Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Thousands beaten, raped in Irish reform schools
Yahoo/AP ^

Posted on 05/20/2009 9:26:48 AM PDT by nuconvert

DUBLIN – A fiercely debated, long-delayed investigation into Ireland's Roman Catholic-run institutions says priests and nuns terrorized thousands of boys and girls in workhouse-style schools for decades — and government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation.

Nine years in the making, Wednesday's 2,600-page report sides almost completely with the horrific reports of abuse from former students sent to more than 250 church-run, mostly residential institutions.

It concluded that church officials always shielded their orders' pedophiles from arrest to protect their own reputations and, according to documents uncovered in the Vatican, knew that many pedophiles were serial attackers.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: catholic; catholicbashing; catholicchurch; childabuse; ireland; juveniledelinquents
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 161-180 next last
To: ConservativeMind

I take it that you just hate the Catholic Church a feel an urgent need to bash it.

There is always going to be some evil in any orgainization. But it would be better to be raised up by nuns in Ireland than by social workers in the U.S.

And what does “international” have to do with the fact that there are many more cases of sexual abuse in the public schools, and that that abuse is getting worse, whereas in the Church things have gotten far better since the rotten 70s.


41 posted on 05/20/2009 10:52:50 AM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: nuconvert

Oh, the poor, shamed religious expressing their shame that such things went on.

From the article:
“But its findings will not be used for criminal prosecutions — in part because the Christian Brothers successfully sued the commission in 2004 to keep the identities of all of its members, dead or alive, unnamed in the report. No real names, whether of victims or perpetrators, appear in the final document.”

Yep, the RCC knows how to appear to be doing penance, but they know even better how to circle the legal wagons as effectively as any profit-making corporation.


42 posted on 05/20/2009 10:55:30 AM PDT by edweena
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: caver
I’m not saying this didn’t happen, but “thousands, beaten and raped”?

The report covers more than 50 years and tens of thousands of children. I believe it.

For a realistic but sickening taste of what was involved watch this Irish movie.

43 posted on 05/20/2009 10:58:52 AM PDT by aculeus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: ConservativeMind

I’m not even Catholic, hell I’m agnostic, but painting the entire Catholic church as you have done (some 1.1+ billion people) on the basis of what a teeny minority has done is hardly the product of a conservative mind.


44 posted on 05/20/2009 10:59:24 AM PDT by dmz
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: netmilsmom; chris_bdba; Cicero; karnage; DoughtyOne
Anti-Bubba182 in post #40 has the deadly quote from the article, which came from the Catholic church itself.

“..The commission dismissed as implausible a central defense of the religious orders — that, in bygone days, people did not recognize the sexual abuse of a child as a criminal offense, but rather as a sin that required repentance.

In their testimony, religious orders typically cited this as the principal reason why sex-predator priests and brothers were sheltered within the system and moved to new posts where they could still maintain daily contact with children...”

Defend the Catholic church on those words.

45 posted on 05/20/2009 11:00:57 AM PDT by ConservativeMind (The UN has never won a war, nor a conflict, but liberals want it to rule all militaries.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: Cicero

Exactly! It gets tiresome when someone seems to make it their mission in life to continually attack the Catholic church. I do relize that many Christian churches fill their members full of nonsense about what we do in the church but many grow up and finally find out that that is exactly what it was utter nonsense.I am not excusing anything. Most of this happened in the 1950’s and 1960’s while I was a child in that church. I never saw any of that and no one I knew who grew up in the church had anything like that happen.


46 posted on 05/20/2009 11:01:59 AM PDT by chris_bdba
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 41 | View Replies]

To: dmz

It appears that 66% of US Catholic bishops covering this up makes it the overwhelming majority of the highest leadership being responsible.

Read post #23. The working link to that is in post #38.


47 posted on 05/20/2009 11:03:52 AM PDT by ConservativeMind (The UN has never won a war, nor a conflict, but liberals want it to rule all militaries.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 44 | View Replies]

To: Cicero

Well, I believe many of the people who attend the Catholic church are decent people.

I believe the vast majority of priests are fine people, but the hierarchy above them is grotesquely corrupt.

Note all the bishops and others in the highest places in the Cathoilc church that have sought to hide illegal, immoral, sick abuses for decades.

The Catholic Caucus thread Alex quotes in post #23 and #38, and the disgusting legal stance taken by the Catholic church, as mentioned in post #40 (from this article) should help you understand that it isn’t necessarily the local people, but the leaders that are truly the problem.


48 posted on 05/20/2009 11:09:39 AM PDT by ConservativeMind (The UN has never won a war, nor a conflict, but liberals want it to rule all militaries.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 41 | View Replies]

To: netmilsmom

LOL! Yep that seems like what happend everytime anyone tries to discuss the issue. I have to tell you, a guy Dh works with recently converted because his wife and kids are Catholic. He’s been amazed at how the Christian church he was raised in complely distorted the chuch. He basically said they outright lied about it and did make us into “evil Catholic”. He’s pretty mad about it all.


