Memories of an Historic Convent Building in Ballyshannon to be Developed as a Primary Health Care Centre

An historic building in Ballyshannon which in recent years has been in sad decline is to be converted by the Health Service Executive into a Primary Care  Health Centre for the community at a cost of €5.9 million. The community welcomes this development and preservation of one of the most impressive buildings in the town, which is deeply imbedded in the history of Ballyshannon.Pictured above is the Convent of Mercy alongside the Sheil Hospital which it will complement.  The Sisters of Mercy in Ballyshannon  Since 1867

 

http://ballyshannon-musings.blogspot.co.nz/2014/01/memories-of-historic-convent-building.html?m=1 

Anna Nolan: 'I knew nuns and priests who loved to meet for a snog - and some light petting'

Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin is not happy with how the Maynooth seminary is being run, so he has decided to send his trainee priests to the Irish College in Rome. Other bishops don’t seem too put out.
By the sound of things, there seems to be a few shenanigans going on in Maynooth. Not only is there alleged use of dating sites, you naughty boys, but they’re all ratting on each other through anonymous letters and blogs.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/anna-nolan-i-knew-nuns-and-priests-who-loved-to-meet-for-a-snog-and-some-light-petting-34950719.html 

Magdalene Laundries archive to be searchable online

An archive of papers and images donated by the Justice for Magdalenes research group is due to be made fully searchable online by Waterford Institute of Technology.

Researchers at the institute were awarded funding through the Heritage Council’s Heritage Management Grant Scheme 2016 to digitally conserve and manage the archive.

 http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/magdalene-laundries-archive-to-be-searchable-online-1.2762322

Louisville area nuns who are or have been accused of child sexual abuse

We’re concerned about abuse by nuns because a disproportionately high number of accused child molesting nuns have worked and lived in Louisville. Abuse by women has gotten little attention and victims of women often get little compassion and considerable misunderstanding.
Nuns also change their names more often than priests so could more easily get access to more kids even after being publicly accused.  In very cursory Internet research, we found that the last nun on this list has been sent elsewhere and is teaching immigrants, a very vulnerable group.

http://www.snapnetwork.org/ky_snap_fact_sheet_3_15 

They didn't care where they belted you'

 This Story Half way down the page:  At 91, Mary Heather Lane is one of the oldest to attend a private session of the royal commission. The Perth resident was originally from New South Wales and lived in two Catholic orphanages in Sydney, where she was placed by her mother from the age of seven.
They included Mater Dei orphanage at Narellan in the city's south-west and St Magdalen's Retreat at Tempe, where she says she "worked all day every day", except Sunday, in the laundry.  She says she was not sexually abused but was subjected to routine physical beatings. She describes being whipped with a bamboo cane "for the least little thing" and on all parts of her body.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-09/child-abuse-victims-share-their-stories-in-private-hearings/5438966 

Sisters of mercy, devotion — and dismay

In Philadelphia last week, a child sexual abuse trial involving Catholic clergy led to a bombshell — a bishop from West Virginia was accused of abuse. In Kansas City, a Catholic bishop goes on trial in September, accused of failing to report suspected child abuse.
Last year church officials paid $144 million to settle abuse allegations and cover legal bills, and although many of the cases went back decades, church auditors have warned of "growing complacency" about protecting children today. So who's in trouble with the Vatican?  Nuns.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/21/local/la-me-lopez-nuns-20120422 

Sisters of no mercy

In the pre- and post-war period, orphans were often sent to homes run by religious orders, such as the Sisters of Nazareth. There they found a disciplined regime which, they say, tipped over into violence. Now, decades later, more than 500 former inmates are suing the nuns for damages. Beatrix Campbell reports
Fred Aitken is 70 years old and still he is haunted by sounds - the racket of children "banging their heads against the walls of the dormitories". The walls were in a gothic mansion called Nazareth House, an orphanage in Aberdeen where Aitken was dispatched when he was six. There, he says, nuns regularly beat him and made him witness the violent degradation of other children.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/apr/12/religion.childprotection 

