.

Awareness, and to Stop Child Sexual Abuse and Child Abuse, committed by the catholic church, nuns and priest
and other Denomination Worldwide

Please be advised that some may find stories here Highly Uncomfortable & Upsetting to read.
" You shall Know the Truth and the Truth Will Set You Free.”

12 October 2014

Beyond Secret Tears

I was 4 years old and my brother was 5-1/2 years old when we were first separated from our parents and placed in a Protestant orphanage in Belgium. I was a depressed and confused child, but with the passing of time, I began to believe that all children lived away from their parents.
After several months, the director of the orphanage had reason to suspect that the Germans might discover the few Jewish children hidden there and my brother and I were suddenly returned to our parents. Eager to surprise them, I was happy again. 


http://archive.adl.org/children_holocaust/story_beyond_tears2.html 

In Cold Blood Summary and Analysis

In a Mexico City hotel room, Perry browses through his personal artifacts and papers. He comes across a letter written by his father on his behalf while at the Kansas State Penitentiary, detailing the events of Perry’s early life. As one of four children born to the Western rodeo duo of Tex John Smith and Florence Buckskin, Perry lived an impoverished and itinerant childhood until his parents’ separation when Perry was six years old. 
After living for a short while with his alcoholic mother, Perry was sent to a Catholic orphanage, where nuns routinely abused him for wetting the bed. After he contracted pneumonia from this and other forms of neglect, his father took him away to live in Alaska, where he learned to hunt and track, and to search for gold in nearby streams.

http://www.gradesaver.com/in-cold-blood/study-guide/section4/ 

Child Forced To Sleep Next To A Dead Nun At Care Home Of Horrors

A young girl was forced to sleep in a locked room next to a dead nun, a public inquiry into historical child abuse at a care home of horrors has heard.
The orphan girl, now in her 60s, told of the abuse she suffered at the hands of nuns at the Sacré Coeur orphanage, at Rouge Bouillon, Jersey, who beat children with spoons and forced them to work in a knitwear factory, the BBC reported.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/09/12/jersey-abuse-inquiry_n_5809756.html 

women make up 10 per cent of perpetrators reported to royal commission

A blind Vietnamese orphan who was five when she came to Australia, 11 when she was sexually abused by a Catholic nun and 35 when she received $15,000 in compensation for her "personal trauma" has spoken out for the 10 per cent of people reporting female perpetrators to the child sexual abuse royal commission.
"I want people to know a small percentage of women are just as capable of abusing power as men are," said Emma Pham, who was sexually abused by Dominican nun Sister Kay Fennell at the St Lucy's School for the Visually Impaired at Wahroonga in 1979.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/child-sexual-abuse-women-make-up-10-per-cent-of-perpetrators-reported-to-royal-commission-20140923-10kznh.html 

Catholic brother faces new charges

A former Catholic brother charged five months ago with hundreds of counts of sexual abuse against children and young adults, is living on a tea plantation in Sri Lanka because the authorities dragged their feet in extraditing him to Australia.
The former St John of God brother, Bernard Kevin McGrath, who recently served two years in a New Zealand prison for sexually abusing boys here, had 252 abuse charges laid against him in a Newcastle court on June 27. 

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/7996738/Catholic-brother-faces-new-charges 

Nuns on the run

A woman who says she was tortured by the Sisters of Nazareth at a Christchurch orphanage wants them to pay for her alleged suffering. Defenders of Nazareth House say she is driven by greed, not grief.
Ann Thompson is the latest in the swelling ranks queuing for compensation from the Catholic Church. Thompson's target is Christchurch's Sisters of Nazareth, whose charity work in the city dates back nearly 100 years. 


http://www.peterellis.org.nz/church/2002/2002-0914_ThePress_NunsOnTheRun.htm 

"Nothing can take away the horror of what happened to the victims"

A FORMER Catholic priest who was on the run for 20 years has admitted sexually abusing seven children – four of them in Derby.
Francis Paul Cullen, who spent 18 years working at Christ the King Catholic Church, on the Mackworth Estate, this morning pleaded guilty to 21 charges of abuse against children as young as six, including altar boys, between the 1950s and 1990s.

