Appenzell compensates victims of children’s home abuse

The government of Appenzell Inner Rhodes has formally apologised to and compensated former residents of the Steig children’s home, who were reportedly mistreated and abused between 1945 and 1984.

On Monday, the cantonal government released a report detailing the history of the institution, which was run by nuns at the time, and providing first-hand testimonies of abuses perpetrated there.

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/historical-report_appenzell-compensates-victims-of-children-s-home-abuse/43306244 

Child migrants kept being sent to farm schools in Australia despite officials knowing some harboured paedophile rings.

Child migrants kept being trafficked from Britain to Australia despite officials knowing that some institutions they were sent to harboured pedophile rings, a U.K. inquiry was told.

Dr Margaret Humphreys of the Child Migrants Trust told the child sexual abuse inquiry in London that recruiters were sent to the U.K. to select children for church and charity-run farm schools in Australia. 'We would categorise that now as child trafficking,' she said on Friday.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4718614/UK-child-migrants-sent-Australian-paedophile-rings.html 

Analysis: Failed at every juncture, time is running out for Church abuse victim

OF the thousands of victims of Northern Ireland's troubles few have been more badly let down than the children of murdered mother of ten Jean McConville.
At just six years-old Billy McConville and his twin brother Jim were the youngest of the family of orphans abandoned after their mother was abducted by the IRA in the mouth of Christmas 1972.  When they were eventually taken into care they were sent to children's homes across Northern Ireland, including Nazareth Lodge and Nazareth House in Belfast and the De La Salle Boys' Home at Rubane House in Kircubbin.

http://www.irishnews.com/news/2017/07/03/news/analysis-failed-at-every-juncture-time-is-running-out-for-church-abuse-victim-1073221/ 

The forgotten patient

Mike Wesley-Smith investigates one of the worst institutional abuse cases in New Zealand history.
Watch the video for the full story.
 

 

http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/shows/2017/06/the-forgotten-patient.html 

Netflix's 'Keepers' prompts call for archdiocese to release priest's files

The release of "The Keepers," a Netflix documentary series examining the unsolved death of a Catholic nun and abuse at then-Archbishop Keough High School, has sparked calls for the Archdiocese of Baltimore to release files on the priest at the center of the story.
An online petition on change.org has more than 11,000 signatures urging church officials to make public its files on A. Joseph Maskell, who died in 2001.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/investigations/bs-md-sun-investigates-archdiocese-files-20170701-story.html 

South Dublin council attempting to rezone school grounds so Catholic Church can't sell them

A LOCAL COUNCIL is attempting to block the sale of €18 million worth of land attached to schools which is being sold by the Church to pay sex abuse compensation.
Last month, TheJournal.ie revealed that a row had developed between the Board of Management of Clonkeen College in Deansgrange and the Catholic Church after the Christian Brothers decided to sell 7.5 acres of land attached to the school grounds.

http://www.thejournal.ie/school-lands-dublin-clonkeen-church-3478049-Jul2017/

Magdalene Laundries

“They took my hair, they took my human rights, they took my clothes, they took my name, but they never took my spirit” – Mary Merritt
Mary Merritt was born in 1931 to a single mother in a Dublin workhouse. At the age of two, Mary was put into the care of the Sisters of Mercy in Ballinasloe. In 1947, at the age of 16 and for the crime of stealing an apple, she was put into the High Park Magdalene Laundry in Drumcondra in Dublin. Mary is 86 now. “To this day,” she says, “I do not know who my mother is”.

https://avondhupress.ie/laundering-magdalene-past/ 

Exhibits published about child sexual abuse in Catholic Church institutions

The Royal Commission has published documents relating to Catholic Church Insurance (CCI) and the Society of St Gerard Majella that were tendered during the public hearing into Catholic Church authorities in Australia (Case Study 50).
The public hearing was held in Sydney in February 2017.
The CCI documents relate to investigations conducted by CCI into child sexual abuse claims to establish whether an insured Catholic Church authority had prior knowledge of an alleged perpetrator’s propensity to abuse.

http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/2017-07/exhibits-published-about-child-sexual-abuse-in-cat 

Nuns in UK admit child migrant lapses

The head of a Catholic order of nuns in the UK has admitted to an inquiry that proper follow-up on the care of child migrants the order sent to Australia could have protected them from sexual abuse.