Dozens Allege Sex Abuse by Nuns

SILVER SPRING - Spotlighting the role of female clergy in sexual abuse for the first time, a victims advocacy group said yesterday that it had identified about 100 people in the United States who said they had been assaulted by Catholic nuns, sisters and other female religious workers.
At a news conference, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) called for other victims to come forward so they could share their stories and receive help. The group also asked the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, a national female clerical organization based here, to allow victims to speak at their annual meeting next month in Fort Worth, Texas.

http://www.snapnetwork.org/female_victims/dozens_allege_nuns.htm 

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.
By Joep Dohmen
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.

https://www.somalinet.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=245019

Former residents to boycott nuns' reunion

Members of a support group for people who grew up in care say they will boycott a reunion organised by the Good Shepherd nuns as part of celebrations for the order's 150th anniversary in Australia.
Care Leavers Australia Network chief executive Leonie Sheedy said the nuns' event was inappropriate ''when they haven't acknowledged, or publicly apologised for, the damage that's been done to children in their care''.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/former-residents-to-boycott-nuns-reunion-20130620-2olqm.html 

Catholic church in Scotland asks forgiveness from child abuse victims

The Scottish Catholic church has offered a “profound apology” to victims of child abuse and the church’s failure to investigate and punish the culprits, after a damning independent report into its conduct.
Archbishop Philip Tartaglia, the official head of the Scottish church, told a congregation in Glasgow on Tuesday that their bishops were “shamed and pained” by the abuse suffered by children and adults over recent decades. “We say sorry. We ask forgiveness.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/18/catholic-church-in-scotland-must-support-abuse-survivors-review-says 

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 

Canada should apologize for Magdalene laundries, like Ireland, academic says

Former workers in Magdalene laundries in several countries, including Canada, say they endured abuse and enforced, silent labour for little to no pay.  ST. JOHN’S, N.L.—They were called fallen women, and through much of the last two centuries they toiled in church-run Magdalene laundries as penance for often-petty crimes, “loose morals” or for having no place to go.

Former workers in several countries, including Canada, say they endured long days of enforced silent labour for little or no pay. Some say they were physically and sexually abused, and told over and over again that they were worthless sinners.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/07/17/canada-should-apologize-for-magdalene-laundries-like-ireland-academic-says.html 

Church worker's threat to abuse inquriy Witnesses

This is not on... this women I have known since 1998... she worked for... the Good Shepherd nuns... Nazareth House nun... took all of our stories... she sat at the long table... in front of us.. beside the nuns.. at our mediation... for the both order of nuns... she was paid... by the two order of nuns... and also the church...
so you see why... we did not have any one... we could go to... because in the end... our lawyers... just followed through... in what the nuns... and their lawyers set up... without us knowing... and one being that bloody loan... we are paying the Nazareth House nuns... for abusing us...
she still runs... the Nazareth House nuns... commitment committee for Australia... and New Zealand... need I say more... than this... abuse is power... Power corrupts... absolute power corrupts... absolutely... Ann

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

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

Marie-Thérèse O'Loughlin Goldenbridgeinmate39

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/ 

Over 100,000 British orphans sent overseas as ‘child migrants’

Up until the late 1960s the UK sent children living in care homes to new lives in Australia and other countries. It was a brutal experience for many, writes Kirstie Brewer.
In the winter of 1949, 13-year-old Pamela Smedley boarded a ship to Australia with 27 other girls. She had been told by the nuns from the Catholic home she lived in that she was going on a day-trip. In reality, she was being shipped out to an orphanage in Adelaide and wouldn’t see England again for more than three decades.

http://www.forbiddennews.info/over-100000-british-orphans-sent-overseas-as-child-migrants/ 

Child used as lookout while nun had sex Alleged cruelty victim tells trial of one Sister's affair with a workman