http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/Mackworth-priest-Francis-Paul-Cullen-admits/story-20689737-detail/story.html 

Abuse case man 'will die before compensation ruling'

A man who claims he was abused at a Catholic boys' home says he will die before compensation claims are settled.
Robert Maxwell, 62, from York, was a pupil at St William's, in Market Weighton, in the 1960s. He has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-14807926 

Shefford boys' home abuse inquiry: Man, 77, arrested

A 77-year-old man from Norfolk has been arrested on suspicion of historical physical and sexual abuse after complaints about staff at a former Catholic boys' home in Bedfordshire.
The man, from Thetford, was interviewed and bailed at part of an investigation into Shefford St Francis Boys Home. 

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-25319640 

11 October 2014

Shefford boys' home abuse inquiry: Second man quizzed

A second man has been interviewed by police investigating alleged abuse connected to the former Shefford St Francis Catholic Boys' Home in Bedfordshire in the 1960s.
The man, 71, understood to be an ex-scoutmaster, voluntarily came in for interview by police at the end of November, but has not been arrested.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-25403777 

St Francis Boys' Home sex abuse inquiry: Police review evidence

Ex-residents of a Catholic orphanage in Bedfordshire are to be re-interviewed by police in a new review into claims of physical and sexual abuse.
In May 2013 police revealed an investigation had begun into alleged abuse at the St Francis Boys Home in Shefford, in the 1950s and 1960s

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-29094848 

NUN ABUSE: A Survivor's Message for the Vatican

I remembered back to this past spring. I'd just hung up the phone. It was late and the conversation with yet another clergy abuse survivor had zapped my strength and spirit as they'd recounted to me the horrors of their youth. I looked to the clock and knew I should be heading to bed because tomorrow was Easter. Easter. The celebratory feast day that millions of Catholics would spend rejoicing and celebrating the resurrection of Jesus.
I also knew that the survivor I'd just spoken with would not be attending Church tomorrow; instead the victim of clergy abuse would struggle to get out of bed and spend most of the day weeping ... 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kim-michele-richardson/apology-and-accountabilit_b_721489.html 

Magdalene Laundries: An American survivor's interview

Courage has a name: It is Diana O’Hara. Diana is a survivor of the Magdalene Laundries operated in the United States by the Good Shepherd Sisters, a Roman Catholic religious institute for women.
The order is among those that are being charged with the enslavement and abuse of thousands of woman in what are called “Magdalene Laundries.”

http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/heart-without-compromise-children-and-children-wit/2013/feb/9/magdalene-laundries-american-survivor-speaks-out/ 

Sinead O'Connor reveals her abuse in Catholic Magdalene Laundries

“We were girls in there, not women, just children really. Moreover, the girls in there cried every day. It was a prison. We didn’t see our families, we were locked in, cut off from life, deprived of a normal childhood.
“We were told we were there because we were bad people. Some of the girls had been raped at home and not believed.One girl was in because she had a bad hip and her family didn’t know what to do with her.

http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/heart-without-compromise-children-and-children-wit/2013/feb/7/sinead-oconnor-reveals-her-abuse-catholic-magdalan/ 

Cruel Nuns of Sisters of Nazareth First Focus of UK's Biggest Child Abuse Inquiry

The Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry is due to begin investigating claims of child abuse in residential homes and borstals today.

The Statutory Inquiry part of the investigation will cover allegations made during a period of 73 years, from 1922 to 1995. Over 400 people contacted the inquiry with claims of neglect and sexual, physical and psychological abuse.

Montana Catholic Church, Ursulines Face Sexual-Abuse Charges Read

On Tuesday, September 27, Tamaki Law of Yakima, Washington, and Morales Law Office of Missoula, Montana, filed a complaint against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena (Montana) and the Ursuline Sisters of the Western Province. 
The two law firms did so on behalf of 45 Salish, Kootenai, Blackfeet, Chippewa, Cree and Gros Ventre adults who suffered sexual, physical and emotional abuse as children at Catholic-run schools in Montana. For the most part, the Native students attended St. Ignatius Mission and the Ursuline Academy, both in the town of St. Ignatius, during the 1940s through the 1970s. 

