Wall of silence about 60 years of child abuse still not entirely broken down
Partial new version. Anger and barracking reminiscent of the launch of Eames Bradley greeted the long awaited unveiling.
“The little comfort we have is the knowledge that it vindicated the victims who were raped and sexually abused,” said Mr Walsh, of the leading campaign group Irish Survivors of Child Abuse (Soca). I’m very angry, very bitter, and feel cheated and deceived. I would have never opened my wounds if I’d known this was going to be the end result.”
This is just a first bite at the final massive 2,600 page Report into Irish Child Abuse. It exposes in full detail a culture we fervently hope is truly dead and not merely moribund. If such institutionalised treatment is truly over, we may retain some hope in the possibility of progress. The website is under huge pressure but I managed to download the executive summary. Links to the full report will no doubt function in time. The whole terrible story unfolds in five volumes. Its presentation defies easy summary and being a judge’s work, help to highlight key points is limited. The chair Mr Justice Sean Ryan said the report “spoke for itself” and he took no questions. The Associated Press have made a good first cut. Update Cardinal Sean Brady said he was “profoundly sorry and deeply ashamed that children suffered in such awful ways in these institutions. The incoming leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, said : those who perpetrated violence and abuse should be held to account, “no matter how long ago it happened”. Interesting he says this: how can they be held to account if there are to be no prosecutions?
Key points
More than 30,000 children deemed to be petty thieves, truants or from dysfunctional families — a category that often included unmarried mothers — were sent to Ireland’s austere network of industrial schools, reformatories, orphanages and hostels from the 1930s until the last church-run facilities shut in the 1990s.
The report believed victims’ evidence. That was a great victory, not to be taken for granted.
But the compensation battle continues.
The Christian Brothers damned for institutionalised abuse and accused in one centre of living it up on State money intended for the children, are accused of stifling debate.
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. Girls supervised by orders of nuns, chiefly the Sisters of Mercy, suffered much less sexual abuse but frequent assaults and humiliation designed to make them feel worthless.
The report proposed 21 ways the government could recognize past wrongs, including building a permanent memorial, providing counseling and education to victims and improving Ireland’s current child protection services.
The Irish government already has funded a parallel compensation system that has paid 12,000 abuse victims an average of euro65,000 (£74,000). About 2,000 claims remain outstanding.
Victims receive the payouts only if they waive their rights to sue the state and the church. Hundreds have rejected that condition and taken their abusers and those church employers to court.
The Indo higlights the fact that the religious congregations have not accepted responsibility.
BBC wrap and Shane Harrison talks to victims here. Irish Times now has a fat summary by Patsy McGarry
I mentioned earlier that the RTE link to the Artane PDF was broken. There’s another copy on the Commission’s own site.
John East Belfast ,
‘They are 100% guilty for creating this environment. ‘
True enough . But also our elected politicians are also 100% guilty for turning the other way when many knew what was going on ! IIRC the Father Smyth scandal helped to bring down Albert Reynolds because some Minister ‘sat’ on an incriminating file rather than have the ‘criminal’ extradited to Northern Ireland ‘
Let’s hope Tanaiste (Deputy PM Mary Coughlan ) has the gumption to pursue these criminals .
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8030299.stm
Here is a nice picture of today’s non Catholic England (England has more Catholics than Ireland but some contributors here don’t do facts, so when in anti Rome..)
Labour leaning social workers have an awful name in this regard.
Raping babies and Labour hacks covering it up. We could go on and on but why?
Keep us updated Big Maggie. We need the rightouss rush.
On a related matter, are the little rent boys still to be had on Burgh Quay, just outside the offices of the Irish Times? I have to aks here as I owuld not expect the Irish Times (including some who should) to know. Not a seller.
When you have a long hard look at the Roman Catholic church you can’t help but wonder how they ever got to this stage. They have been warned ample times over the centuries that their rules are in error and you would think they would correct those things which are wrong.
However, things just don’t happen that way with the Roman Church, the only way they know to respond is by excommunicating and damning those who speak out against it. Instead of changing the wrongs in the church, they make more and more rules elevating themselves even higher and with greater authority.
Do not expect this organisation to change. They have become a law unto themselves and their attempts to pervert the civil cases against its ‘holy men’ are proof of that.
Come out of her, my people!
john o’connell /Jesus Christ II,
‘The Church as an institution is not to blame.’
It’s not ? So the institution which covered up all of these crimes had nothing to do with aiding and abetting these criminals ? Next you’ll be trying to persuade us that the Nazi Party had nothing to do with the extermination camps ? You walk on water too ? Try the North Atlantic . Give our regards to the Icelanders .
‘ Human frailty is to blame and that affects every corner of society.’
Cop out time and a diversionary harry flashism . So who created this human frailty ? Oh yes your God. That jewish carpenter’s father – you know the one who had his son crucified and his mother impregnated by an invisible angel ?
Harry Flashman,
In your attempt to deflect attacks on the Irish Catholic Church you forgot to mention the 1 million under age child prostitutes of Hindu India . Not that that has anything to do with the RC Church mind you !
While you have a point it’s irrelevant to what needs to be done in Ireland now i.e the full exposure and criminal charging of those who are found guilty of these crimes and of aiding and abetting them .
We can solve the ‘moral issues’ of other countries and cultures when we’ve wrapped it up here !
[i]You walk on water too ? Try the North Atlantic[/i]
LOL
Kincora,
Righteous rush? What are you on about? Read the papers why don’t you.
Anyhow got to go.
Harry Flashman is right.
I believe the abusers need sweet deals and not to get dragged into tedious legal argument. Why should old pedophiles be held accountable for their crimes?
All you stupid people getting angry about the endemic sbuse in Ireland are picking the wrong targets, you should be getting angry with the people getting angry.
There’s no point taking this serious bad stuff happens other places too.
UMH:
Have you come full circle on this matter aswell?
Fuck you Greenflag you piece of shit. The Church had nothing to do with this. Like I said, these schools were like holiday camps
Every time a man commits a rape we don’t then say: ‘Oooohh every single male should be held accountable.’
I am the Second Coming and there’s nothing that can stop me.
I’m off out to campaign on behalf of Alban in the Greater Shantallow area
Neil
If you’re going to be out there blogging away about Catholicism I think you above all should have the decnecy to admit when the Church you devote your life to is in the wrong.
If they were obeying the teachings of the Church Jesus founded they would not have done what they did. So how is the Church wrong? If the Church were materially and irreformably corrupt, I would say so. But evidently it is not. Again I point you to the same human frailty that causes everyone to sin. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Evidently there are those on this thread who think they qualify as being without sin. That’s how ignorant they are.
Greenflag
Cop out time and a diversionary harry flashism . So who created this human frailty ? Oh yes your God. That jewish carpenter’s father – you know the one who had his son crucified and his mother impregnated by an invisible angel ?
and Ulsters my homeland
Come out of her, my people!
Clearly you’re angry but you should be wary of insulting God or his Church.
The Empire Babylon referred to by UMH is not the Roman Catholic Church but the British Empire as you’ll see from my authentic interpretation of the Book of Revelation at: http://johnoconnell.org/Revelation.htm
Point number 6 reveals this.
But the point I would make is that it is important to note all the abuse in the form of violence and repression and butchery that the British empire used to get where it is today and yet you’re screaming for the heads of the RC Church. Get real.
Post number 11 is not mine.
So how is the Church wrong?
The cover up dude. The fact that they enabled child abusers to continue pleasuring themselves with the misery of others by moving them into new positions of power over children. Documents have been uncovered in Rome, this means that an awful lot of people knew and did nothing.
Therefore, to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin
James 4:17
Neil
Individual members of the clergy have done these things and they are culpable and should suffer for it.
But the Church as an institution has no mandate from Christ to do these things and cannot therefore be culpable as Christ’s Church. It can only be culpable if its rules, which are universal and do not simply relate to Ireland, stipulte that abuse is acceptable.
Neil
Individual members of the clergy have done these things and they are culpable and should suffer for it.
But the Church as an institution has no mandate from Christ to do these things and cannot therefore be culpable as Christ’s Church. It can only be culpable if its rules, which are universal and do not simply relate to Ireland, stipulte that abuse is acceptable.
Haughty homeboy
“[i]Have you come full circle on this matter aswell? [/i]
aswell?
Is this the retarded way of spelling as well? PHD my ass, more like ADHD.
John O’Connell
[i]“Clearly you’re angry but you should be wary of insulting God or his Church.”[/i]
Does God’s church forbid to marry?
Does God’s church instruct to abtsain from meats?
“You walk on water too ? Try the North Atlantic”
JOC
Whilst you are at it, could you not help out some of the fishermen?
They are having a pretty rough time, and I am led to believe you were rather fond of them last time around.
‘o’connell a.k.a the coming one ‘
‘you should be wary of insulting God or his Church.’
I was only aving a larf said Spike !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-IU-NQ8c14
oops wrong one
The Lord speaketh his Prayer .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7i01GPs-hQ
Who beateth out of him (o’connell) the crap
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5zSgJx4tPM
Greenflag
Who beateth out of him (o’connell) the crap
It just goes to show you that nothing on this thread and all the sanctimonious nonsense you write was all that important to you. You’re a hypocritical bullshit artist.
