Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Irish Catholic Child Abuse Report In

Nine years in the making, the 2,600 page report on the treatment of children at Roman Catholic residential institutions in Ireland is in. And it's ugly. Thousands of kids were regularly humiliated, beaten - and raped - by priests and nuns.

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, unveiled by High Court Justice Sean Ryan, found that molestation and rape were "endemic" in boys' facilities, chiefly run by the Christian Brothers, 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 Vatican knew about this, and they not only protected the abusers from investigation by police, they let them remain around children. I don't think I can think of anything more horrible than a church hurting children in this horrific way. How the Catholic Church even exists today is beyond my understanding.


Digg!


[Ignore the "read more."]

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

In my society to slap a child is an offence, in Ireland the rape and systematic abuse of children does not even warrent the naming of the offenders if they are members of 'The Sisters Of Mercy' or other catholic organisations.
Is something wrong here?

LT said...

something's definitely wrong here - but it's not just in Ireland.

Mark Prime (tpm/Confession Zero) said...

It's a worldwide phenomenon. A very sad one at that.