Catholic Church Abuse.

[dmc444]

I havent seen a thread on this subject posted.

Today a report on Child abuse at the hands of the catholic church will be published

What are your thoughts?

The nine-year inquiry investigated a 60-year period.

About 35,000 children were placed in a network of reformatories, industrial schools and workhouses up to the 1980s.

More than 2,000 told the Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse they suffered physical and sexual abuse while there.

The report said that 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 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 five-volume study concluded that church officials encouraged ritual beatings and consistently shielded their orders' paedophiles from arrest amid a culture of self-serving secrecy.

Links Here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8059826.stm

[marmurr1916]

According to the Irish Examiner, the report will be published online today at 2.30pm. Plenty of time for it to be the lead story on the 6.01 and 9 o'clock news.

If the revelations in the report are along the lines of what many people have been anticipating for years, then expect a sh*t-storm to descend on any institutions or individuals named in the report as bearing reponsibility for the abuse.

THE 10-year wait for the results of the state investigation into abuse of children in residential care ends today with the publication of the inquiry team’s final reports.
Five volumes of findings running to 2,500 pages will be released this afternoon by the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, which is expected to severely criticise the cruelty of the regimes in place at 200 institutions chiefly between the 1930s and 1980s.

Almost 2,000 former residents of industrial schools, reformatories, orphanages, boarding schools and other institutions gave evidence to the commission, either through its investigation committee, which actively probed allegations against individuals and bodies, or its confidential committee, which collected the experiences of witnesses without pursuing their complaints.

Many of the children were detained in institutions for petty offences such as truancy or begging while others were orphans, abandoned or forcibly removed from their single mothers. They complained to the commission of illegal detentions; physical, emotional and educational neglect; and physical and sexual abuse.

Findings in relation to about 20 institutions which were actively investigated will be detailed in the reports, to be published online at 2.30pm today, while more general conclusions will be made about those referred to during the hearings of the confidential committee.

[BodyofEvidence]

are these orgs covered by the disgraceful FF indemnity given a number of years ago or can they be stripped of each and every asset as inadequate and partial recompense?

[oscartango]

Wait until we have the Report. Then we can - hopefully for once - have an informed debate.

[dmc444]

The report will be published at 3pm today i understand,

[BodyofEvidence]

Wait until we have the Report. Then we can - hopefully for once - have an informed debate.

OT : i think we know without the report that kids were raped, beaten. starved and tortured in wholesale lots. The details are important, the overall facts are well known.

[oscartango]

BoE, I appreciate that. Nevertheless, I think it advisable to have the complete official horrific Report of this before us before commenting in any detail.

Speaking as an ex-civil servant (yes, I've retired now - yippee!), I can tell you that there were MANY in the System who knew a lot of what was going on and tried to do something about it but were prevented by their political masters and their pals in the Catholic Church.

[dmc444]

I agree that we should wait for the report, this is a shameful part of Irish history and those who took part and those who covered it up should be exposed and hopefully this report can give some insight into that.

[PeeMac]

This episode leaves a terrible stain on the whole nation and stinks to high heaven. From the catholic church, who were dishing out the abuse, to the State which was charged with the care of these children. From the civil servants who as OT stated, knew what was going on but were not brave enough to betray their political masters, to the parents who sent young girls away to hide their pregnancy so they could hold their head high in their local communities is just disgraceful not to mention the height of hypocrisy.

Teachers, doctors, nurses, relations, people delivering milk; anyone who came into contact with these kids should hold their heads in shame.

Any time we feel like saying we are proud to be Irish we should think of these kids and think again.

The sad thing is that as last nights prime time shows, vulnerable young children with mental health issues are still being mistreated by the state.

[wexfordman]

I am waiitng for kilbarry1 to weigh in on his opinion as to how many of these victims are making false accusations, or were simply "having affairs" witht thier abusers, and then to say that the impact on the victims was minimal or something along those lines.

My suggestion: Colm O'Gorman was gay and had been having an affair with Father Fortune!

When O'Gorman denounced Fr Fortune in 1995, the latter was in no position to tell the Gardai that he had been having a sexual affair with O'Gorman prior to 1984. After all, that would have been statutory rape!

This may also explain why Colm O'Gorman finds it so difficult to acknowledge the fact that false allegations of child abuse are a significant problem in Ireland today.

Looks like he's going to ahve a busy few days in the denial/slander business.