Second child abuse uproar engulfs Catholic Church in Ireland

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article6722491.ece


A report detailing the alleged sexual abuse of 450 children by Roman Catholic priests in the Archdiocese of Dublin was handed to the Irish Government yesterday.

It is the second one this year to examine the extent of abuse perpetrated by members of the Catholic Church in Ireland and will undermine further its position in a country that only a few decades ago conformed rigidly to standards set by the Vatican.

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Two priests named in the report are facing prosecution and publication may prejudice their trials.

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In a television documentary, he said that since 1940 more than 400 children had been abused by at least 152 priests in the Dublin area. In April the Archbishop told his congregation that the report’s revelations would “shock and horrify us all”.

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The report is likely to produce evidence of how bishops sought to cover up the activities of paedophile priests by moving them from diocese to diocese, thereby facilitating the abuse of children over a wider area.
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the vatican is complicit

I thought the dioceses in all countries would have gone through this process years ago, when the scandal first broke. Sad that it's taken them so long.

the church nothing was ever done to stop the abuses, only if problems arose that radiated outside publicity was something actually done which was to simply move whomever was pointed out to a different location, some have been sent to third world countries,, can you imagine what is happening to those poor children where they will more than likely never be found out? This practice is well known, they do not fire anyone as some might think.

I just read up on it, and it seems that while the US 'branch' of the Catholic church developed a zero-tolerance policy on it, the Vatican only came out against it last year.

where the Church of Rome has throttled progress, human rights and investigations into its own conduct for centuries. Religion is pervasive there and even the parish priests still hold enormous power.

That they're only now starting to open all those big cans of worms is no surprise to me.

I missed that it took them until last year to catch up on this issue.

Now that the Vatican has come down on it, all the dioceses have to address the issue. I wonder how many other countries have yet to deal with this.

more kiddies to fiddle.

Scumbags.

Nailed - forgive the pun.

In all probabilities, of all faiths.

We've been down this road before and while there were indeed legitimate crimes and cover ups, there were also things which were handled the way they were handled due to the wishes of the family and the culture of the day.

I'll also wait for some definitions. An 18 year old seminarian having sex with a 16 year old student, while inappropriate is a far cry from our mental picture of some grey old friar menacing a six year old. So I want to know what "children" means amongst other things.

It was spelled out quite clearly that the majority of "children" were indeed children and were subjected to rape, torture, child labor, and being chained and locked in rooms.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0520/abuse.html

You can't excuse "wishes of family" and "culture of the day" for crimes that were committed.

You must have a fascinating view on the treatment of post Civil War blacks and lynchings.

I did follow the US version fairly closely and it featured a broad spectrum of victims, perpetrators, and actions. It also featured surprisingly few (given the public perception and scope of accusations) actual cases of child molestation. It also featured some false allegation, recantations, and a healthy dose of political motivation in the public response.

I am no friend of the Catholic Church or the Vatican- but when the US religious right takes up such a cause, it's generally not out of human decency or noble intention.

Pardon me for my crime of withholding judgement until I have more information. I suppose I should pile on with those who exploit every opportunity to attack the Catholic Church and take a good slap at those assumed to be gay in the process.

You can't excuse "wishes of family" and "culture of the day" for crimes that were committed.

The wishes of the family and culture of the day have nothing to do with the cases of child molestation or statutory rape- they have to do with the decisions made on how to handle these things after the fact.

You must have a fascinating view on the treatment of post Civil War blacks and lynchings.


It's not my fault that you appear to be incapable of reading what I wrote, or have some compulsive need to make an ass of yourself.

inflammatory on the surface until you later "explain" what you mean.

Sorry, but your original post above does come across as an apologist's view.

And, you do seem to excuse behavior based on "family wishes" and the "culture of the day"--that seems fairly obvious.

For whatever cultural reason, the abuse in Ireland was/is far worse and more endemic than that of the US religious orders or diocesan priests. Many of the abuse cases in the US (especially in the 50's and 60's) are traced to Irish religious orders who set up "mission" convents and parishes here in the US (Irish Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy from Gallway).