Even the PIRA killed pedophiles
What appears to emerge from the Report is a state sponsored system of rape,mental and physical cruelty and induction to slavery that continued for over half a century.
Apart from the horrendous crimes in the various reformatories, the inextricable links of Catholic church and state in the ROI led to widespread abuse of power, lack of information and development of tools for critical thinking due to psychological browbeating and intimidation. The hierarchy knew and covered it up, the State knew and colluded in the ongoing abuses and cover-up, many of the people probably knew but preferred to look the other way.It’s a hard truth to face up to and cope with anger at being duped by a church that certainly did not practise what it preached. It is to be hoped that if no redress is to be obtained within the ROI that human rights lawyers look into the possibilities of action at the European Court of Justice or the UN court of human rights. Solidarity with the victims is the minimum each and every one of us can offer.
It’s quite simple. A crime of monstrous proportions has been committed. These people, whether the perpetrators in the RC church or the state officials who covered it up should be prosecuted regardless of their age, and subsequently jailed for a very long time, i.e. until they croak.
What I don’t get is how an institution that professes celibacy can be entrusted with the care of children. What the hell do they know about bringing up children? They can’t even have sex for chrissakes.
The report has the reading of a horror story. The more you read it the more you begin to lose faith in ANY priest in Ireland. As far as I’m concerned, those who knew about the abuse but did nothing are equally as guilty.
Big Maggie,
” Mark Trotter … was a Labour activist who happened to be gay and who happened to abuse”.
Stick to systematic abuse by Catholic religious orders please.
There is a wider issue. Why not brng in the hobbies of Labour Party activists or of vermin like Lord Keynes who liked nothing better than rooting bell boys? The British Labour Party covered up sex abuses in the past, often in collusion with the Tories.
If Jesus is posting, so can I. I am St Kevin, after whom the Dublin workhouse was named. Children were abused so badly there by those who bought them for farm slave work, that the name had to be changed. It is now known as St James’ hospital. Of course, that scandal ended ages ago and we are on to the next puff of wind.
The Christian Brothers and the hordes who joined the nuns were also victims. They were head hunted from certain families and pushed into servitude as 13 year olds. The Brothers put their own nutcases in charge of the borstals, which had three kinds of inmates: unfortunates in for mitching and the like, budding Bugsy Malone scumbags and half right kids. Like all abusers, they groomed and picked their victims.
Having been screwed by their abusers,they are now being screwed by their lawyers and those who see them as pawns to attack the One, Holy and Apostolic Church, against which the fires of hell will never prevail.
You know, this would get more psots if we coud get an Old Firm angle into it. Did Neil Lennon go to the CBS?
ms wiz ,
‘The more you read it the more you begin to lose faith in ANY priest in Ireland. As far as I’m concerned, those who knew about the abuse but did nothing are equally as guilty.’
And those who knew appear to have had a line all the way to the Vatican where it appears the lines got crossed and the news when it did break in Ireland and elsewhere came as a complete shock ?
Perhaps we misjudged Ian Paisley in his rantings against Romanism ? At the very least he seems to have been a bit more perceptive than the Irish political establishment .
St kevin ,
‘The Christian Brothers and the hordes who joined the nuns were also victims.’
They were not children when they inflicted abuse on these poor children . And while many may have been victims themselves they were ‘protected’ by the Church establishment and if truth be known by the political and legal establishments also .
‘There is a wider issue. ‘
Funny isn’t it ? Always when the fit hits the shan the guilty try to appease their guilt by an appeal that they are not the only ones ? Well we all know that . But we also know that unless the civil law is implemented as it should be then these criminals will remain on the loose to commit their crimes again and again ! I mean you don’t think that for one minute these criminals even those who are no longer ministering in the Church have changed their ways do you ?
O’connell
‘we must pray for all the victims ‘
More sanctimonious claptrap . There is no evidence that praying for anything achieves anything . Although it’s not perfect I prefer to put my trust in a court of law and see these people put behind bars and the Catholic Church as an institution forced to pay up for it’s negligence and amoral hypocrisy in the manner in which it has dealt with these crimes over the past 60 years and probably longer !
Greenflag
I hope you feel good about that post and it keeps your chest out for a while. When the Bishop Casey affair broke, the DUP spokesperson had a mature, honest and reasoned approach, which really impressed me.
Maybe you remember the Fr Brendan Smyth case. He was demonised as the most evil man in Ireland. This was said at a time when PIRA were slaughtering people and its Short Strand squad was having kids as R&R. Smyth was a nutcase and, though his crimes deserved a long sentence, the fact that such an obviously skewed man was allowed to persist in the priesthood needs investigating.
Have you seen the Oliver O’Grady movie or Louis Thereaux’s visit to child sex offenders in the USA? O’Grady is another nut job and the incarcerated paedophiles interviewed are as eloquent as any politician. Until deeper issues are looked at, child sex abuse will contine. As long as kids are dragooned into joining the priesthood, the Provos, the Labour Party etc, these crimes will continue and empty moralists will quack on about them and do nothing to alleviate them.
The Christian Brothers did more for Ireland than all their detractors combined did. The argument is similar to the Provo one of martrdom for a greater cause. But those who bet each way wil probably never understand or want to understand.
Greenflag
Although it’s not perfect I prefer to put my trust in a court of law
I prefer God’s justice to man’s. These men are getting that justice now and its worse than anything the courts could do. That justice is female embarrassment from a female God.
This is as good as it may get for those children, but it saddens me greatly that it ever had to come to this.
‘The Christian Brothers did more for Ireland ‘
I’m sure many of them did their best for their pupils . One of the best teachers I ever had was a De la Salle Brother . That was in a school were the head brother was a known paedophile who was never arrested for his crimes .
Child sex abuse is a crime no matter who the perpetrator . The crime in these cases is exacerbated by the fact that those who were/are supposed to me the moral standard bearers of Irish society deliberately withheld information for decades from the authorities and continued to allow these paedophiles to ‘operate’ without hindrance and even now are looking for ‘protection’ from the law
?
‘I hope you feel good about that post’
Quite the opposite . It’s a horror story and I hope the civil authorities will do what is right by the victims .
Greenflag,
“Perhaps we misjudged Ian Paisley in his rantings against Romanism ? At the very least he seems to have been a bit more perceptive than the Irish political establishment .”
Perhaps we did misjudge Paisley sr on this issue. The absurd situation whereby the Irish religious orders made a “deal” with the political establishment must go contrary to ANY judicial rulings elsewhere in the world, with the exception of Muslim states.
(By some quirk, or by kismet, the code I’m entering for this comment is “child”.)
The perpetrators of those heinous crimes against children are criminals and must be pursued as such. They were in the pay of the Irish government. There’s no earthly reason why they can’t be prosecuted for their crimes. I hope the victims can be persuaded to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights and see the rulings of the Irish judiciary overthrown. Believe me, this is what the majority of Irish people want.
Those in the Catholic church need to make a greater participation in ensuring the educational and charitable works are free from people who are ‘only in it for themselves’ and bring discredit on everyone.
If people in the church do not take sin and God seriously, then they should be drop-punted over the fence and ex-communicated.
There is no place in the church for those that don’t take sin and God seriously.
It’s ironic to hear from Catholics who may not remember the Paisley of old saying he might have been right. On the oppression of the Church, indeed he often was, just as one might say Stalin was right,that Hitler was a bad thing. Such moral authority as Paisley had was compromised by his arrogance, intolerance and the rabble-rousing that contributed to so much violence and death. He learned better over time, but at great cost to the community.
abucs,
‘There is no place in the church for those that don’t take sin and God seriously.’
That’s right Father Dougal -Go to Craggy Island -do not collect 300 plenary indulgences and make sure that none of the collection monies are ‘resting’ in your bank account;)
BW ,
‘It’s ironic to hear from Catholics who may not remember the Paisley of old saying he might have been right.’
Not really – Even a stopped clock is right twice in 24 hours . When you don’t believe in an all black and all white world or live in the moral certainty of medieval Rome or Calvinist Geneva (a la Turgon) then it becomes possible to see that at least on this issue – i.e Catholic institutional corruption- that Paisley got very close to the truth . This of course at the same time as he ‘ruled ‘ over his own ‘institutions ‘ both Party(DUP) and Church (FP) with the proverbial rod of iron . There were no dissenters or if there were they did’nt last.
I still however agree with your overall assessment that his ‘arrogance’ made a bad situation worse – but then it often happens that a bad situation has to be made worse before anything is done about it -given the power of human inertia – And like it or not (and while I’m personnally not too keen on it ) Paisley did deliver ‘power sharing ‘ with SF . That achievement like it or not got NI to where it is today .
History makes strange bedfellows as we all learnt back at the time of the Molotov -Von Ribbontrop Pact eh ? Or did we learn ever ?
“History makes strange bedfellows as we all learnt back at the time of the Molotov -Von Ribbontrop Pact eh ? Or did we learn ever ?”
Who were the moral angels there? I am not Polish by the way. At least the lawyers will be protected by the recession as they will now be able to sue the Catholics Church. 1916 and all that.
Fr Brendan Smyth was wanted for the same crimes in Belfast. Was it because he lived in Belfast County Down the Really Useful Clouseaus could not find him?