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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
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To: Dr. Eckleburg
Of course I read that. Testimony of victims constitutes evidence. But it does not constitute proof unless the testimony can be verified, and the verification process (under any equitable system of justice) requires that tne accused must be able to confront their accusers, present evidence in their defense, cross-examine witnesses, etc.

The problem here is not that five volumes of evidence count for nothing, but that they fall short of the evidentiary criteria needed for actual criminal prosecution.

The indications of gross wrongdoing are distressing in the extreme. But since most of the perpetrators are now dead, how can imposing guilt and shame upon their successors accomplish justice?

Perhaps some want to revive the practice of collective reparations for historic crimes. Do you want to endorse that idea?

121 posted on 05/21/2009 11:51:45 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ("Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets." - Isaac Asimov)
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To: netmilsmom
“We know it’s wrong now, but you are looking at this as we do TODAY. Not then. It’s as if you are upset that leeches were used to treat illness and refuse to see that the person administering the cure knew no better.”

You apparently don't understand. Sexual abuse of children has been illegal for more than a year or two. The Catholic church and its appendages knew this and willfully did not turn this into authorities until very recently (i.e. - less than ten years). They knew this was illegal and immoral and they insisted on allowing it and making it available to those they already knew were illegally raping children.

Why can't you get this into your head?

122 posted on 05/21/2009 11:56:39 AM PDT by ConservativeMind (The UN has never won a war, nor a conflict, but liberals want it to rule all militaries.)
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To: WVKayaker

A call for justice is not an attack.

And I do demand that the people involved - as many as are alive make amends. So far they are refusing to do so.
That stance is not supported in any bible I have ever read even though it seems your personal creed.

I didn’t allow the Mittbots to make opposing Romney’s liberal record be all about bashing Mormons. I am not going to allow you, or anyone else to turn a call for justice into being all about bashing Catholics, or Christians in general.

You personally are attacking anyone who demands amends be made or the guilty be brought to justice. You personally impugn their motives. You are fully deserving of having your own motives examined because you personally are quoting scripture to promote some personal fantasy you have that Gods demand for his people to exercise forgiveness translates to a requirement for waiving justice and restitution in the legal realm.

I am certainly up to pars the posts you have made, the assertions you were making about others, and the context of the scriptures you quoted verses the meanings you ascribe.

Of course you have no wife to beat. They don’t let you marry them that young.

Don’t like that? to bad it is no farther from the mark than your assertion that the circle of people I surround myself with were all atheists and agnostics.

Liberty in Christ does not mean lack of consequences in the material world. No matter how much you continue to argue that it does.

...lets see “Drowning in sorrow” “Pity parties”
okay this puts you personally in the group of strictly faith healing types who deny physical medicine. Even though Luke was a physician.

Why do I assert this? Because trauma as a child produces changes in the brain that have to do with how memories are stored. It also often produces atrophy in parts of the brain that have to do with goal setting. If you wish to deny this, MRI technology is not your friend, and you are pretty much going to have to deny its accuracy and existence, as you seem to wish to erase the last seven or eight years of advances in post traumatic stress disorder research. For a simple readers digest condensed version of this material - read chapter ten of Dr. H. Norman Wright’s Crisis & Trauma counseling. It is a guide written to help ministers and lay counselors not spout the blather you spew even in the face of the empirical evidence.

Now in post 79 you quoted 2 Cor 2 on forgiveness.

I responded in post94 with Mat 18:6 on leading the believer astray in which scripture equates this with harming a child - and prescribes eternal consequences.

To that you asserted in post 96 I had no knowledge of the people and events in question, and intimated I was making an unfair judgment. In point of fact, I have known several of the male victims for years.

In post 108 I intimated it was ironic that you were accusing me of making a judgement about others when I was an outsider to the parties involved. Since I do know some of the parties involved, and the particulars of what happened to them, and since you didn’t attempt to find out whether I did or did no know such information before asserting that I did not - my post was apt.

In post 110 your classic line “Why so much interest? Is it prurient, or just morbid curiosity? “ (you do remember writing that right?) Asserts that because I care about the issue, and am focused on justice - well I must be a pervert or just look for vulgar things to fixate on. Your false dichotomy left out the possibility that I might wish for justice and vindication for people I personally know.

In the posts since 110, you have basically continued to defend your vulgar post 110 and in fact continue to assert that it was Christian of you to make it and somehow uncharitable of me to call you on it.

Is your church by any chance Westboro Baptist in Topeka? You seem to be an ideological match.