The article that came out based on the Irish government report in May may not have been a huge surprise to many of the Irish, but it was a major step in that the government acknowledged the issue and began to correct/prosecute the various crimes that were committed. Since so much of the population had been touched by the abuse, crisis lines had to be set up to deal with the fall out of the report.

This seems to be the second wave of the original report.

Since this has been thoroughly investigated and documented for the past few years in Ireland, and the government is finally stepping in--that is why your "withholding of judgment" appears an oddity.

The article tosses a lot of vastly different things into one pot under one headline.

Example:

headline : Sexual abuse was 'endemic' in institutions

Body:

"He said it documents a shameful catalogue of cruelty: neglect, physical, sexual and emotional abuse, perpetrated against children."

"The report states that physical punishment in Artane in Dublin was excessive and children constantly felt under threat and were fearful."

"Letterfrack, according to the report, was an inhospitable, bleak, isolated institution in which physical punishment was severe, excessive and pervasive.

For two thirds of the period investigation in the Co Galway institution there was at least one sexual abuser present, according to the report."

"The commission received thousands of complaints of emotional, physical and sexual trauma inflicted on children by Catholic priests, brothers and nuns.
"


They keep mixing up sexual abuse and other forms of abuse, like severe punishment. So you not see why I would back off a bit at such confusion?

Today we disapprove of almost every form of physical punishment. Our standard for neglect are much different than in the past. The only constant in here is sexual abuse, which had never had social approval, so to mix these things up under a banner of "Sexual abuse was 'endemic' in institutions" is sensationalism.

Do you honestly believe that sexual abuse was endemic? Do you honestly believe that the corporation and culture of Catholic priests accepted child molestation as routine and expected of their ranks?

and is part of a large law suite that is not in one of the major diocees that everyone has heard of, so I am not cutting the Catholic Church any slack based on the fact that the Fundies don't like them either.

The enemy of my enemy may still be a son-of-a-bitch. And in this case the Catholic Church is guilty as charged.

When the priest scandal first came out, I was shocked because I had never heard of sexual abuse from anyone I know, and I went to a Catholic school, and I am a gay man and mu friends are mostly gay men whom I would expect would talk about such a thing more easily. People have shared the damnedest things with me over the years, but not one had ever said he was molested by a priest. So when the scandal broke, I started asking people. I only got one report of a sexual impropriety and that was from someone online.

i have serious issues with the Vatican and I might not think much of devout people as far as their faith goes, but I did enjoy Catholic school and found the priests to be good men (as far as I know). So to think that I simply lucked out and my parish was the exception doesn't make sense to me.

He came from a hardcore Catholic family who lived in Michigan -- 10 children, six of them boys - the kind of family that had the priest over for dinner every week, where he would say a private mass for them before hand. One of the boys later became a priest, and two of the girls went on to become sisters.

As each boy turned around 15, the priest would develope a "special" relationship with him -- taking him to the movies, the ballgame, that sort of thing. When my ex turned the magic age, he was taken to the movies by the priest -- who proceeded to put his hand on the ex's crotch and rub it while they sat watching the movie. The ex freaked out and ran -- never did mention it to his Mom and Dad -- after all, the priest was practically family and had the power of the Catholic Church behind him.

Many years later all the boys of the family started to talk about what had happened -- each of the older boys had been repeatedly assaulted by the priest.

Six boys, all sexually assaulted.

Consider yourself very, very lucky.

Six boys who were sexually molested by one priest. Not six children, each of whom was molested by the priest du jour. Moreover, while certainly a crime in any state (as far as I know) this was not child molestation and from this we would not deduce that the priest was a pedophile or that the church promoted or tolerated that. The "magic age" here was physical adulthood while still emotionally a child. So what we have is, essentially a statutory rape (sexual battery?) by a person in a position of trust who is a predator.

Now on to why this wasn't dealt with. Did these boys go to their parents or another adult? Would they have wanted this priest arrested and the activity to become public knowledge? Probably not. Would the Bishop want the church to be harmed? Would the parents want the church to be harmed? Probably not. So even if these boys had gone to their parents, and even if their parents had gone to the bishop, this probably wouldn't have ended up in court.

and friends here in the US. As I'm sure you know, US and Irish religious orders had very different philosophies when it came to ministry and education. I think some of the abuse that occurred in Ireland had to do with the amount of power the clergy were given in institutions, since the Irish government and the Church were very interconnected. The Church ran the educational system, hospitals, orphanages, juvenile detention centers, homes for unwed mothers, etc... And I do think the abuse was endemic and much of it was sexual, based on humiliation/guilt in the guise of spiritual virtue. Even in the US, the religious orders who came here from Ireland--most notably the Christian Brothers (not the French group in the Napa Valley and throughout CA) and the Sisters of Mercy from Gallway--were notorious for their use of corporal punishment and humiliation in the schools they ran in this country.

I attended Catholic school as well and never had an issue with the Brothers and Sisters who taught me in high school, though I did have an incident of sexual harassment in college by a priest. However, I did enter a US women's religious order in the mid 1980's (I stayed for 6 years) and I was shocked by some of the information I learned concerning some priests in certain rectories and seminaries. Crimes were committed not just against young boys (which is what everyone assumes) but against young girls and women by straight priests. Many times there were cover-ups and the crime went unpunished as far as I know. In all honesty, I still feel conflicted because I knew some amazingly wonderful men (both gay and straight) who were in the priesthood and some absolutely twisted jerks (and unfortunately there were a number of them).

But I am glad they are exposing this, better late than never. It is no wonder Ireland is also updating its blasphemy law. Like the Church screaming for everyone to just shut up and sweep the festering filth back under the carpet.

on the current abuse cases.

Thanks for the link.

FUCK THEM ALL!

The wearin' of the mean
From statements by men and women who attended Catholic Church-run state schools for the poor in Ireland, in a May report by a government-appointed commission. The 2,600-page report documents claims of abuse from more than a thousand former students at more than 200 institutions between the 1930s and the 1990s. After a lawsuit by the Christian Brothers, the order that ran many of the boys’ schools, the names of clergy accused of abuse were omitted.

One time in class, because I couldn’t read a couple of lines in Irish, the brother beat me. He put you in the back of the class, and he’d tell you to run to him, then he’d put his fist out and you’d run into it. As soon as you hit the deck, he would pull you up by the ears for what we used to call the rabbit punch—you know, with the side of his hand on the neck. He’d chop you, you’d go down on the deck.

I was working in the piggery. I used to be starving, the pigs used to get the brothers’ leftovers, and one day there was lovely potatoes, and I took some and I took a turnip. The brother caught me and let down my trousers and lashed me. He always wore a leather, around eighteen inches long and all stitched with wax.

I remember a boy who would not cry. He got fifty slaps on one hand and then fifty on the other and then another fifty. This brother got so mad that he would not cry, he kicked the legs from under him and kicked him to the ground and kicked him until he went unconscious. He was just lying there with his eyes staring up to the sky.

One day, I was on the farm and we were messing around, squirting milk at each other. The brother came over and dug his nails into the back of my ears, and then he hit me on the jaw with his clenched fists. Of course, I went down. I was in the infirmary for six or seven weeks after that. They smashed my jaw, my gum was all gone, the inside of my face was all ripped. The treatment I got was hot, salty water.

I was hit for having red, curly hair. You had to have straight hair like Our Lady. This sister was a monster. She’d drag you into the office and take her long cane and just beat you and beat you. She had a bamboo cane four feet long. She’d be frothing at the mouth. She’d say, “You curled your hair last night,” and when I’d say, “Yes, I curled it,” she’d stop. She had castor oil, she would press it into my head, to make my hair straight. My face would be swollen from the beatings, the oil would be running down my face.

Every night I was beaten for wetting the bed. If you pulled away, he would get hold of you and hit harder. If you fell to the floor, he would pull you up by the chin, twist your ear, pull you by the hair. After the beatings, he would play guitar and sing.

I was an animal lover. There were wild cats and kittens going around starving, and I used to sneak them into the dormitory. I had a kitten. This nun called me one night. She said, “You see that kitten you have there?” She got me out of my bed by the hair and brought me down, they had one of those stoves that you put the coal in the top. She said, “Take that top off.” I had to go up on my knees. I had to put the cat in there and put the lid on it—and the screams. Then she said, “Go back to bed.” The next morning, she got me out of bed and she made me rake that fire out. I think I was about twelve at the time.

:sarcasm: