Institutional Abuse report
Posted on | May 20, 2009 | 96 Comments
This afternoon a report into institutional abuse by religious orders will be published. At a cost of €70m it will outline how children were abused in industrial schools, institutions for children with disabilities and ordinary day schools.
I wonder will anything in it shock us though? Will it be enough? I’m not trying to play down the need for such a report nor the fact that information like this should be released publicly, I just wonder how much attention will be paid to it.
We know already that the Catholic Church in Ireland has been guilty of horrendous abuse of children, sexual and physical, and that their first method of dealing with such abuse when they discovered it was not to address it or punish those guilty of it, it was to cover it up.
When the report is published will there be the usual outcry and sensational headlines for a few days or will it have a real impact of on the Catholic Church as an organisation?
Sure, it no longer holds the same power as it used to, but still every week people flock to churches, put their money in the collection plates, go up to the altar to receive a piece of tasteless wafer which is just a tasteless wafer, and send their children to be educated through religion (the newly returned Fatmammycat touches on this here).
Imagine if a tender went out looking for someone to run Ireland’s schools. One organisation is successful. And later it emerges that they used the power and influence they had over children to beat them, to force them to engage in explicit sexual acts, to scar them mentally and physically for life. And not just on an occasional basis. The abuse is widespread and systematic.
Would we not take serious steps to punish the abusers, those who enabled the abusers, those who hid them, moved them from one school to the next where the children there were just fresh meat? Would we not, as a nation, decry that organisation, speak of them in hisses, castigate them at every turn, condemn them, shun them?
Yet every day, every week, people flock to churches, hand over their hard earned cash to people whose abuse has cost all of us millions of pounds. It’s insane.
I’m not saying every priest is a bad priest, there are obviously dedicated, devout and good people, yet they represent an organisation so venal, so corrupt, so deliberately wicked at times, that it is completely at odds with what they try and teach and preach.
The report is welcome, it may well be shocking, it will shame the church and the government, no question, but will anything change? Children will have their communions and confirmations and people who don’t go to mass from one end of the year to other because they do not believe in God will get married in their local church.
Isn’t it time to think differently about the Catholic Church?
Update: Ok, I take it back. Reading this now is actually shocking. Even though you know what went on, the witness accounts are horrific.
The full list of reports. I’m delving into the Record of Abuse (Male Witness) at the moment.
What a stain this is on our country.
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96 Responses to “Institutional Abuse report”
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May 20th, 2009 @ 10:09 am
People are weird. A lot of people I know don’t actually believe in god, as far as I can tell, and don’t live their lives by the teachings of the church, yet they still get married in a church (nicer photos?), raise their kids in the Catholic tradition. It’s like a default mode or something.
Now that I’ve a kid on the way, the pressure (albeit relatively minimal) will be to do the ‘right thing’ re christening, communion, etc. but I will do whatever it takes to avoid all this stuff like the plague.
From what I can gather, the thinking seems to be… do the Catholic thing so they can have a better choice of schools, won’t feel left out when communions roll around and all that.
Not me, no way. I’ll deal with it when the time comes. But to indoctrinate a child into a corrupt and perverted organisation based on a fantasy?
That’s just weird. Even though it’s the norm.
May 20th, 2009 @ 10:12 am
We pay the government tax and they keep on butt-fucking us. I think it’s less about the organisations and more about us. We need to not tollerate this sort of shite from anyone.
May 20th, 2009 @ 10:28 am
The peer pressure around communion time is enormous. We were living outside Ireland when our kids were going through that period so the dilemma never arose for us. However, I think that if I had been living here at the time and had had to make the choice, I would have gone ahead with the communion charade, simply because I think it’s better to do that than to have your child feeling ostracised at the age of seven. I think this is especially an issue if you live in a rural/smaller community and your schooling options are non-existent
The whole communion thing reeks of the hypocrisy that is endemic in our culture (and I would be at fault here too)
May 20th, 2009 @ 11:00 am
A friend of mine had no interest in religion and neither did his family so he was allowed to spend religion classes how he wanted rather than rote learning of bullshit.
I wish I would have dodged that bullet too…
May 20th, 2009 @ 11:01 am
Tony S:Thats exactly it.Nothing is going to change with this until the Catholic Church’s majority on running the schools is removed.Unfortunately thats going to take a long long time because of the amount of land that they own in which alot of schools etc are built.
