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Devastating account of abuse inflicted on children
Thursday, 18 March 2010
Today's revelations come after months of scandal over sex abuse in the Catholic Church.
Last May the Church was rocked to its core after a nine-year investigation by Irish high court judge Sean Ryan uncovered a litany of abuse.
The Ryan Report concluded that rape and sexual molestation were “endemic” in Irish Catholic Church-run industrial schools and orphanages.
Comprising 2,600 pages of often harrowing detail, it drew on testimony from thousands of former inmates and officials at over 250 Church-run institutions.
Of the 25,000 children who attended institutions between 1914 and the start of the investigation in 2000, around 1,500 made complaints.
Commission records show 474 claims of physical abuse and 253 claims of sexual abuse were made by boys against the institutions. A further 383 claims of physical abuse and 128 claims of sexual abuse came from girls.
Complaints were made against both religious and lay personnel. It revealed a devastating litany of torment inflected on defenceless children. And it shamed Irish society.
One victim spoke of an attempt to tell nuns they had been molested by an ambulance driver. They recalled being “stripped naked and whipped by four nuns to ‘get the devil out of you’”.
Another described how they were removed from their bed and “made to walk around naked with other boys”.
At the time Irish President Mary McAleese described the abuse as “an atrocious betrayal of love”.
Cardinal Sean Brady said he was “profoundly sorry and deeply ashamed that children suffered in such awful ways”.
The end of 2009 would see yet more lurid and shameful headlines. In November an investigation into abuse in the Catholic archdiocese of Dublin resulted in the Murphy Report.
The 720-page report concluded there was “no doubt that clerical child sexual abuse was covered up” from January 1975 to May 2004.
The investigation identified 320 victims between 1975 and 2004, and 120 from May 2004.
One of the priests who admitted abuse stated he did so more than 100 times. Another did so fortnightly for 25 years.
It stated that the four archbishops, John Charles McQuaid, Dermot Ryan, Kevin McNamara and Desmond Connell, who were serving during that time, handled complaints badly.
There have been claims of similar mistreatment of children by priests in Austria and Germany, while an independent inquiry has been set up to look into allegations in the Netherlands.
At the weekend Cardinal Brady admitted representing the Church at meetings in 1975, years before he became a bishop himself, when two victims of Father Brendan Smyth were asked to sign an oath of silence about their complaints.
The notorious paedophile later moved to other dioceses and countries, where he continued to abuse children for another 20 years.
Cardinal Brady yesterday apologised to “all those who feel I have let them down”, stating he would “reflect on what he had heard” from those who have been hurt by abuse.
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its not the catholic church its the roman catholic church. trying to rename it wont make it go away. what will make it go away is to jail all those concerned.
Posted by billy | 18.03.10, 22:16 GMT
monsignor`s and bishops and cardinals of your vile and evil roman catholic church were all known to the garda and your useless scared politicians. your cowardly and perverted priests should all be put in jail but whipped first of all just the way they whipped and beat the children. to those persons who also had knowledge and did nothing....a pox on all your houses. god love the children.
Posted by billy | 18.03.10, 19:17 GMT
I don't know what Sean Brady needs to think about,he should stand aside without question.. Why should people respect these people(priests) if they think they are above the law of our land.?A "respected" member of any community would never ever consider the cover ups of such evil and vile acts..
Posted by Rab | 18.03.10, 18:44 GMT
Why can't he understand that following the church policy of keep it all quiet is totally unacceptable. He says he was only following current policy, most of the defendants at Nuremberg in 1947 said the same.
Posted by Sam | 18.03.10, 17:52 GMT
Well said Laurie Sheehan, .....Where are the lawyers to advise on how best to get some justice for thi litany of evil deeds. Every day brings fresh revelations of barbarous cruelties inflicted on children...Time to hear all the politicians speak out for the children....Speak up for God's sake !
Posted by john g. | 18.03.10, 17:31 GMT
Rejoice rejoice. These revelations are exactly what we need to expose the corrupt practises of all religions and gods. Somewhere a believer will begin to doubt his or her faith and take the first step along the road to scientific enlightenment. I wish the catholic and all other churches all speed in exposing their own moral decay. Please please lets have more of this truth and less religion. Meanwhile these disgusting men of god should be arrested with the full force of civil law.