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/09/28/montana-catholic-church-ursulines-face-sexual-abuse-charges-56027 

Dutch Catholic girls abused at home, in church

A commission investigating abuse of children linked to Dutch Roman Catholic institutions says girls were sexually abused by members of the clergy in their homes and in church, while they suffered physical abuse and intimidation at the hands of nuns at homes for young women.
The report follows a previous study focused on boys, which found boys were especially vulnerable to sexual abuse in boarding schools.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/dutch-catholic-girls-abused-home-church 

Soul Wound: The Legacy of Native American Schools

A little while ago, I was supposed to attend a Halloween party. I decided to dress as a nun because nuns were the scariest things I ever saw," says Willetta Dolphus, 54, a Cheyenne River Lakota. The source of her fear, still vivid decades later, was her childhood experience at American Indian boarding schools in South Dakota.
Dolphus is one of more than 100,000 Native Americans forced by the U.S. government to attend Christian schools. The system, which began with President Ulysses Grant's 1869 "Peace Policy," continued well into the 20th century. Church officials, missionaries, and local authorities took children as young as five from their parents and shipped them off to Christian boarding schools; they forced others to enroll in Christian day schools on reservations. Those sent to boarding school were separated from their families for most of the year, sometimes without a single family visit. Parents caught trying to hide their children lost food rations.

Trial date approaches for Ursuline sisters

A courtroom in Helena, Mont., could be the scene of a rare occurrence in the decades-long crisis of sex abuse in the Catholic church: Roman Catholic women religious as defendants.
If the case goes to trial as scheduled on Dec. 1, the Ursuline Sisters of the Western Province will defend themselves against allegations that 11 sisters who served at the St. Ignatius Mission church and school on the Flathead Indian Reservation from the 1940s to the early 1970s physically, sexually and emotionally abused boarding and day school students.

http://globalsistersreport.org/news/trends/trial-date-approaches-ursuline-sisters-12351 

10 October 2014

Woman challenges time bar to sue nuns

A WOMAN who claims to have been abused by nuns at a Catholic orphanage will take her case to court today in a move that could open the floodgates to legal actions worth up to £50 million.
Lawyers for Adeline Bowden will challenge a time bar at the Court of Session in Edinburgh, to allow the case to be heard more than 20 years after she left the children's home. 

http://www.scotsman.com/news/scotland/top-stories/woman-challenges-time-bar-to-sue-nuns-1-533661 

Abuse Inquiry to hear from children sent to Australia

Northern Ireland's Historical Abuse Inquiry is to hear evidence about the practice of sending children from homes in the North to institutions in Australia.
Documents examined by the Inquiry have revealed how in the decade up to 1956 the child migration scheme was in place and it has gathered testimony from over 60 people who were sent to Australia.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2014/0830/640333-inquiry-to-hear-from-children-sent-to-australia/ 

We deeply regret any maltreatment and hurt to children at Sisters of Nazareth

For several weeks Sister Brenda McCall quietly listened to stories of the horrific abuse of young children placed in the care of the Sisters of Nazareth.
Yesterday she described the evidence of alleged victims to the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry as shocking and harrowing.

Nazareth House: Tragic child 'slapped for eating toxic berries'

A child at Nazareth House children's home who died after eating poisonous berries was slapped across the face by one of the nuns for making herself sick, a witness told the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry.
The woman, who was a resident at Nazareth House from 1940 when she was aged three until she left in 1954, said her memory of the home was that it was very strict and that two nuns in particular were "very cruel".

Abuse spotlight on Australian nuns

Fresh allegations of sexual abuse, this time involving a group of nuns, have hit the Catholic Church in Australia. The Poor Sisters of Nazareth order has admitted paying up to $A75,000 (US $41,400) to women who claimed they were abused in an orphanage. 
From the time I was seven we were stripped naked and thrown on the bed... and we'd be thrashed with a machine strap. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/asia-pacific/2220843.stm 

'I want an apology before I die': women abused by nuns

'I want an apology before I die': The 'wayward' women abused by nuns in Ireland's notorious Magdalene laundries who are still demanding justice more than two decades after the last one closed.
On a squally September day, an elderly lady with her jacket done up tightly against the wind walks solemnly up to a grave in a cemetery in Dublin and lays down a bunch of flowers. There are 160 names on the giant headstone

What’s Religious about the Sexual Abuse of Children by Priests and Nuns?

