Thousands beaten, raped in Irish reform schools

Yahoo/AP ^

[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.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

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.

Shakeshaft is a vatican favorite with suspect "statistics" like that.

When the LA public school district pays out one billion dollars to redress sexual abuse claims, you can start discussing parity.

And it shouldn't surprise anyone another difference is that cases are criminally prosecuted all the time in public schools while it is the usual policy for Rome to insist on anonymity and no criminal trials for its pederast priests.

People who continue to ignore the forest for the trees risk a forest fire.

[Mrs. Don-o]

(1) Shakeshaft's figures are based on her own investigation, not on prosecutions.

(2) I would far rather see criminal prosecutions of actual abusers/offenders (and this includes bishops/religious superiors guilty of obstruction of justice) rather than lawsuits that result in diocesan bankruptcies and the looting of the schools, property, and other assets of parishes that had nothing whatsoever to do with the offenses. Going for civil lawsuits and settlements rather than punitive measures against criminal perpetrators (and their enablers) is a huge injustice.

(3) The Catholic Church in the US has instituted a "Safe Environment" program It's based on the screening of all church employees and volunteers, universal training on detecting signs of abuse, and automatic criminal reporting. It is a comprehensive effort unmatched by any other institution in the United States.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

And who was in charge of the Vatican sexual abuse investigation in 2001 when he wrote a letter to all bishops instructing them to circle the wagons, and threatened the victims with excommunication if they went public with the abuse?

POPE OBSTRUCTED SEX ABUSE INQUIRY

"'Cases of this kind are subject to the pontifical secret,' Ratzinger's letter concludes. Breaching the pontifical secret at any time while the 10-year jurisdiction order is operating carries penalties, including the threat of excommunication.

[Mrs. Don-o]

See mine at #142.

And D.E., Shakeshaft is an internationally-recognized researcher affiliated with Virginia Commonwealth University and Hofstra University, with almost 30 years of experience. She has no connections with the Catholic Church. If you have any actual links to sources disputing Shakeshaft's research, let's see them. Otherwise, your reflexive dismissal of her findings does not reflect well on your objectivity.

[wmfights]

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.

I would think that this would be something all Christians would be outraged by. Abuse can happen anywhere but once a problem is known it's what you do that matters.

I read in an earlier post that trauma can cause the brain to be altered and the victim can suffer with the consequences of this for the rest of their life. The least Christians can do is seek the truth and hold those that abuse, or protect abusers, accountable.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Sorry, I'd wanted to give you this link on Shakeshaft's research background: Shakeshaft. As you can see, she has no connection at all with a "Catholic" or "Vatican" perspective.

Here I must end my comments, because this is really the limit of my knowledge of the subject.

You may count on my support for "Equal Justice." Amen.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Going for civil lawsuits and settlements rather than punitive measures against criminal perpetrators (and their enablers) is a huge injustice.

But who do you think is responsible for this gag order on criminal prosecutions?

It's the Roman Catholic church, the Vatican, the priestly class and plenty of laymen who prefer to cough up the congregations' hard-earned cash than admit wrong-doing and prosecute their own.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Amen.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

None of us knows Shakeshaft's motives but as you wrote, "Shakeshaft's figures are based on her own investigation, not on prosecutions."

Her "own investigation" does not comport with most people's understanding or their own lying eyes.

[Mrs. Don-o]

If Church policy was to obstruct justice, impede criminal prosecutions of perpetrators, and steer things toward lawsuits, civil settlements, and bankrupting dioceses, then Church policy was abysmally wrong.

And the people who carried out the abuse of children, and their protectors and enablers, were doing something unequivocally damnable. If they do not repent from the heart, they will go to hell.

I think this is my last comment. Except to repeat what I said before: I support equal justice under law.

[MrEdd]

(2) I would far rather see criminal prosecutions of actual abusers/offenders (and this includes bishops/religious superiors guilty of obstruction of justice) rather than lawsuits that result in diocesan bankruptcies and the looting of the schools, property, and other assets of parishes that had nothing whatsoever to do with the offenses. Going for civil lawsuits and settlements rather than punitive measures against criminal perpetrators (and their enablers) is a huge injustice.

So, at what point did God remove the principles of making amends for harm done found in scripture???

This isn't just about pedophiles being protected Mrs. Don-o. This is about pedophiles being protected AND Those they harmed being cast off like so much dishwater for decades.

Now if someone harmed you personally in a far lesser way than what was done to these children, say they only burned down your uninsured home one night with your vehicles and all your family photos and your pets inside, You get out alive but you are burned and in shock. Take it that the person who did this was oh perhaps the local sheriff. Someone who had authority over youjust as the Church had authority over these kids.

After this happens, the govornment refuses to discuss it. Leaves you homeless. They aren't going to make up for your loss, and you are wounded and peniless..

How is the Church's behavior not like that in this instance Mrs. Don-o? Is it okay only because it wasn't you?