Sister Anna Maria Doolan, the UK Superior for the Sisters of Nazareth, on Thursday gave evidence to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse sitting in London.

http://www.9news.com.au/world/2017/07/14/03/41/nuns-in-uk-admit-child-migrant-lapses

We’re not as far from Magdalene days as we’d like to believe’

‘Eclipsed’ tackled abuse in laundries in 1992. The original cast are set to read it at Galway.
“Dear Ellen, I see where you are looking for some information about the Magdalene laundry. I was in the Magdalene laundry for a good many years and I live out in the country now. But I never will forget it to my dying day. The cruelty we got. Slaved like blacks. Some of the girls were dragged by the hair of their heads and more, their hair was cut off simply if they gave the least back answer or were too slow at their work.”

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/we-re-not-as-far-from-magdalene-days-as-we-d-like-to-believe-1.3155186 

"Nobody told us she had died"

"Nobody told us she had died" - the story of Margaret Bullen, who spent her entire life in a Magdalene Laundry

Margaret Bullen died in 2003 aged just 50 from a disease possibly linked to her exposure to industrial-strength chemicals in the Laundries where she had lived.

THE FASCINATING AND tragic story of a mother who spent her life in a series of Magdalene Laundries will be told this evening.
RTÉ’s Liveline Callback will tell the story of Margaret Bullen, a mother-of-three who spent her entire life in state institutions such as the infamous Laundries. 

 http://www.thejournal.ie/margaret-bullen-liveline-callback-3456386-Jun2017/?utm_source=facebook_short

Religious order set for windfall with Bessborough sale

Yes that is nuns for you... they still are making money out of the poor People... I remember from 10year upwards... when the nazareth house nuns use to go begging in the streets of Christchurch New Zealand... they always went two by two... and have a tin can with a hole in it... just big enough for the donations to fall into.;.. Donations by foot... they were as rich as the film stars and more... all of their money the made from the slaves of the loveless unwanted children... of the catholic church orphanages and homes worldwide... and below here... they are still using the people to make more money... for themselves...

You have no idea how hard and long... they had us children working for them... their money from the blood of the children... whom they whipped and thrashed within an inch of our lives... we worked until we dropped and found ourselves... when we work up in bed... not knowing how we got there.. we worked until we had no more strength to work anymore... and even then we were whipped... until we passed out...   Ann

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

The religious order which owns the Bessborough campus in Cork City is in for a multi-million euro windfall after it confirmed it is to put the site up for sale.

Staff at the facility were informed on Thursday that plans are underway to sell the large site in Blackrock in a process that could take up to two years. The campus is a former mother and baby home and more recently the setting for the Bessborough Centre, a charity that works with vulnerable families, including offering therapeutic care and education.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/religious-order-set-for-windfall-with-bessborough-sale-454917.html 

'Weed nuns' who took vows to a HIGHER power:

Sister Kate is not your average nun.  In truth, she’s not a nun at all – and she’s certainly not average. She's the founding member of the Sisters of the Valley, and her order subscribes to a higher power. Her vows are not ones of Catholicism, but of servitude, activism, and spirituality, and her rituals are guided by the cycles of the moon.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4690250/Californian-nuns-make-millions-medical-marijuana.html 

Man sues Boston archdiocese citing sex abuse at orphanage

BOSTON — A New York man is suing the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston for sexual abuse he says he suffered decades ago at a church-affiliated home for orphaned and foster children.
Andre Jones, who’s 51, said Monday that he was abused in the 1970s by the late Brother Edward Anthony Holmes, a supervisor and counselor at the now-shuttered Nazareth Child Care Center.