ONE of the alleged victims of abuse by a nun at a children's home run by the Catholic Church yesterday told a court that another nun had sex with a workman as one of the youngsters kept watch.
Mrs Helen Cusiter, 43, made the allegation during cross-examination at the Aberdeen Sheriff Court trial of 58-year-old Marie Docherty - Sister Alphonso - who denies 23 charges of abusing young girls aged from two to 17, by cruelly and unnaturally treating them at Nazareth House homes in Aberdeen and Midlothian between 1965 and 1980. The charges include forcing girls to kiss dead nuns, making one girl spend the night in a chapel with the body of a nun, punching, slapping, kicking, and hitting girls, and placing them in a state of fear and alarm.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12241634.Child_used_as_lookout_while_nun_had_sex_Alleged_cruelty_victim_tells_trial_of_one_Sister_apos_s_affair_with_a_workman/ 

Airing the sisters' dirty linen

Peter Mullan didn't set out to create a controversy with his second feature, but he's quite prepared to live with the consequences. Set in Ireland during the 1960s, The Magdalene Sisters is a fiction. But it's based on the real-life case of the Magdalene asylums, set up in the 19th century and run by an order of Catholic nuns known, ironically enough, as the Sisters of Mercy.
If recent accounts are to be believed, merciful is the last thing the nuns were. The evidence against them is mounting: a book entitled Do Penance or Perish by Dr Frances Finnegan, published in 2001; Steve Humphries' 23-minute documentary Sex in a Cold Climate, made in 1997 for Channel 4 in the UK; and a host of testimonials by some of the 30,000 or more women who were incarcerated in the asylums. To that list we can now add Mullan's film, an all-stops-out melodrama in which the nuns are the villains and the women placed in their care the victims.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/04/11/1049567864338.html 

Babies Stolen and Sold by Spanish Priests and Nuns

Just when we think we’ve heard it all about the abominable deeds of the Papacy, something else is exposed to remind us that we’ve never plumbed the depths of this religious system’s depravity...

In October 2011 an investigation revealed that in Spain, up to 300 000 babies were stolen from their parents and sold for adoption over a period of fifty years. 

http://www.biblebasedministries.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Babies_Stolen_and_Sold_by_Spanish_Priests_and_Nuns.pdf 

Magdalene survivors “shocked and upset” by nun interview defending laundries

THE YOUNGEST MAGDALENE laundries survivor has spoken out against comments by two nuns who defended the institutions in an interview aired last night.
Maureen Sullivan of the Magdalene Survivors Together Group told TheJournal.ie: “I think they [the nuns] are stopping the women from healing. The women were starting to heal and forgive but now it’s going to be very difficult for them.”

http://www.thejournal.ie/magdalene-survivors-nuns-radio-825633-Mar2013/

Bethany Home survivor taking case to European court

A Bethany Home survivor is taking a case to the European Court of Human Rights over his treatment at the mother and baby home.

Derek Leinster was born at the home in Rathgar, Dublin and has campaigned since 1998 for abuse victims who suffered there. Mr Leinster said taking the case to Strasbourg was one of the biggest undertakings the Bethany survivors had faced.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/bethany-home-survivor-taking-case-to-european-court-34931016.html

Commission hears how children’s reports of cruelty by priests and nuns were covered up for decades.

Commission hears how children’s reports of cruelty by priests and nuns were covered up for decades.
Another city, another institution and more harrowing tales of ruined lives. And, as the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse held a hearing in Queensland this week, another scandalous story of cruelty, cover-up and neglect.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11434614 

“Awful Disclosures” — But No Longer Unbelievable

N 1836, a controversial book exploded upon the scene like an artillery shell, written by a woman who had supposedly fled the revered Hotel Dieu nunnery in Montreal, Canada. It bore the title, Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, or, The Hidden Secrets of a Nun’s Life in a Convent Exposed!
The book immediately touched off an acrimonious firestorm of wild polemics with its sensational allegations. And no wonder — for the author, “Maria Monk”, claimed that in the many years that she had been enclosed there in the cloister of the “Black Nuns,” as the sable-clad Sisters of Charity were called, she had witnessed or been subjected to a number of horrific crimes and abuses.

