Thousands beaten, raped in Irish reform schools

[Nur]

Thousands beaten, raped in Irish reform schools

 

By SHAWN POGATCHNIK,

 

Associated Press Writer Shawn Pogatchnik, Associated Press Writer

 

DUBLIN – A fiercely debated, nine-year 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.

High Court Justice Sean Ryan on Wednesday unveiled the 2,600-page final report of Ireland's Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse, which is based on testimony from thousands of former students and officials from more than 250 church-run institutions.

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 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.

"In some schools a high level of ritualized beating was routine. ... Girls were struck with implements designed to maximize pain and were struck on all parts of the body," the report said. "Personal and family denigration was widespread."

Victims of the system have long demanded that the truth of their experiences be documented and made public, so that children in Ireland never endure such suffering again.

But most leaders of religious orders have rejected the allegations as exaggerations and lies, and testified to the commission that any abuses were the responsibility of often long-dead individuals.

Wednesday's five-volume report sides almost completely with the former students' accounts. It concludes that church officials always shielded their orders' pedophiles from arrest amid a culture of self-serving secrecy.

"A climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment, permeated most of the institutions and all those run for boys. Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from," the report concluded.

The commission said overwhelming, consistent testimony from still-traumatized men and women, now in their 50s to 80s, had demonstrated beyond a doubt that the entire system treated children more like prison inmates and slaves than people with legal rights and human potential.

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.

But its findings will not be used for criminal prosecutions — in part because the Christian Brothers successfully sued the commission in 2004 to keep the identities of all of its members, dead or alive, unnamed in the report. No real names, whether of victims or perpetrators, appear in the final document.

Irish church leaders and religious orders all declined to comment Wednesday, citing the need to read the massive document first. The Vatican also declined to comment.

The Irish government already has funded a parallel compensation system that has paid 12,000 abuse victims an average of euro65,000 ($90,000). 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.

Wednesday's report said children had no safe way to tell authorities about the assaults they were suffering, particularly the sexual aggression from church officials and older inmates in boys' institutions.

"The management did not listen to or believe children when they complained of the activities of some of the men who had responsibility for their care," the commission found. "At best, the abusers were moved, but nothing was done about the harm done to the child. At worst, the child was blamed and seen as corrupted by the sexual activity, and was punished severely."

The commission dismissed as implausible a central defense of the religious orders — that, in bygone days, people did not recognize the sexual abuse of a child as a criminal offense, but rather as a sin that required repentance.

In their testimony, religious orders typically cited this opinion as the principal reason why sex-predator priests and brothers were sheltered within the system and moved to new posts where they could still maintain daily contact with children.

But the commission said its fact-finding — which included unearthing decades-old church files, chiefly stored in the Vatican, on scores of unreported abuse cases from Ireland's industrial schools — demonstrated that officials understood exactly what was at stake: their own reputations.

It cited numerous examples where school managers told police about child abusers who were not church officials — but never did this when one of their own had committed the crime.

"Contrary to the congregations' claims that the recidivist nature of sexual offending was not understood, it is clear from the documented cases that they were aware of the propensity for abusers to re-abuse," it said.

Religious orders were chiefly concerned about preventing scandal, not the danger to children, it said.

The commission also condemned Ireland's Education Department for aiding the abusive culture through infrequent, toothless inspections that deferred to church authority.

Inspectors were supposed to restrict the use of corporal punishment and make sure the children were adequately fed, clothed and educated — but the report called those inspections "fundamentally flawed."

It said a lone inspector was responsible for monitoring more than 50 industrial schools, schools were told about the visits in advance and inspectors rarely talked to the children.

Wednesday's report also highlighted the rarity of human kindness in the institutions.

"A word of consideration or encouragement, or an act of sympathy or understanding, had a profound effect. Adults in their 60s and 70s recalled seemingly insignificant events that had remained with them all their lives," the report said.

"Often the act of kindness, recalled in such a positive light, arose from the simple fact that the staff member had not given a beating when one was expected."

[Nur]

If these crimes committed by the western moral authority is exposed after so many years, what could be happening to Somali kids in the west TODAY?

 

 

Nur

[Sherban Shabeel]

Good article, and Catholic schools have a long history of abuse, but I fail to see the link with "what could be happening to Somali kids in the west TODAY".

 

That's a bit of a stretch, in my opinion.

[Nur]

Sherban Shabeel bro.

