy, kids giving birth,
AIDS abortions, torture and murder. The book calls for an end to all civil, criminal, state and federal statutes of limitation for sexual assault of kids, tweens and teens.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/book-expose-dna-test-suggests-priest-rapes-and-impregnates-11-year-old-priests-gang-rape-another-and-nuns-sexually-assault-kids-tweens-and-teens-93266119.html