http://archives.weirdload.com/mmonk.html 

Former Students Accuse Nuns Of Torment, Rape

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS--Nine former students of the Boston School for the Deaf filed a lawsuit Tuesday accusing the Roman Catholic nuns who ran the facility of physically, mentally and sexually abusing them when they were children.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages and alleges that at least 15 nuns from the Sisters of Saint Joseph, along with a priest and other staff members, abused the students at the facility between 1944 and 1977.

http://mn.gov/mnddc/news/inclusion-daily/2004/05/051304maabuse.htm 

UN accuses Vatican of adopting policies that allowed priests to rape children

UN has demanded that the Vatican 'immediately remove' all clergy who are known or suspected child abusers and turn them over to police, in an unprecedented and scathing report. 

The Catholic Church continues to protect paedophile priests and should immediately turn them over to the authorities, the United Nations said in scathing report on the Vatican’s decades-long failure to tackle the scandal of sexually abusive clergy.  

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/10618983/UN-accuses-Vatican-of-adopting-policies-that-allowed-priests-to-rape-children.html

Nuns accused of rape

ELEANOR HALL: Now to the allegations of yet more child sex abuse in the Catholic Church, this time abuse by nuns. The church is today responding publicly to the accusation that a nun raped a young girl at the Nazareth House orphanage in the Brisbane bayside suburb of Wynnum in the 1950's. And that that rape was part of a pattern of sexual and physical abuse at the orphanage. But the way the church is responding is itself now coming under attack with victims saying it has the cold ring of a lawyer's brief instead of the comforting tones of the word of Christ.

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/stories/s660987.htm

Ex-nun helped to rape girl aged 10

A ROMAN Catholic order of nuns issued an apology yesterday after a former member was convicted of raping a girl.
Ex-nun Nora Wall, 51, was convicted by a jury of eight men and four women at Dublin's Central Criminal Court late on Thursday night, with co-accused Paul "Pablo" McCabe, 50. The former nun took part in the rape of a young girl, who was aged 10 at the time, at the state-funded St Michael's Child Care Centre at Cappoquin, County Waterford, in Ireland where she was the director.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/ex-nun-helped-to-rape-girl-aged-10-1099560.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.

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

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 

Children's Rights

In the past the Christian Church condoned all manner of evil done to children. It tried and executed them for witchcraft and for other offences. It saw nothing wrong in beating them frequently and severely for minor wrongdoing — even for other people's wrongdoing. It terrified them with stories of Hell. It allowed them to contract arranged marriages.
It failed to speak out against child labour because it saw nothing at all wrong in the practice. For many centuries the Church opposed the education of poor children, except in the few cases where boys could be drawn into its own service. Girls were denied education altogether. In punishing children for sins they had not committed, there seems to have been almost no concept of fairness or rights. Thus, the Church made much of the concept of bastardy:

http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/gak_children.htm 

Legal aid project for Mother and Baby Homes witnesses

Justice for Magdalenes Research and Adoption Rights Alliance have launched a pro-bono legal initiative to assist witnesses drafting statements to the state commission of inquiry.
The Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes will not provide any legal advice to affected individuals who wish to submit a witness statement to the body.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/legal-aid-project-for-mother-and-baby-homes-witnesses-405168.html 

Can Trauma Be Passed From Parent to Child? ...YES

It wasn’t until Amy Bombay was an adult that she found out her grandparents had survived an abusive system — government-sponsored religious schools designed to assimilate thousands of indigenous children into Euro-Canadian culture. Even though she grew up off the reserve, Bombay, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Dalhousie University, says she was scarred by the pain of the past brought on by a dark legacy of Canada’s residential schools. “Many parents would only talk about residential schools when they were drinking — and they would cry,” Bombay recalls. “That was the only time we’d hear about it.”

http://www.ozy.com/fast-forward/can-trauma-be-passed-from-parent-to-child/70261