 

Here is the link Saaxib ( means Amigo in Spanish).

 

Since 1990 hundreds of thousands of somali familes migrated to the west, countries like Italy and France predominantly Catholic, many to other Protestant countries, however one thing is common on all these countries; Child abuse is not reported immediately, its usually triggered by an incident and then an inquiry is made just like what had happened in Ireland.

 

The question I was raising has thus a merit, the answer could either be positive or negative, but there is a ground of worry for a Somali parent who lives in these countries after such a story.

 

I Hope that is not a stretch!

 

 

Nur

[Sherban Shabeel]

Dear brother Nur

 

I'm not Spanish lol, although I do understand the language pretty well. And I know what Saaxib means

 

Concerning your concern:

 

Now I see what you mean, but I hope I can put your fears at rest.

 

See, many of these Catholic and Protestant countries have stopped basing their identity on religion quite a long time ago. If saying that Somalia is a Muslim country, or that Lebanon is a Christian & Muslim country has meaning, not the same can be said about many Western countries, who are practically atheist. You will find that very few people practice their faith (if indeed they recognize a faith). Even in Italy, where the Vatican is situated, not many people are religious.

 

I come from one of the most religious countries in Europe, Romania, but even I seldom go to church. Maybe once a year, for Easter. I do pray every day, however.

 

The point I'm trying to make is that these countries you refer to haven't got much to do with Christianity anymore.

 

True, Ireland is a bit different. The Irish have held on to their religion harder than most, partly because of repression from the Brits, but even so...

 

Also, while there certainly was abuse in Catholic and Protestant schools, this has little impact on Western countries today. Child abuse is taken very seriously in "developed" countries, by the authorities and by everyone else. Even in prison pedophiles get - to be mild - the crap beaten out of them.

 

To be fair, children may be more vulnerable in Western countries because society has become more individualistic, and less family-oriented. In a "get rich quick" world, it's everyone out for themselves.

 

But as long as we keep an eye on our children, everything should be fine I think.

[Nur]

Sherban Shabeel bro

 

you write:

 

If saying that Somalia is a Muslim country, or that Lebanon is a Christian & Muslim country has meaning, not the same can be said about many Western countries, who are practically atheist. You will find that very few people practice their faith (if indeed they recognize a faith). Even in Italy, where the Vatican is situated, not many people are religious.

 

 

If I may add to your logic which makes sense, even Somalia is not a "Muslim Country" in that sense, nor other countries, because, that requires adherence to Islam as a basis of moral behaviour and law. We can say though that Somalia is country of Muslims.

 

What is disturbing though is that when it comes to morality, little faith is better than no faith, in that sence, Catholics are far worthy of our trust than Atheists . Today, the western world is suffering from lack of morality due to lack of interest in any religion, which is far worse than the problem with perverted priests. Can we trust our kids to an Atheist teacher instead?

 

Either way, Muslim parents who care for the moral fiber of their kids need to pay attention to where they send their kids for education, because as the western secular societies legalize perversion, kids will remain at more risk than Catholic schools in my opinion.

 

 

Nur

[Sherban Shabeel]

Well, here's where we kind of disagree.

 

I believe schooling SHOULD be entirely atheist, at least at an early age. Schools and government institutions have no place teaching your kid about God, religion should be something cultivated within the family and within the community. Why let a stranger talk to your child about God, when you can do it? Why let a stranger teach your child how to swim, or ride a bike when you can do it? Same goes for sex education. There are certain parental duties that shouldn't be handed over to institutionalized education.

 

When children have grown up and are mature enough to understand religion, then they can pursue religious studies if they so wish, in seminaries or mosques (such as Al-Azhar in Cairo).

 

I also think you're blaming atheists unfairly for the Western societies' problems. Atheists are reasonable human beings and it's up to them to do what they want with their lives. I believe in God, and that's enough for me. We are all responsible for our own souls.

 

The problem in the West is not that people lack faith in God. Faith in God is a personal thing, and has little to do with the well-functioning of a society. The problem in the West isn't "moral debauchery" or "perversion".

 

The problem is that people have forgotten how to live in community. They are so obsessed with money and gaining status, that they forget what it means to live among human beings.

[Nur]

May be you meant schools should be secular, not Atheist, the two concepts are different. A parent who sends his child to a secular school in which the kid spends most of his daily hours studying secular subjects like evolution does not care for his child's faith. Parenthood implies giving a child morals to live by, and Atheism does not have any morals since it rejects any code of ethical conduct based on faith.