By the way in relation to this report,the compensation paid out to victims of the abuse was paid for by all of us and not the Church.Why isnt the Government going after their assets to claw back the couple of billion thats been paid out?
May 20th, 2009 @ 11:29 am
your views on the Catholic church make you sound like a disaffected 16 year old who has just had her nose pierced… your constant preeching about people and their hypocrisy about going to mass when they dont believe in god just displays a type of naivety on your part. maybe you need to explore other ideas as to why people attend mass ie for spiritual and or community reasons.
Attack the pervert priests all you like, but leave the rest of them out of it.
May 20th, 2009 @ 11:49 am
Got no problem in the world with people who go for their own faith or spiritual reasons, Sam. I think they’re wasting their time but its their time to waste.
It’s the people who don’t believe in God, don’t attend church, yet still live great chunks of their life through it.
May 20th, 2009 @ 11:51 am
My wife and I are devout atheists and resisted getting our children baptised up until the point where we realised they weren’t going to get into ANY school unless they were one religion or the other. The closest primary school is Church of Ireland so we got them baptised CoI. They wouldn’t have been let in otherwise even though we live across the road. We still don’t believe, but we found out the hard way that you have to play the religion game to get your children in to school in this country. However, CoI is at least the least religious of religions and we don’t have communion or anything to deal with so its easy enough to ignore. Supergrover, you will have the same problem unless there is a non-denominational school close by.
May 20th, 2009 @ 11:51 am
Sam – the system is rotten – the pervert priests and how they were “dealt with” was just a symptom.
May 20th, 2009 @ 12:18 pm
el cuno – “Supergrover, you will have the same problem unless there is a non-denominational school close by.”
Probably, but I still can’t imagine doing it…
Hi, CoI, I’m a catholic-reared atheist and this is my wife, the lapsed taoist. Sign us up, please.
May 20th, 2009 @ 12:52 pm
If the church were a bank, they would nationalise the bastards….no wait we already tried that.
May 20th, 2009 @ 12:55 pm
The issue isn’t Catholicism, the issue is what’s there to replace the lack of a religion in society?
Religion like it or not, brings communities and families together on a regular basis, re-affirms their commonality, keeps faces familiar, keeps people part of something and protects those who are alone. It has a huge part to play in keeping things civil and making people responsible for their actions in a community.
Which religion it is doesn’t really matter, they all perform the same function. In the absence of the calendar of events that a religion brings, what do we have to ensure that people engage on a regular basis with each other and maintain a civil and orderly society?
That is the real problem IMO.
May 20th, 2009 @ 1:21 pm
Supergrover, that’s exactly what I said except that my wife is a ne’er baptised total heathen ,as opposed to a lapsed taoist. They were fucking happy to have us as well. They haven’t seen us since, mind….
May 20th, 2009 @ 1:28 pm
Religion like it or not, brings communities and families together on a regular basis, re-affirms their commonality, keeps faces familiar, keeps people part of something and protects those who are alone. It has a huge part to play in keeping things civil and making people responsible for their actions in a community.
It’s a good point. I wonder, if you stood outside a church on a Sunday and did a survey, how many people really believe in God, believe in the teachings of the church etc.
For many it’s got to be a social habit more than anything to do with faith or worship.
May 20th, 2009 @ 1:37 pm
holemaster, where to start.. religion has (and still does) destroyed communities and families, highlighted differences, ostracised the unfamiliar, denied people access to society and protected those who should not have been allowed out alone in society. as for responsibility in, or to, the community, the words “institutional abuse report” are all that need to be said
not that religions are all bad. strip away the superstitions and irrational beliefs and most religions have at their core applied ethics or enlightened self interest – be nice to other people and they’ll be nice to you. teach ethics instead of religion until age 18 (when people become eligible to make lots of other important decisions) and ireland would be a better place. as for socialising, people will have more time to do the things they like (sports, outings, pubs etc.) instead of spending time being reminded how inferior and sinful they are.
May 20th, 2009 @ 1:41 pm
Catholicism is more of a tradition than a religion really but if you don’t have something to believe in then you won’t believe in anything.
Then where would you be?
May 20th, 2009 @ 1:46 pm
Naas?