[netmilsmom]

>>Why can’t you get this into your head? <<

Why can’t you get into YOUR head that you are seeing the treatment of child sexual abusers from a 2009 standpoint and not from the standpoint of the years it happened? You’re speaking like a imbecile (in a clinical sense) and I will tell you this, my FRiend, that is my professional opinion of your rant and obsession with something that does not effect you.

I’m sorry that you are so thick that you can’t get it nor can you read apparently. I TOLD you do not write to me again unless you understand that concept. You still don’t get it, you argue like a liberal on your “feelings” and to be quite honest with you, I have neither the time nor the inclination to instruct you any more. I have had a much easier time teaching my 11 year old Latin than teaching you what was the norm in the treatment of this Psychological disorder in years gone by.

[ConservativeMind]

Get a load of the last post from netmilsmom, post #152.

It helps show that those who get Psychology degrees are the ones with the most problems.

[Alex Murphy]

Why can’t you get into YOUR head that you are seeing the treatment of child sexual abusers from a 2009 standpoint and not from the standpoint of the years it happened?

What I don't understand is why the Catholic Church treated the child sexual abusers within its clergy "from the standpoint of the years it happened" and not from the standpoint of 33 A.D....

"But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea."
-- Matthew 18:6

Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.
-- Leviticus 18:22

If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
-- Leviticus 20:13

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion....Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
-- Romans 1:26-27,32

What are they all so afraid of? The truth, it seems. [Faithful Departed author Philip] Lawler points out that while less than five percent of American priests have been accused of sexual abuse, some two-thirds of our bishops were apparently complicit in cover-ups. The real scandal isn't the sick excesses of a few dozen pedophiles, or even the hundreds of priests who had affairs with teenage boys -- the bulk of abuse cases. No, according to Lawler, it is the malfeasance of wealthy, powerful, and evidently worldly men who fill the thrones -- but not the shoes -- of the apostles. In case after case, we read in their correspondence, in the records of their soulless, bureaucratic responses to victims of psychic torture and spiritual betrayal, these bishops' prime concern was to save the infrastructure, the bricks and mortar and mortgages. Ironically, their lack of a supernatural concern for souls is precisely what cost them so much money in the end.
-- From the thread Kneeling Before the World [Catholic Caucus]

"As you are going with your adversary to the magistrate, try hard to be reconciled to him on the way, or he may drag you off to the judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison."
-- Luke 12:58

What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. "Expel the wicked man from among you."
-- 1 Corinthians 5:12-13

[MrEdd]

I will address my question to Mrs. Don-o in post 151 to you as well. Had God rescinded the principles of making amends to those you harm at the time?

Regardless of whether the Church thought pedophiles redeemable or not, the fact remains that they discarded the victims like so many used condoms.

Nobody who does that deserves to get a free pass and neither does anyone who defends it.

[fortheDeclaration]

Who would send their children to schools run by this type of institutionalized coercion, secrecy, lies and privilege?

It is indeed amazing how the RCC have brainwashed their members to the point that they will even turn their children over to them.

[netmilsmom]

Truth be told, if any one of you think that Priests and Nuns were the only sexual abusers that went off with only the treatment of the time, you are very sorely mistaken.

Sorry guys, history is set in stone.
This the the way MOST sexual abusers were treated. From a Catholic point of view or a Public School POV, or a summer camp POV, etc. It was wrong but so we learned.

It’s much more fun to focus on a tree than to look at the forrest.

[MrEdd]

Where have I ever said, on any thread that the church was the only entity that abuses children?

Link to support your assertion.

I have said that the Church did ( and is continuing to do ) something wrong. It has attempted to abrogate it’s responsibility to make these children who it harmed as whole as possible. A lawsuit, or action by the state should never have been required.

I do not give anyone else who harms children in this way a pass either. Your straw man has no weight, and your attempt to deflect my question by accusing me of holding only the church accountable for wrong doings...explains exactly how the church got in the position it is now in. Does it not?

[Mrs. Don-o]

You have misunderstood me greatly if you think I am against requiring the guilty party to make amends, which would mean repairing harms and restoring, as much as possible, the victim’s well-being which he damaged or destroyed.

This restoring and repairing (reparation) is required by justice. Some part of that might be insurance. Some portion might be from parties who shared culpabilityas accomplices: and this culpability would be for trial and jury to decide.

What I’m against is looting the assets of parties who had nothing to do with the crime: forcing the closure of parishes, schools, etc. which, though part of the same diocese, are entirely blameless of any wrongdoing.

[Marysecretary]

Christians, well meaning or not, took thousands of Indian children from their homes and forced them into boarding schools where the same thing happened. My daughter in law, who is a Tlingit Indian, tells of how her mother and others were separated from their families and forced into these schools. How people, Christian protestants or Catholic, can misuse children this way and represent God, I’ll never know. It boggles my mind.