123 posted on 05/21/2009 12:26:47 PM PDT by MrEdd (Heck? Geewhiz Cripes, thats the place where people who don't believe in Gosh think they aint going.)
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To: MrEdd

124 posted on 05/21/2009 12:37:24 PM PDT by WVKayaker ( God said, 'Cancel Program GENESIS.' The universe ceased to exist.- Arth. C. Clarke's shortest story)
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To: MrEdd

A better reply:

Romans 8: 28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him,[j] who[k] have been called according to his purpose. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

31What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”[l]

37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[m] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.


125 posted on 05/21/2009 12:42:21 PM PDT by WVKayaker ( God said, 'Cancel Program GENESIS.' The universe ceased to exist.- Arth. C. Clarke's shortest story)
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To: Mrs. Don-o; 1000 silverlings
that they fall short of the evidentiary criteria needed for actual criminal prosecution.

Maybe you didn't read the article closely enough.

Victims of the abuse, who are now in their 50s to 80s, lobbied long and hard for an official investigation. They say that for all its incredible detail, the report doesn't nail down what really matters — the names of their abusers.

The Catholic religious orders that ran more than 50 workhouse-style reform schools from the late 19th century until the mid-1990s offered public words of apology, shame and regret Wednesday. But when questioned, their leaders indicated they would continue to protect the identities of clergy accused of abuse — men and women who were never reported to police, and were instead permitted to change jobs and keep harming children.

WHO never reported the crimes to the police? The Roman Catholic authorities who admitted they KNEW of these crimes but chose instead to protect sexual perverts for over a century.

Buckley, who said she was abused at an orphanage run by the Sisters of Mercy, which ran several refuges for girls where the report documented chronic brutality, said the religious orders for years branded the victims as money-seeking liars — and were incapable of admitting their guilt today.

Nothing new there. Deny, deflect, and protect the abusers at all costs for over a century.

The report found that molestation and rape were "endemic" in boys' facilities, chiefly run by the Christian Brothers order, and supervisors pursued policies that increased the danger.

"Increased the danger?" Astounding. Are we to think the Roman Catholic hierarchy paid out all this money and admitted these events occurred for over 100 years because this abuse DIDN'T happen?

Ireland's myriad religious orders, much like their mother church, have been devastated by 15 years of scandals involving past cover-ups of abusers in their ranks.

lol. "Fifteen years" obviously doesn't come close.

"Most of these orders will literally die out in Ireland within the next generation or so," said Michael Kelly, editor of the Irish Catholic newspaper in Dublin. "Many of them are already in wind-up mode. They lack the confidence even to seek new vocations (recruits), due to the stigma associated with their members' shocking, scandalous behavior."

If the editor of the Roman Catholic newspaper in Dublin believes these reports, why would you question them?

The Irish government, which in 1999 apologized for its role in permitting decades of abuse and established the commission to nail down the full truth of the matter, has tried to use money to bring closure to the victims.

Sounds like they may have come close to "nailing down the full truth," except that this "truth" omits the names of the pederasts, and absolves the Roman Catholic church of wrong-doing by forbidding the victims to sue the church. Same old, same old. "Take this cash for your pain and suffering and broken lives, and shut your mouth. Now return to church and confess your sins to 'another Christ.'"

In July, 2007, in Los Angeles, the Roman Catholic archdiocese paid out over $700 million to victims of pederast priests and the RCC's secretive disdain for the victims. Add this $700 million to the $300 million paid out the previous year in Los Angeles, and the total paid out to victims by the L.A. RCC becomes over one billion dollars.

And the more that RCs make excuses for their pederast priests, the more this abuse will continue.

A government-appointed panel has paid 12,000 survivors of the schools, orphanages and other church-run residences an average of $90,000 each — on condition they surrender their right to sue either the church or state. About 2,000 more claims are pending. Irish Catholic leaders cut a controversial deal with the government in 2001 that capped the church's contribution at $175 million — a fraction of the final cost.

God willing, Roman Catholics really will wake up and begin to think about what's best "for the children."

126 posted on 05/21/2009 12:46:16 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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To: WVKayaker

I will take this as an admission that you are one of the Westboro crowd. Which pretty much explains your posts and your contention that you can accuse anyone you please of anything you please as a matter of course.


127 posted on 05/21/2009 12:49:20 PM PDT by MrEdd (Heck? Geewhiz Cripes, thats the place where people who don't believe in Gosh think they aint going.)
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To: ConservativeMind
Why can't you get this into your head?

Because they are taught from a young age that priests are an "alter Christus," - "another Christ."

It's a perk in the job description. As we learn on this FR thread, written by a RC priest and posted proudly by a RC FReeper...

THE AMAZING GIFT OF THE PRIESTHOOD

"...Simply stated, the Catholic priest is another Christ. Through his ordination he has been granted the amazing gift of being a channel of divine grace for the eternal salvation of those he come into contact with -- both in his official ministry and in his personal life..."

"Another Christ...in both his official ministry and in his personal life."

Bad theology destroys.

128 posted on 05/21/2009 12:53:26 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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To: MrEdd
I am not a Baptist. I am sorry you wish to dwell in the past, but I am not your problem. Have a good life... or at least try to look forward!

God is in control. God is perfectly able to take over your problems. He does it for anybody who asks, every day! Try Him!

I haven't accused anyone. You have done enough of that for all...

129 posted on 05/21/2009 12:57:49 PM PDT by WVKayaker ( God said, 'Cancel Program GENESIS.' The universe ceased to exist.- Arth. C. Clarke's shortest story)
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To: Dr. Eckleburg
I didn't say that Catholic religious orders were not at fault in their failure to bring timely criminal charges. Nobody. brought timely criminal charges: not the Church, not the State, not the witnesses, not the victims.

That's just the problem. If you do not press criminal charges promptly, you blow the possibility of having a successful criminal prosecution of the perpetrators.

If I had any suspecion that a Church employee (or a public employee, or anyone else) were abusing a child, I would go to the police FIRST. Not the school principal, not the pastor, not the press: the police. I think all of us would. You won't find anyone disagreeing on that.

130 posted on 05/21/2009 1:01:02 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ("Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets." - Isaac Asimov)
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To: Mrs. Don-o
But since most of the perpetrators are now dead, how can imposing guilt and shame upon their successors accomplish justice?

We don't know that "most are dead" since we don't know who they are because Rome refuses to make their names public.

Hundreds could still be working in schools and churches even now. Thus the need for more pathetic secrecy from Rome.

In addition to the individual pederast priests, the Roman Catholic church is guilty of the crimes of ignoring sexual abuse, and according to the article, of actually encouraging it. Per the article...

The report found that molestation and rape were "endemic" in boys' facilities, chiefly run by the Christian Brothers order, and supervisors pursued policies that increased the danger.

Perhaps some want to revive the practice of collective reparations for historic crimes. Do you want to endorse that idea?

That's right; deflect the discussion into something meaningless. It's all in the past. This will never happen again.

Except maybe yesterday.

131 posted on 05/21/2009 1:02:30 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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To: Mrs. Don-o
Sorry, but the first instinct of so many RC posters on these threads is to give some flimsy excuse to deflect the hard truth by trying to exonerate Rome and pederasts priests. Yours included.

Keep your children out of parochial schools.

132 posted on 05/21/2009 1:06:43 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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To: WVKayaker
I haven't accused anyone.

“Why so much interest? Is it prurient, or just morbid curiosity? “

You personally asserted that interest in justice that drew someone to this thread was really due to prurience. Perhaps in West Virginia that is affirmation?

133 posted on 05/21/2009 1:10:43 PM PDT by MrEdd (Heck? Geewhiz Cripes, thats the place where people who don't believe in Gosh think they aint going.)
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To: All
I just want to call your attention to this tread... related to the Catholic Church as well.

LINK: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2255283/posts

Black clergy opposing gay marriage resent civil rights comparision Thursday, May 21, 2009 4:00:10 PM · 25 of 25 ElPatriota to prayerfullywaiting ...When I oppose gay marriage or Obama and his standing on issues I am accused of being a bigot. I really resent that. I know it is a tactic the gay agenda uses to bring support to their cause but I refuse to be silenced. Slavery... I AGREE with everything you are saying, just one point. I HATE the work gay... It is like suggar coating a piece of sh**. Call it what it is "homosexual-marriage." It's not even insulting, it's just what it is. Now as to the word "marriage" I also have a problem with that but I have come up with the adequate word but NOT marriage. People, even Republicans can be so stupid not see what this "issue" really means in thw war on values...It simply opens the gate to all kind of degenerate acts. Fags are degenerates... But not stupid. They know once this is officially sanctioned by our laws, the rest will come easier. BESTIALIY... Yes the next frontier!.... Don't be surprised if some degenerate wants to marry a dog or donkey or whatever, or how about a "trisome?" Fag1, Fag2 and their dog...:) I am not trying to be funny... I believe we are going down this road. Once the CANCER sets in... It will keep growing... and that is why I am so angry among other things, with the CC for not doing ANYTHING ABOUT IT. And when I say "anything," I mean, the CC goes through de motions... but I fail to see them defending our values with REAL conviction. The CC is a huge institution... a country for God's sake!... I would like to see the Pope himself being more active in this war... They should be on the 6 o'clock news at least once a week counteracting the army of the left which is a powerful force the CNNs, NBCs, Hollywood, ACLU, the education bureacracy... The universiy establisments...even "Catholic" Institutions like university of Notre Dame! lean toward the left more and more....BUT ALL I HEAR IS SILENCE.

134 posted on 05/21/2009 1:13:40 PM PDT by ElPatriota (The SILENCE of the Catholic Church in the Social-values war is DEAFENING!!!)
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To: WVKayaker
If you would of read my ENTIRE post you would of seen I covered most of that.

I'm not here to bash anyone. I want people of all sorts to look at who and what they support/finance and clearly see the truth. If not, they're are blinded sinners.

As you said, we all worship the same God no matter what religion.

135 posted on 05/21/2009 1:30:18 PM PDT by wolfcreek ("unnamed "right-wing extremist")
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To: Mrs. Don-o; Dr. Eckleburg
If I had any suspicion that a Church employee (or a public employee, or anyone else) were abusing a child, I would go to the police FIRST. Not the school principal, not the pastor, not the press: the police. I think all of us would. You won't find anyone disagreeing on that.

Apparently, the Catholic church and its “orders” disagree with your stance:

“The Catholic religious orders that ran more than 50 workhouse-style reform schools from the late 19th century until the mid-1990s offered public words of apology, shame and regret Wednesday. But when questioned, their leaders indicated they would continue to protect the identities of clergy accused of abuse — men and women who were never reported to police, and were instead permitted to change jobs and keep harming children.”

We are also aware that the Vatican has been active in the cover up, at least until sometime in the past nine years:

The investigation of the tax-supported schools uncovered previously secret Vatican records that demonstrated church knowledge of pedophiles in their ranks all the way back to the 1930s.

We are not told that either Irish Catholic orders or the Vatican itself will change this “confidential buffet-style raping” policy from that of the past. We are only told that all parties involved “apologize” and will continue to protect Catholic abusers for all time.

136 posted on 05/21/2009 1:30:52 PM PDT by ConservativeMind (The UN has never won a war, nor a conflict, but liberals want it to rule all militaries.)
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To: DoughtyOne

Thank you and you’re welcome.


137 posted on 05/21/2009 1:31:35 PM PDT by wolfcreek ("unnamed "right-wing extremist")
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To: Dr. Eckleburg
The authors of the report have the names, and the report itself said that most of the perpetrators and accused perpetrators are dead.

The continuing relevance (in Ireland) consists in making sure that effective screening and supervisory procesures are put in place so that such abuses cannot recur in any youth facilities, denominational, public, or private.

As for the American scene, I see no evidence of prosecuting attorneys going after, for instance, any metropolitan School District's correspondance files and personnel records over the past 60 years so they can comb them for evidence of neglct or cruelty to children. Hofstra University Researcher Charol Shakeshaft --- Google that name and you'll get tons of information --- not only found a higher incidence of abuse percentage-wise in pubic schools than in Catholic institutions, but found the level of vigilance and safeguards far lower.

(From School Reform News:)

"A few years ago, for example, a review of 412 teachers hired by the Cleveland, Ohio school district disclosed only 26 had undergone required background checks. Not only did 192 school employees have felony convictions, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported, but 27 of them had three or more."

Evidence of cover-up? Who needs to cover up if nobody is looking?

At least in the last 15 years, Catholic schools/churches is the US have developed the most comprehensive level of background-checks, child-protective measures and supervision of any youth-related services in the world. I the Irish church --- all the Irish churches --- should do the same.

I wonder if we'll ever see that level of oversight in the public schools, youth programs, juvenile detention centers, and foster care?

This may not fit in with your over-all polemic, but it's something worth looking into.

138 posted on 05/21/2009 1:41:19 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ("Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets." - Isaac Asimov)
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To: ConservativeMind
See mine at #138. Those who are still living, for whom a grand jury has enough evidence to return an indictment, should be indicted, arrested, and brought to trial. Anyone who would impede this, at any level in the institution, would be very much in the wrong. And should be proecuted themselves, for obstruction of justice.
139 posted on 05/21/2009 1:52:22 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ("Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets." - Isaac Asimov)
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To: Mrs. Don-o; Dr. Eckleburg
I appreciate your links and will look into them.

However, it is only logical to find many more public school abuses, even “percentage-wise,” than one could ever hope to find Catholic abuse cases.

The Catholic church, 66% of all US Catholic bishops, the Irish Catholic Orders, and the Vatican guarantee their perverted representatives are NEVER REPORTED TO PUBLIC AUTHORITIES FOR PUBLIC PROSECUTION! This remains true of every solitary abuser left alive in all of Ireland.

So, of course, even if there is one public school abuser hauled before court, it will be infinitely more than the number of Catholic pedophiles that were publicly prosecuted.

140 posted on 05/21/2009 2:10:55 PM PDT by ConservativeMind (The UN has never won a war, nor a conflict, but liberals want it to rule all militaries.)
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