49 posted on 05/20/2009 11:11:21 AM PDT by chris_bdba
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: nuconvert

So I’m guessing films like “The Magdalene Sisters”,”Heaven Help Us”, and others weren’t just made up out of whole cloth?


50 posted on 05/20/2009 11:15:10 AM PDT by garbanzo (Government is not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nuconvert; caver; Clintonfatigued; ConservativeMind; netmilsmom
Here's the same story as reported by th New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/world/europe/21ireland.html?em

If it happened, it's horrific. Criminal.

But look again at the article. We find that:

Take those same factors and apply them to a different hypothetical situation.

Say people in Italy, Germany, Korea, Japan, etc. claimed that U.S. soldiers abused them as civilians 50, 60, and 70 years ago.

Say the accused were long dead; written records were either unobtainable or nonexistent; US agencies which insisted on proof were deemed "uncooperative"; and there was a large, highly publicized monetary fund available to reward those who made accusations without evidence.

Would we, as Americans, assume the accusations were true, and join in a worldwide chorus condemning U.S. servicemen abroad as monsters of depravity?

No? No?

Hmm. Interesting.

51 posted on 05/20/2009 11:21:56 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ("Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets." - Isaac Asimov)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Mrs. Don-o

Unfortunately, post #40, which quotes the article, blows that out of the water.

The Catholic church agrees the stuff happened (at least to some extent), but that they didn’t see rapes of children as legal offenses to be admitted to civil authorities, but as something that could be dealt with internally, allowing abusers to ultimately be given more kids to rape.


52 posted on 05/20/2009 11:26:00 AM PDT by ConservativeMind (The UN has never won a war, nor a conflict, but liberals want it to rule all militaries.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 51 | View Replies]

To: nuconvert

May I suggest “The Magdalene Sisters”,Miramax Films avail. on netflix. It is about these schools.
I have a great aunt that was placed in one of these schools. She never had contact with the family again.
Her Grandson doing ancestor research contacted me about two years ago.
These weren’t very NICE places.. Shame


53 posted on 05/20/2009 11:30:23 AM PDT by Robe (Rome did not create a great empire by talking, they did it by killing all those who opposed them)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nuconvert

Spittle-dripping Anti-Catholic ping.


54 posted on 05/20/2009 11:37:01 AM PDT by Dionysius (Jingoism is no vice in these troubled times.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nuconvert; DoughtyOne; caver; ConservativeMind; All

Keep the faith, lose the Church.

With all the past abuses, payouts, and voting for Obama, I’d be out of the Catholic Church, pronto.


55 posted on 05/20/2009 11:59:36 AM PDT by wolfcreek ("unnamed "right-wing extremist")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cicero
Ireland has been sadly secularized,>>>>

no wonder. I wouldn't want anything to do with a Church that treated its members this way.
56 posted on 05/20/2009 12:00:27 PM PDT by petconservative (If the earth had a owner, and we were the tenants, we'd have been evicted by now....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: chris_bdba; ConservativeMind
...You seem to want to attack Catholics an awful lot should we also sensationalize any of the different denominations of Christians that come to light with abuses as a mark againt Christian churches?

There's no "sex club" denomination! Most of the protestants stick with adults, though!


57 posted on 05/20/2009 12:03:32 PM PDT by WVKayaker ( God said, 'Cancel Program GENESIS.' The universe ceased to exist.- Arth. C. Clarke's shortest story)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: ConservativeMind

>>“..The commission dismissed as implausible a central defense of the religious orders — that, in bygone days, people did not recognize the sexual abuse of a child as a criminal offense, but rather as a sin that required repentance.<<

Well, I’ll handle this one. I worked Psych in the 90s. It was commonly thought that the sexual abuse of a child WAS a disorder that could be treated and cured.
Now we know that’s wrong.

Hindsight is 20/20. My Dad died in 1982 from Colon cancer. If he had contracted it today, there would be a good chance he would survive. Treatments change.

So, you expect a religious order to override the Psychs telling them that a person could be treated or cured? They are religious, not doctors.


58 posted on 05/20/2009 12:06:05 PM PDT by netmilsmom (Psalm 109:8 - Let his days be few; and let another take his office)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: dmz

Thank you so much!


59 posted on 05/20/2009 12:08:27 PM PDT by netmilsmom (Psalm 109:8 - Let his days be few; and let another take his office)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 44 | View Replies]

To: chris_bdba

My DH did RCIA with a couple that had the same experience.


60 posted on 05/20/2009 12:10:18 PM PDT by netmilsmom (Psalm 109:8 - Let his days be few; and let another take his office)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 49 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 161-180 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson