New plan on religion and ethics to appease Church

Integrating the teaching of world religions and ethics into primary schools is now being explored after a Catholic backlash against introducing it as a stand-alone subject.

The plan is to weave such teaching and learning into a restructured primary curriculum, which the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) is currently working on.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/education/new-plan-on-religion-and-ethics-to-appease-church-35452729.html

Further excavation at former Tuam Home site

Further excavation works are continuing at the site of the former Mother and Baby Home in Tuam.
The excavation of the Memorial Garden off the Dublin Road in Tuam began in late January and is expected to last up to three weeks. The works are being conducted by a specialist team of archaeologists lead by a Forensic Archaeologist, with the co-operation of An Garda Síochána.

http://www.galwayindependent.com/news/topics/articles/2017/02/15/4134952-further-excavation-at-former-tuam-home-site/ 

NAZARETH NUNS ABUSED US ALL; Family to sue the Poor Sisters who are worth pounds 154m.

THEY should have been safe - yet they were innocents who became victims through no fault of their own.  Their mother was dead, their father unable to look after them, and the family turned to nuns for help.  The McGuigans - three brothers and three sisters - spoke yesterday of their trust in the Poor Sisters of Nazareth.

But they claim that trust was exploited in the most wicked way when they were systematically abused by nuns and sexually molested by other carers.  Sadly, their harrowing story isn't unique. Over the past few weeks hundreds of people who grew up in four Nazareth Children's homes - in Aberdeen, Glasgow, Lasswade and Kilmarnock - have come forward to talk about their own experiences.

https://www.thefreelibrary.com/NAZARETH+NUNS+ABUSED+US+ALL%3B+Family+to+sue+the+Poor+Sisters+who+are...-a060691760 

WE WANT JUSTICE FOR ALL CHILDREN ABUSED BY NUNS;

 EXCLUSIVE: VICTIMS JOIN FORCES IN BID TO MAKE THE GUILTY PAY FOR YEARS OF CRUELTY. TWO women who suffered a reign of terror at the hands of nuns joined forces yesterday to form an inter- national helpline for other victims. Christina Buckley, 46, whose revelations about the horrors of Goldenbridge Orphanage, in Dublin, sparked a flood of abuse allegations, is determined the world should never forget how evil nuns preyed on children. 

The brave campaigner, who has just set up a counselling service for victims of abuse on Dublin's Ormond Quay, has now joined forces with Irish-Australian abuse victim Peggy Rush.  The 57-year-old mother of three has spent the last decade fighting for justice after enduring a brutal regime under the Sisters of Mercy at Goodwood Orphanage in South Australia.

https://www.thefreelibrary.com/WE+WANT+JUSTICE+FOR+ALL+CHILDREN+ABUSED+BY+NUNS%3B+EXCLUSIVE%3A+VICTIMS...-a061768687

Nuns abused children at four Catholic-run care homes, inquiry finds

The details emerged during an inquiry into historical institutional child abuse in Northern Ireland. Judge Sir Anthony Hart who compiled the major report said there were also instances of sexual abuse at the homes carried out by priests and lay people.
The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) was set up in 2012 to look into allegations of child abuse in 22 children’s homes and other residential institutions between 1922 to 1995.

http://metro.co.uk/2017/01/20/nuns-abused-children-at-four-catholic-run-care-homes-inquiry-finds-6393632/ 

Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry: Nuns abused children in care homes

Children's homes run by some churches, charities and state institutions in Northern Ireland were the scene of widespread abuse and mistreatment of young residents, a report has found.

The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) studied allegations of abuse in 22 homes and other residential institutions between 1922 to 1995. These were facilities run by the state, local authorities, the Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland and the children's charity Barnardo's.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-38685157 

Nuns' helper jailed for sex abuse

Blaney was sentenced at the High Court in Edinburgh  A former helper at a Nazareth House children's home in Lasswade has been jailed for six years after he admitted sexually abusing two boys.

Peter Blaney, 53, from Kilsyth, Lanarkshire, was sentenced on 1 September, but a ban was placed on reporting until the end of the Sister Marie Docherty trial.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/930637.stm 

More Victims Claiming Sexual Abuse by Montana Priests and Nuns

In January, Indian Country Today Media Network reported that a Yakima, Washington–based law firm had filed a 12-page legal complaint on behalf of a Northern Cheyenne tribal member seeking justice for years of abuse she suffered as a child at Montana’s St. Labre Indian School in the 1950s and 1960s.  The case is a significant one, as the accused is Father Emmett Hoffmann, a near-legendary figure on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation.
In recent weeks, the case has become even bigger. According to an amended, 19-page version of the legal complaint filed on June 6 in Montana’s Eighth Judicial District Court, priests and nuns misused their authority to “molest, exploit and abuse children” across eastern Montana. The Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis are now named in the complaint, and 10 additional male and female victims have joined the original Jane Doe in filing suit against the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings.

https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/news/more-victims-claiming-sexual-abuse-by-montana-priests/ 

Abuse commission told nun 'vilified'

Sr Xavieria Lally of the Goldenbridge industrial school in Dublin, had been "demonised and vilified" over the past decade, with this "accepted in the public domain as fact", Sr Helena O'Donoghue of the Sisters of Mercy told the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse yesterday.

The nuns' denials that children in the industrial school were "abused in a horrific way" had been "almost completely ignored", she said.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/abuse-commission-told-nun-vilified-1.423503 

Philomena author reveals abuse of Irish children ‘sold’ to America

Irish children born out of wedlock in the 1950s and 60s were often sold to American couples by the Catholic Church, according to a television documentary by the author of the Philomena story.
In the BBC programme, Martin Sixsmith says that the system was a ‘lottery’ for the children as the Church did little to ensure the adoptive parents would be suitable. Sixsmith is the author of the book Philomena, which was made into an Oscar nominated film starring Dame Judy Dench and Steve Coogan.

http://ireland-calling.com/lifestyle/philomena-author-reveals-abuse-suffered-irish-children-sold-to-america/ 

Bad girls do the best sheets

Before the welfare net existed, religious orders used to catch orphans and unmarried mothers abandoned by their families. Alan Gill writes how girls suffered under the nuns' vale of tears.
They were called "laundry slaves" - women and teenage girls employed in commercial laundries run by Catholic religious orders, the idea being to combine rehabilitation of supposed delinquents with the chance to earn a modest profit.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/23/1050777303111.html 

An Irritable Post by an Irritable Nun

The hot weather is getting to me. I have laid aside, for the time being, a long and carefully argued post about RB 31 and the role of the cellarer and decided instead to have a little fun with some of my King Charles’ heads. In no particular order, therefore:
The Vatican Bank
Well, perhaps we now know why Pope Francis wasn’t at that concert! There has been more than a whiff of sulphur around the Institute of Religious Works (IOR), as the Bank is known, for many years. We must continue to hope for a thoroughgoing investigation and reform. However, those inclined to gloat should remember (a) that British banks are not exactly models of propriety, alas, and (b) ask themselves which other banks donated $70 million to charity in 2012. For reasons that are probably only too clear to you, if not to me, I have not yet received the call to go and sort them out. I shall therefore join the thousands of others acting as armchair experts and bore you in due course with my theories and opinions on what should be done.

http://www.ibenedictines.org/2013/07/10/an-irritable-post-by-an-irritable-nun/