First, let me say that I’m not a Catholic.
However, I remember all the good that the RCC has done over the years; orphages that did NOT abuse children, schools for the blind, deaf, and mute, institutions for the handicapped...
Were they *ALL* abusive?
Whas it *ALL* just a ruse?
And how much better is government at doing these jobs?
Oh, boy... those designated to dumpster dive on those ‘evil’ protestants are going to be flooding FR with ‘everybody’ is doing it stories.
Bkmrk.
Oh what now
Here comes parse parse parse
Craziness
This ain’t God at work in that place
It’s someone else
I went to Catholic school through third grade. Some of the nuns were kind, some were not. At least one was mentally unbalanced.
I thought there was an underlying ethos of cruelty and hardness in the schools I went to, in three parishes and two states (we moved a lot, my father was a contractor for the Air Force).
I didn’t come up with the “cruelty ethos” concept at the time. It was years later. I tried to have a conversation with a supposedly high-ranking priest about returning to the church. His demeanor was extremely unpleasant; it was obvious he was not interested in talking with me. I came to him humbly and with contrition, and left thinking “never again.”
I don’t know what happened to the Catholic Church. All I have is a collection of somewhat disjointed memories and a vague theory that I can’t prove. I’m 63 now; my parents left the church in 1963, when I was in third grade. I tried going back to church two years ago. I went for several months, got the cold shoulder when I went to breakfast after Mass, and finally left when I had to listen to global warming and environmentalism during the homily.
I did get to experience Mass as a grand symphony of exultation and piety when I was a small child, and I’ve never forgotten it. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to provide that for my children.
In my NZ town the only piano teachers were the nuns at the convent school...
Any Protestant child who went to them for lessons was habitually tapped on the knuckles for mistakes...sometimes so hard the bruises were still there days later...these were my school mates and I saw the hands ...sometimes even cut...
It was said that the Catholic piano students were not mistreated in this way...
When my mother asked me if I wanted to take piano, knowing about the abuse towards my friends and fearing the nuns I said I didn’t although I loved music and I did long to learn...
Later in high school our headmistress was from a local prominent Catholic family and openly mocked and verbally abused Protestant girls while gushing over the Catholic girls especially her own relatives...
I was fortunate that my older sisters had excelled in academics and sports and my family was a prominent Protestant one so I got a kind of pass, but I knew she wasn’t fond of me either...
I just finished a great book, “BEFORE WE WERE YOURS” which is a fictional book based on the true events of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, a state sanctioned orphanage that operated between 1939 and 1950. The director routinely had children stolen from poor families and sold to rich ones, Joan Crawford, June Allison were among their clients. The abuse was horrible, especially to the older kids who were not desirable for adoption and similar to this story although not a catholic orphanage, there were missing children suspected of being murdered, starved and abused.
St. Lukes Catholic Church. Barrington, RI.
I was 7 years old.
Monsignor O’Gara talked my parents out of pressing charges.
The nuns all knew what happened. They grabbed me after the incident.
THANKS SO MUCH for posting this.....I scanned large sections of it, and was surprised at its length, and the exhaustive detail, not to mention the quality of the reportage. Lots was going through my mind as I read, not the least of which being that these accounts are infinitely more believable than all the bogus Salem Witch hunt prosecutions involving day care workers throughout the 1980s, virtually ALL of which were proven to be fabricated in a grand sick conspiracy between Law Enforcement, Lawyers and political figures looking for notoriety as a way to add notches to their respective belts,beef up their resumes as “crime-fighters”-—what a gold mine this was in the 80s,(”Look, a whole new untapped area we can get in on the ground floor!) and how many lives were ruined, how many were literally IMPRISONED (start with Margaret Kelly Michaels, for one, right here in New Jersey. Meanwhile, the prosecutors suffered not at all for their BIG LIE. Once again my thanks, Megan C. -—this will be bookmarked for future reference.
” And then I personally invite you to reflect on the criminal organization that covered up for child abuse and even outright murder. The Catholic church is due for a vast and intense investigation by Federal authorities and the criminals who have hidden behind robes and habits and vestments need to be rooted out and brought to justice. “
RICO!
It is time for a Second Reformation...hopefully this time it will take.
I’d approach this with caution.
There were many, many stories a few years ago about a boy’s reform school in Fla where the staff (supposedly) had murdered large numbers of boys. Elderly men who had been in the home told horror stories of murder, but they didn’t provide any proof. There is an old private cemetery on the grounds and when it was rediscovered the press went nuts with the idea it was a secret cemetery that was created to hold the remains of murdered boys.
There was nothing to the reports. After a few weeks of hysterical stories it turned out the cemetery wasn’t secret. It was documented there was a cemetery on the grounds, it was just forgotten due to the decades that had passed since it’s use. It held the unclaimed remains of boys who had died of illnesses or accidents. No family could be found for the boys and there wasn’t money to pay for traditional burials using a funeral home and regular cemeteries. There was no evidence of even a single case of murder and the story suddenly disappeared from the news.
Two words: Orphan Trains
The Catholic Church is corrupt...
I read this piece. It is heartbreaking and hard to read.
It took a lot of covering from high places to hide these crimes.
Absolutely horrifying and unforgettable. Those people are surely damned.
The Catholic Church has been like that for centuries.
The whole system is corrupt by design.
Read the entire article. It brought back a memory of something my mother said. She detested nuns and I mean, DETESTED nuns. One of her brothers lost sight in one of his eyes when a nun poked his eye swinging a long stick with a pointed rubber tip at his head. Caught him in the eye, I guess. My father had to become a Catholic in order to marry my mom (her family’s insistence) and promise to raise the children as Catholics. He took it seriously, to this day. My mom? I can only recall her going into a Mass very rarely. She would tell us that the Church would threaten families that if they got nuns or priests in trouble it would hurt the church, which would cause a decrease of priests, leading to no Sacraments being given resulting in going to Hell. She said it absolutely terried the Old-School Catholics to even think of going up against the Catholic Church. She was glad when people finally started talking. True story. Sigh.