Posted by william | 18.03.10, 16:59 GMT
Something that most Catholics don't understand, and I speak as being a former one, is that the men, who are promoted to Bishop, Archbishop or Cardinal are not the most holy and sanctified men available for the job. They often bear little resemblance to the Apostles. Rather, they have risen through the ranks because they are obedient administrators, who tow "the party line" in doctrine. In addition, they are often good fund raisers! They might have theological degrees up the kazoo, but it is often found there is a disconnect between what they technically know and how they live their lives. One life is for show and the outward "Show of Sanctity," and the other is the real person, who often doesn't understand the simple, fundamentals of Christianity. Catholicism, yes! Christinity, NO!
Posted by Jeannie Cole | 18.03.10, 16:08 GMT
I have often wondered why Survivors of Priest Pedophilia haven't been able to get the entire Holy, Roman,
Apostolic, Catholic Church brought up before World Court? Before George W. Bush, who we fondly call, "Dubya," left the presidency of the United States, he sent Condoleeza Rice to the Vatican with the promise that the Pope wouldn't be held liable in US Courts. Many think that was a big, quite stupid mistake.
Posted by Jeannie | 18.03.10, 15:38 GMT
I totally reject the notion that the abuse happened because of the celibacy vow.
I think this is unsulting in the extreme to the many, many single people in our society who bear their single status with noble dignity and quiet strength.
I think the abuse happened because the clergy concerned (who were already paedophiles when they were ordained) came mostly from the middle class, and the children they abused were powerless, working class children with alcoholic, absent or deceased parents.
Shame, shame, shame on the church for being such hypocrites. The credibility of the church is in tatters. The shame taints all Catholics, either lapsed and practising. No wonder Ian Paisley hated the Catholic Church as much as he did. It kills me to say it but maybe he was right?
Posted by Sharon Owens | 18.03.10, 14:03 GMT
Grotesque physical abuse of young boys was a negative response to sexual inclinations within the 'Religious'. Justification was in the writings of Dr Arnold -toughening up was considered to be a virtue, enabling students to accept the challenges of the world.
Posted by Malachy McAnespie | 18.03.10, 12:23 GMT
a church of shame and the vilest of secrets.
Posted by ispy | 18.03.10, 11:40 GMT
Surely it is possible to have the EU and Governments implement the necessary action to jail the Bishops and Cardinals and perhaps even a Pope who have perpetrated such horrendous evil and crimes on so many children and their families.
The time for talking is over. Action needs to happen and it needs to happen faster than the efforts of the Vatican and the Irish Clergy in the last 6 months.
Posted by Laurie Sheehan | 18.03.10, 11:09 GMT
What would Christ do with that Church today if he returned to Earth? Destroy that Temple, is what HE would do.
Posted by Patrick J. Corr | 18.03.10, 10:28 GMT
.... and these clergy are some of the same people charged with planning the future school education of Catholic pupils!
The same people who argue that academic selection is morally wrong! They talk of morals after all that has been allowed to happen in Catholic schools right up until recent times!!!!!
These same people demand segregating Catholic children from those nasty Protestant children to stop any contamination and to to protect some mystical magical Catholic church ethos!
Strange that Education Minister Ruane has nothing bad to say about this in all her rants.
Tell us Ms Ruane as a former tennis player what exactly you think is the educational value of segregating children on religious grounds from 5 years?
Posted by T J McClean | 18.03.10, 09:02 GMT
And the Catholic Church have to gall to frown on Freemasonry for perceived 'secrets'!
Where's the hypocrisy now?
Posted by Richard G | 18.03.10, 08:52 GMT
I remember a person saying about the high morals of the irish, this contradicts this ,to know about such things and not at the least have some mass demonstration to show the general anger ,demeans them if your boss wanted to take a penny of your pay you would strike, yet abuse your children ,nothing much done, shame on you and your people.
Posted by moralist | 18.03.10, 07:27 GMT