 

Faith is something a child should grow up with early in his/her life, by delaying it, a parent risks raising a human being who is detached from his/her maker.

 

Faith that does not drive or direct one's actions is not a faith, true belief in a faith calls for active involvement and practice of one's faith.

 

Nur

[Sherban Shabeel]

I guess we'll raise our kids a bit differently

[Nur]

Which is Allah's wisdom of diversity!

 

 

Nur

[Johnny B]

Originally posted by Nur:

A parent who sends his child to a secular school in which the kid spends most of his daily hours studying secular subjects like evolution does not care for his child's faith.

Parenthood implies giving a child morals to live by, and Atheism does not have any morals since it rejects any code of ethical conduct based on faith.

Nur

Sheikh Nur,

Your need to couple superstition (irrationality) and Morality is groundless, Human morality doesn't need superstition or belief in Gods.

 

it is absolutely not a genuine moral act to help someone because a Deity or someone who claims to be acting on it's behalf either threatens you with punishment or promises you a reward.

 

A persona that lacks the ability to rationally act on her own without a threat or a promise of a reward is not particularly Moral.

[Nur]

Johnny saaxib

 

You write:

 

Human Morality doesn't need superstition or belief in Gods

 

My question:

 

In the absence of God, what does Morality need to manifest itself in our lives instead?

 

 

You write:

 

it is absolutely not a genuine moral act to help someone because a Deity or someone who claims to be acting on it's behalf either threatens you with punishment or promises you a reward. A persona that lacks the ability to rationally act on her own without a threat or a promise of a reward is not particularly Moral.

 

 

My questions:

 

1. In the absence of a God, who sets the standard of what is right and wrong, and who consequently rewards good behavior while punishing bad behavior. How can we agree on a common Moral standard that is agreeable to everyone? Shall we accept our politicians moral code? Is Morality static or is dynamic ( I mean changing with respect to times)

 

2. If reward and punishment shouldn't drive our decisions, hence actions, why should we obey the secular law? are all those who obey the secular law for fear of jail, or hope of better living irrational people in your opinion?

 

 

Nur

[Johnny B]

Originally posted by Nur:

Johnny saaxib

 

My question:

 

In the absence of God, what does Morality need to manifest itself in our lives instead?

For Human morality the absence or presence of a Deity is relative, The common good of Humanity/ Society is and has always been what manifests it on our lives.

 

 

Originally posted by Nur:

My questions:

 

1. In the absence of a God, who sets the standard of what is right and wrong, and who consequently rewards good behavior while punishing bad behavior. How can we agree on a common Moral standard that is agreeable to everyone? Shall we accept our politicians moral code? Is Morality static or is dynamic

( I mean changing with respect to times)

 

2. If reward and punishment shouldn't drive our decisions, hence actions, why should we obey the secular law? are all those who obey the secular law for fear of jail, or hope of better living irrational people in your opinion?

Nur

It's obvious in your question that you still need to couple Morality and your Deity of choice, but again, what is right or wrong remains relative ,inferring 'God' to be the one rewarding or punishing in an afterlife has never changed Humanity's total moral realities.

There may be few universally accepted moral acts but standards vary from society to another.

 

In conclusion, your claim of Atheism not having any morals falls plat since Atheism lacks belief in Gods but believes solely in Humanity.

[Nur]

Johnny Saxib

 

I think that you mean de-couple instead of couple? in other words to separate the two?

 

Anyway, let me come back to the questions saaxib.

 

You said that Morality may have common acts universally acceptable, but it is fuzzy, no unique standard, to everyone there is a set of morality and to me that means chaos at best. To you the concept of right and wrong is relative, which means if we belong to Atheism and Islam, we will have collision unless we agree on a neutral set of Morality? please clarify .

 

You have not answered my question on the irrationality of those who obey a moral code for fear or for hope, because that is what you have written before.

 

Finally your conclusion fails to summarize your points, you have not proven that Atheism has a set of Moral codes that is standard, clear and can lead humanity, because to lead humanity one needs to know where he is going and thus, an Atheist is oblivious of where he/she is going, hence a confused person without a definite purpose in life.

 

Johnny Saaxib, Atheism is an ignorance intensive concept, its argument revolves around what is NOT known, while Islam is based on what is known and which holds believable given the myriad of evidence it presents.

 

 

Nur