May 20th, 2009 @ 1:50 pm
Catholicism is more of a tradition than a religion really but if you don’t have something to believe in then you won’t believe in anything.
Then where would you be?
Unencumbered by a load of bullshit?
May 20th, 2009 @ 1:51 pm
That’d be fairly Godforsaken too I guess.
May 20th, 2009 @ 1:59 pm
catholic church are definitely traditionalists – lots of tradition such as “do as we say, not as we do”, “who are you to question us?” and “there’s still more room under the carpet”. great.
a tradition of compliance through fear is not a good thing to believe in. how about encouraging people to believe in themselves and take responsibility for their own lives and actions instead of treating them like bold stupid children?
May 20th, 2009 @ 1:59 pm
A la carte Catholics, I used to be one myself, until I realised what the fuck I was playing at.
May 20th, 2009 @ 2:12 pm
for anyone interested:
executive summary (from rte)
http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0520/childabuse-executivesummary.pdf
actual report itself (from commission)
http://www.childabusecommission.ie/rpt/pdfs/
May 20th, 2009 @ 2:28 pm
There were 232 accounts of being hit or beaten with a variety of sticks, including canes, ash
plants, blackthorn sticks, hurleys, broom handles, hand brushes, wooden spoons, pointers,
batons, chair rungs, yard brushes, hoes, hay forks, pikes and pieces of wood with leather
thongs attached. One hundred and eighteen (118) witnesses reported being beaten with canes
and 37 with hurleys. Other implements described included bunches of keys, belt buckles, drain
rods, rubber pram tyres, golf clubs, tyre rims, electric flexes, fan belts, horse tackle, hammers,
metal rulers, butts of rifles, t-squares, gun pellets and hay ropes. Witnesses also reported
having objects thrown at them, such as blocks of wood or sliotars.
Fucking hell.
May 20th, 2009 @ 2:30 pm
He …(Br X)… flogged me one time, 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. Br …X… caught me and he brought me up to the
dormitory, he let down my trousers and he lashed me. He always wore a leather,
around 18 inches …(long)… and it was all stitched with wax, his leather was very thin. It
was about an inch and a half, others had leathers about 2 inches. He lashed me, he
flogged me.
May 20th, 2009 @ 2:31 pm
Ok, I take it back. Reading this now is actually shocking. Even though you know what went on, the witness accounts are horrific.
May 20th, 2009 @ 2:32 pm
I’m not saying that I am in favour of any religion. But those who lambast religion never offer an alternative to the ritual of community gathering which occur with religion. It is vitally important to the long term success of the human race.
In times past, we all believed in the Sun or the Moon or the Sea or various imagined Gods. And we got together to celebrate them at various times of the year. I think that makes a lot of sense and it demonstrated a respect for nature, for the very forces which create us and our lives.
Organised religion was usurped and manipulated by man to control the minds of the masses and to accumulate wealth and power. The fear and awe people had for nature was transferred to human-like deities and interpreted by intermediaries to their own ends. The only reason priests cannot marry is to deny the lay person access to church wealth, not because God said so.
May 20th, 2009 @ 2:48 pm
It’s horrific and hopefully it won’t just be news for a few days. Changes need to be made.
“there are obviously dedicated, devout and good people, yet they represent an organisation so venal, so corrupt, so deliberately wicked at times, that it is completely at odds with what they try and teach and preach.”
I have met some lovely priests who obviously believe in the whole religion thing, but I’ve also met some horrible bollixes that I’d be scared to be left alone in a room with.
How about a lie-detector test for priests (and nuns) with a couple of simple questions:
Do you believe in God?
Do you like to beat kids?
Are you a pervert?
May 20th, 2009 @ 2:51 pm
there are lots of alternatives, and always have been. work, school, sports, pub, even the internet. the definition of community is vastly different from the parochial (literally) meaning it had even a hundred years ago. you don’t even need to be in physical proximity to other members of your community to gather. religion is an irrelevant anachronism
May 20th, 2009 @ 2:53 pm
The fact that the abuse was so widespread makes me wonder was it encouraged? How can one institution have done so much harm to so many people without some level of official support? It doesn’t add up.
You only need a very small number of people to be the instigators. Most people are followers, not leaders.
May 20th, 2009 @ 2:56 pm
You’re still not coming up with a reasonable alternative Porridge. The internet is a particularly bad example.
People need to meet face to face and to maintain a proper society. Otherwise people disconnect and assume someone else will sort shit out. So who’s the someone else?
May 20th, 2009 @ 2:57 pm
You can’t just invent something else though, can you?
May 20th, 2009 @ 2:58 pm
That is you can’t just say ‘Right, swap religion for X’. Maybe as people drift away from religion something will take its place more organically.
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:00 pm
No you can’t. But you can’t throw something away without thinking about how it’s important functions can be carried on.
If we all retreat to our laptops and assume that our close family and friends and the only people we need to care about then society starts to implode and lose meaning.
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:03 pm
But it’s not going to happen that people en masse will throw religion away. Which is what I mean about something taking its place more naturally.
Although it will never happen anyway, will it? Can you ever change society enough that Christmas, for example, doesn’t happen or becomes more secular than religious? I don’t think so.
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:05 pm
well, god’s not going to sort shit out, and disconnecting works well for quite a lot of the 14,000 who came face to whatever with religious people.
people meet face to face at work, playing or watching sports, going to school or bringing your children there, at the pub, at parades or public meetings, the list is endless. and in most cases the level of interpersonal interaction is a lot higher and less constrained than at mass, or even afterwards. and the less artifical divisions you have between people, the better they are likely to get on with each other.
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:08 pm
I actually believe there is a move BACK to religion happening. It’s been happening the last ten years. I also think the Church of Ireland will grow here as it seems more relevant to many Irish today.
My person preference would be dancing around a turf fire drinking meade and having a good old pagan feast and orgy to celebrate being human.
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:10 pm
Porridge you’re missing my point. I’ll put it like this…
We’re NOT buying the Toyota because we know its shit. But we still need something to get around in so which is it, the Nissan, the Merc, the Skoda?
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:10 pm
Holemaster : How about political parties?
If people meet up at political events to rationally discuss how to organise society without any bullshit in the mix.
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:14 pm
Bring back the ancient festivals like Halloween and Bealtaine.
More bonfires!
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:17 pm
would be missing your point if, continuing your analogy, cars were the only way of getting around. bicycle, motorbike, bus, train, luas and walking are all alternatives. religions like fostering in people the idea that there is no alternative.
morgor: heh
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:19 pm
express fear and awe of nature by setting fire to large chunks of it :)
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:19 pm
These are the arguments that I find confusing.
Religion is a social thing… well, fair enough, call it that. Turn up to church but don’t pretend to believe in any of it or pray or anything. What’s so sociable about kneeling in rows listening to a priest anyway?
Is it not more respectful to keep away, whatever the minor social consequences, than to go on like you believe the whole thing?
People need to stand up for what they don’t believe.
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:21 pm
I’m going for a shit.
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:23 pm
I actually believe there is a move BACK to religion happening. It’s been happening the last ten years. I also think the Church of Ireland will grow here as it seems more relevant to many Irish today.
My person preference would be dancing around a turf fire drinking meade and having a good old pagan feast and orgy to celebrate being human.
I think so too, and I think it’s a VERY bad move.
If religion was like your idea I’d probably sign up wholeheartedly though ;)
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:24 pm
on your own? very antisocial of you, putting the race i danger like that.. could mean the end of you, sorry, us
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:34 pm
I had to have a think.
I might I have it solved, just needs some tweaks. I need some half naked busty maidens, jolly bearded men, three slaughtered boar, much meade and scrumpy, a catacomb and one of those tootle music instrument things.
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:35 pm
I don’t think we even need the church for social / ethical guidelines. They are innate and the church just jumped on them.
As someone once said – Organised religion is the hijacking of spiruality for political gain.
Sounds about right.
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:36 pm
Do I needd to mention that that should have been ‘spirituality’?
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:36 pm
Everything can be solved with a good flaggon of Mead
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:36 pm
‘need’
capper
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:37 pm
lose the jolly bearded men and could be on to something
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:38 pm
We ARE the jolly bearded men
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:39 pm
Speak for yourself. I’m more chipper than jolly.
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:41 pm
I read through the report from female witnesses.
The most shocking part for me was that the people in charge of the girls had no attitude of caring or empathy. Those girls were treated like criminal prisoners more than children.
So sad.
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:42 pm
I can picture all of ya on your death beds with tears running down your poor old cheeks crying “God forgive me, get me a priest, please, get me a priest” and your significant other saying “shut the fuck up and go to hell ya scut.”
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:44 pm
Fuck, that makes for very difficult reading. How the hell can they have no fucking heart at all.
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:45 pm
The most shocking part for me was that the people in charge of the girls had no attitude of caring or empathy.
The same goes for the Male report. It’s inhuman.
May 20th, 2009 @ 3:53 pm
This is most tragic thing to have happened this country since the famine.
May 20th, 2009 @ 4:07 pm
Surely the debate is not about the need for religion in peoples lives but rather the marriage between one faith and the state in Ireland which is still effecting parents choices around such basic needs as schools for their children. I live in a secular state where your address determines your school, where teaching religion is not allowed yet the local churchbells ring calling the faithful to mass.I have two girls so it was cheaper for me to move here than having to baptise the kids and buy communion dresses when the time comes around
May 20th, 2009 @ 4:20 pm
There’s forward planning for you.
May 20th, 2009 @ 5:04 pm
None of the churches rang the bells for Angelus around here. Did I imagine that?
May 20th, 2009 @ 5:10 pm
My take on it – the linking of Church and state from the days of Pearse allowed the same mentality of self-righteous venting of frustration and anger as happened in the days of the inquisition to run unchecked.
Ultranationalism – be it linked to a religion or a Political ethos – at most extreme think Iran, Stalinist Russia or Hitler’s Germany – is always dangerous.
May 20th, 2009 @ 5:40 pm
I think it will be a long time before I can come close to articulately expressing the utter disgust and hatred this shit brings out of me.
Bastards. Filthy, evil, cowardly bastards.
May 20th, 2009 @ 5:59 pm
First the Brits, then ourselves.
May 20th, 2009 @ 7:38 pm
My Brother told me once:I never wanted to be a member of a club that wanted me as a member.
He may have taken that from somewhere but it has worked for me so far..
May 20th, 2009 @ 7:39 pm
He’s right. I always avoided clubs your brother was a member of.
May 20th, 2009 @ 7:53 pm
Groucho Marx! He also said ” before I speak, I have something important to say”… he was a gas man altogether!
May 20th, 2009 @ 8:19 pm
Twenty:heh.
May 20th, 2009 @ 8:21 pm
That doesn’t include the mile high club as far as I know.. Terms and conditions apply
May 20th, 2009 @ 8:26 pm
I live in Spain and it is a tonic to read Holemaster: he really knows what he’s talking about. Unfortunately being a catholic here is even more nefarious, not a twitter of scandal even since Franco died. What a hold these boys have, the envy of the Christian Brothers!
speaking of the same, when I qualified as a secondary school teacher back in 1978 someone told me that ALL textbooks used in Irish schools are vetted by the catholic church (the archbishop). That still the case?? Anyone able to enlighten me further??
Good on yer 20 major, great blog.
May 20th, 2009 @ 8:56 pm
We need people like you who can write such acerbic observations, to repeatedly raise the ‘WTF?’ flag in order to show these betrayers of children that we will not be bought with bread and circuses in order for them to continue getting away away with their crimes against humanity’s most innocent souls.
Thank you.
May 20th, 2009 @ 9:01 pm
May I just point out that my name seems rather inappropriate for this topic. I’ve had it a long time and it’s nothing to do with Holes or Masters.
May 20th, 2009 @ 9:40 pm
When the second wave of abuse by the Catholic clergy hit America, I was disgusted. There was no effort made to hold the priests, the Bishops or the Cardinals accountable. It was enough to turn me away from the church.
Now this tragedy from Ireland, the land of my forefathers, comes to light. Yet again the clergy do not accept responsibility, they even sue to hide their names from the report.
We know that this disease within the Catholic Church is endemic. It is not limited to some few countries. This ungodly abuse is occurring anywhere the Church has a presence.
When no Church leader are held accountable, and very few abusers are held accountable, there is no reason to expect this to change.
The Catholic Church has a sick dark disease eating it up within. There is something very wrong going on in this battle of good vs. evil. I thought the church was on the side of good, yet every day it is becoming obvious that the Catholic Church is supporting the side of evil. Until I hear that Norton has resigned, O’Connor is stripped of his priesthood and that Pope Benedict is actually making changes, then I will continue to see the Church as representing the Devil and nothing else.
May 20th, 2009 @ 10:10 pm
you might be interested in the fact that the current pope signed documents sent to all bishops around the world commanding them to keep silence on this sort of thing.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/aug/17/religion.childprotection
He doesn’t just look evil…
May 20th, 2009 @ 10:42 pm
The whole thing makes me very sad. It goes far beyond the terrible suffering that everyone knew about but was recognised in the report today concerning abuse in Ireland. The perpetrators had influence globally, this needs to be seen as a scandal much wider than in Ireland or it risks being brushed under the table – I went to one of their schools, in England but the so called “christian” brothers had schools around the world. The abuse they inflicted was accepted by all of us and never questioned, because everyone was scared of the church and the priests and their threats of hell fire and damnation and in an Irish family that included the parents and grandparents as well. Everyone was scared of the organised superstition that the priests represented and their power to condemn us to hell so nobody ever questioned them or the abuse because they were terrified. Co-incidentally this also happened to suit governments around the world – what a good way to keep us in our place. At my school, partly because we were “day boys” and went home at four o clock to our Irish catholic families where the emotional abuse could continue, the physical scars are few. The people I really felt for were the “boarders” – all pasty faced children who could not go home after school and suffered torture from the reverend brothers that seemed to diminish towards the end of term so they could return to the parents who had abandoned them not looking too bruised. This is a true account from the 1970s.
May 20th, 2009 @ 10:49 pm
The Irish just aren’t very good at calling people out. We let the same people get away with the same crap repeatedly. Not just religious organisations either – any authority figures, be it priests, politicians, police or “captains of industry”.
Unfortunately, I don’t think the consequences (if any) will fit the crimes.
I am an athiest but I don’t think the attack on churchgoers is justified. You may as well attack anyone who lives in Ireland for staying in Ireland.
May 20th, 2009 @ 11:08 pm
Briefly reading through some of the documents on the Irish Times site, the greatest injustice is the continual use of Fr. X or Sr. Y. None of these scum will ever be named.
The sheep will continue to roll up to churches across the country this Sunday. Nothing changes.
I’m going to a church wedding next week of two people who normally never set foot inside one, but are getting married there to satisfy their parents.
The Catholic church has been the ruination of Ireland in so many ways.
May 20th, 2009 @ 11:22 pm
On the website CatholicIreland.net you will find blurb under the heading ‘Faith and Justice’. Examples are:
Faith and Justice
Taking Christ’s message seriously means being committed to the spreading of faith and justice throughout the world. And it is this commitment which characterises such activities as missionary work, environmental theology, and Christ-inspired work for social equality and justice. Read here the reflections and personal experiences of people who have made this matter a source of special motivation in their lives.
Global Justice
Injustice, sadly, is at times institutionalised and maintained by governments, legal bodies, and international organisations. It is often difficult for the powerless to fight for their rights and their dignity. Often it is even difficult for them to find a voice.
Hypocrisy rules, OK!
The Christian Brothers who sued to suppress names, all those people involved in the abuse of innocents and anyone else who is part of the cover-up are going to find out the real meaning of eternal damnation.
The Holy Father should ex-communicate the lot of them and disband the Christian Brothers immediately.
May 21st, 2009 @ 12:50 am
The Holy Father should ex-communicate the lot of them
But he was a direct part of the cover up !
May 21st, 2009 @ 1:39 am
From the link provided by Twenty – says it all :
Thomas Wall, an orphan from Limerick, was sent by the criminal courts to a Christian Brothers run reform school when he was just three.
May 21st, 2009 @ 9:18 am
Perhaps we’d be better off if the British had converted us to Protestantism?
May 21st, 2009 @ 9:58 am
[...] Twenty Major – Institutional Abuse report [...]
May 21st, 2009 @ 10:05 am
Perhaps we’d be better off if the British had converted us to Protestantism?
Almost certainly.
Wasn’t protestantism all about protesting against the abuses of the church?
Whereas we let it go on for another few hundred years.
May 21st, 2009 @ 10:06 am
and we had popes encouraging England to invade Ireland.
yet people still stand up for the hoors.
May 21st, 2009 @ 10:15 am
I was just thinking yesterday about the way we were treated in school. I went to a school run by a religious order, a fee paying school, yet right throughout junior school we were beaten with either a leather strap or a length of bamboo cane.