http://www.therepublic.com/2017/07/17/us-church-abuse-lawsuit/ 

Religious order set for windfall with Bessborough sale

The religious order which owns the Bessborough campus in Cork City is in for a multi-million euro windfall after it confirmed it is to put the site up for sale.
Staff at the facility were informed on Thursday that plans are underway to sell the large site in Blackrock in a process that could take up to two years. The campus is a former mother and baby home and more recently the setting for the Bessborough Centre, a charity that works with vulnerable families, including offering therapeutic care and education.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/religious-order-set-for-windfall-with-bessborough-sale-454917.html 

The girl who grew up in 13 different homes

A young Magherafelt woman has told how she had 13 different homes as a child and attended seven different schools. Andrea Glenn (20) told her story of life in care as a group which helped her, VOYPIC, was awarded £591,036 from Big Lottery Fund’s Empowering Young People Programme for the Speaking Up; Leading Out project.

http://www.midulstermail.co.uk/news/the-girl-who-grew-up-in-13-different-homes-1-8063259 

My story (Airing my Dirty Laundry)

I am a Mum (to five boys), Grandmother (to five grandchildren), Author, Trainer, Speaker, and Advocate. I like to sketch and paint, play the Irish bodhran and learn the Irish language. 

I have learned to embrace life instead of hiding from it, in fear, depression, and isolation. I am a survivor of child abuse, sibling abuse, spousal abuse, religious abuse, and a survivor of the Good Shepherd Laundries.

http://www.breakthroughoptions.org/307252848 

New case of sexual abuse at convent school accepted by Catholic Church

In a "very rare" ruling, the Catholic Church has found a nun guilty of sexually abusing a child in her care, it has emerged.
Following an inquiry, the Catholic Church has ruled Mother Lucia guilty of historic sexual and physical abuse against a Christchurch schoolboy "on the balance of probabilities". The prioress died in 1997, aged 90.
In November 2015, a West Coast man, who did not want to be named, brought complaints against the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions under the church's Path to Healing protocol.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/94073054/new-case-of-sexual-abuse-at-convent-school-accepted-by-catholic-church 

Survivors of Ireland’s mother and baby scandal deserve justice

It is true, as survivors said it was. Under a small patch of grass by a playground in Tuam, County Galway, Ireland, the bodies of the children who died in the local Mother and Baby home lie in unmarked graves. The Mother and Baby homes of Ireland – the last of which closed in 1996 – were run like punishment hostels for unmarried pregnant women. Their children were taken for adoption, fostering or the horror of the industrial schools, or they died in their thousands, of malnutrition and neglect. In some cases the bodies were used for dissection in medical schools.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/09/survivors-ireland-mother-baby-scandal-justice-tuam 

70 Convent slave laundries? Magdalen asylums in Australia

A staple of extreme Protestant propaganda in the first half of the twentieth century was the accusation of ‘convent slave laundries’. Anti-Catholic organs like The Watchman and  The Rock regularly alleged extremely harsh conditions in Roman Catholic convent laundries and reported stories of abductions into them and escapes from them.
In Ireland, the scandal of Magdalen laundries has been the subject of extensive official inquiries. Allegations of widespread near-slave conditions and harsh punishments turned out to be substantially true. The Irish state has apologized, memoirs have been written, compensation paid, a movie made. Something similar occurred in England.

http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/magdalen.pdf 

Clerical sex-abuse cover-up in Australian church

Antipodean Booker-winner Thomas Keneally's new novel tells the story of a liberal priest's uncovering of paedophilia in the Catholic church during the mid-1990s.

In an early scene from Thomas Keneally's poignant new novel about clerical sex abuse, a young Australian woman called Maureen Breslin goes searching for her Irish roots on the Donegal coast. She is particularly impressed by an outdoor Mass stone, where fugitive Catholic priests used to hold ceremonies for their followers in defiance of Britain's Penal Laws.

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/book-reviews/clerical-sexabuse-coverup-in-australian-church-35831397.html