Never that badly and I don’t carry any scars physical or mental but it just stuck me that this was not that long ago and if that kind of treatment of kids was rife in that kind of school imagine what it was like when the kids had no homes to go, no parents to tell at the end of the day etc.
Just shows how pervasive it was in society.
May 21st, 2009 @ 1:40 pm
SuperGrover, you mention you have a kid on the way…you may have already done this, but if not – put your name down for a place in the local Educate Together. They’re massively over-subscribed due to the lack of non-Catholic National schools in this country, but if you act quickly and register for the year your baby turns 4 and also the year they turn 5, you might get in.
May 21st, 2009 @ 3:11 pm
Dont blame it all on Catholics. I was raised in a Anglo Catholic convent in Britain at the age of 6 up in the 1930s We have similar stories and it still lives with me today. It happens to children who are vunerable with no one to to come to their defense
May 21st, 2009 @ 3:37 pm
Wasn’t just catholics. I went to a protestant school in Belfast in the 70′s and early 80′s. Punching, caning and being hit with the metre rule were commonplace. If you complained to your parents you were told that, ” you must have deserved it” or, “didn’t do us any harm”.
Religion is such a load of bollocks anyway, the ruination of Ireland since day one.
Count me in for the mead and orgies….
May 21st, 2009 @ 5:46 pm
and we had popes encouraging England to invade Ireland.
When ?
May 21st, 2009 @ 5:51 pm
Pope Ian Paisley, 1968
May 21st, 2009 @ 6:08 pm
I got the shit beaten out of me by nuns at school.
My brothers got the shit beaten out of them by Christian Brothers.
But at least we got to go home at the end of the day I suppose, even if that wasn’t always a bed of roses.
May 21st, 2009 @ 6:09 pm
One of the most disturbing things for me Twenty is that it looks as if a lot of the things Paisley said in the really vile Protestant Telegraph had some truth in them. Scary.
May 21st, 2009 @ 6:20 pm
I like this one – It’s the nedia’s fault!
http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/05/jesuit-journal-says-secular-media.html
May 22nd, 2009 @ 6:06 am
Had to stop reading it…disgusting, unreal, I can’t believe it happened.
May 24th, 2009 @ 1:50 am
maggot Says:
May 21st, 2009 at 5:46 pm
and we had popes encouraging England to invade Ireland.
When ?
http://www.hvk.org/articles/0901/164.html
It’s ironic that they burn efigies of the very person who paid for the battle of the boyne on the glorious twelfth
June 16th, 2009 @ 9:40 pm
where do i start? Let’s start at the beginning, In the beginning there was mary / johnny lovely babies born only 2 weeks ago. First outing into the wide world – straight to church whether they wanted to or not. From then on in they are brought every sunday to the same place, probably the same seat next to the same people listening to the same shit. Off to school about 5 years old, religion rammed down their throat, church sunday, time for communion, had to do it not knowing what we were doing or why we were doing it, only that we were told to do it. Onto confirmation – confirming what? oh yeah, confirm that all religion is about money ask any kid that gets confirmation what was the day about? Answer you will probably get is about €300 but i’m going to see the neighbours later so i’m hoping for at least another €100 That definetly confirms confirmation. Now getting near the age to not bother going to mass and parents are learning that religion is a waste of time. Why do people who supposedly love god and going to church always sit at the back of the church?Surely they would want to be at the front of the church to be a little bit closer to god. Then others will go to the next parish just coz the priest says the mass in 20 mins while the old codger saying it in their local church is 40 mins. Again surely if they loved this god and his church they would want to spend as nuch time with him as possible and it is after all only 1 day a week! If he is all so powerful why could he not stop his army of paedos from hurting his young innocent flock. Children are the best thing about this world and for someone to do anything like this to them is against all that normal people stand for. Innocent children, done no harm to anyone. Bastards of abusers still abusing kids, does anyone reallyu think that they have all of a sudden stopped? ONCE A PAEDO ALWAYS A PAEDO. Where are they criminal assetts bureau? They should be knocking at the popes door and taking everything they have off them and redistributing it to the innocent ordinary people of the world. Help all the children /people that are starving and dying all around the world. I could say more but will leave something for others to say.