HARTFORD, CT, March 20, 2012 – Sexual abuse of children, while not exclusive to the Catholic Church, may be more widely prevalent due to the doctrine and practices of Catholicism, according to Robert Orsi ’75, Professor of Religion and the Grace Craddock Nagle Chair in Catholic Studies at Northwestern University, and Terry McKiernan, founder and president of BishopAccountability.com. 
Allegations of sexual abuse and cover-up by religious officials, as well as the investigation and prosecution of these crimes, received significant media coverage in past decades, and continue to produce scandal for the Catholic Church. One recent example includes a 60 Minutes segment that aired on March 4, 2012 that profiled Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin, who addressed the effects that these events have had in Ireland on the Church and its followers. 

9 October 2014

Rubane House 'like Hell upon Earth' for 69-year-old branded a liar for reporting his abuse as boy

A former resident of a Catholic children's home stayed silent about the horrific abuse he suffered as a 10-year-old boy for more than half-a-century after he was branded a liar when he first tried to raise the alarm.
The witness, now 69, described his eight years at Rubane House as "like Hell upon Earth" in evidence to the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry into child sexual abuse at the home in County Down yesterday. 

Abuse Not Only Sexual at Madonna Manor Catholic Boys Home

“Earlier in day the nun was beating me, now she has me suckle on her breast.  I heard them killing a kid once. Just some of the things I'm dealing with in therapy.”
Seeing stories in the news today about Irish orphanages where sex was only part of the abuse children experienced, I knew it was time to publish Ted 4 (Ted 1 is here  and Ted 2 is here ), since the theme of the Parallel Hells series is the similarities in pedophile priest crimes and coverups around the world.  I have not been able to complete Ted 3, which will be of the R Rated site and include details of sodomy rape by a priest in a confessional. To be honest, I can’t even open that Word file and work on it lately, so the project has been stalled, until I saw recent news reports from Ireland.


http://cityofangels12.blogspot.co.nz/2014/10/abuse-not-just-sexual-at-madonna-manor.html 

Kincora Boys Home: BBC Spotlight to broadcast new abuse allegations

A former resident of Kincora Boys Home has described how he was taken out of the care home and introduced to other men for sex at hotels.
The children's home, in east Belfast, was the subject of a high-profile child sex abuse scandal in the 1980s. Richard Kerr was among the young residents who were abused. He was sent to live there in 1975, when he was 14. 

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-29516208 

Boy restrained in cattle equipment while raped by priest, abuse inquiry told

A MAN has given harrowing evidence to the north's child abuse inquiry of being held in a cattle crush while being raped. 
The witness said a religious brother at Rubane House in Co Down put him in the farm equipment, used to hold animals while veterinary work is carried out, before abusing him. He said he reported the attack to a priest, but claimed the cleric told his abuser. 

http://www.irishnews.com/news/boy-restrained-in-cattle-equipment-while-raped-by-priest-abuse-inquiry-1384897

Former nun speaks out on church abuse claims

For 40 years many boys placed in institutions run by the order of St John of God were molested, raped and physically assaulted by some of the men who were supposed to care for them. Now a former nun who worked for the order speaks out about what she says is a culture of collusion within its ranks.
CHRIS UHLMANN, PRESENTER: Among the litany of accusations that led to the recent announcement of a Royal commission into the institutional child sex abuse, none have been more shocking than those surrounding the Catholic order St John of God. For 40 years boys placed in the order's care were molested, raped and physically assaulted. The story has hit the headlines this week with the arrest in New Zealand of a former brother accused of molesting 35 children in a home for intellectually disabled boys. Tonight a former nun who worked for the order speaks out about what she says is a culture of collusion within its ranks. In a moment I'll be joined by the head of the order, Brother Timothy Graham, but first this report by Lisa Whitehead.

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2012/s3651319.htm 

Man abused by nun files civil lawsuit

A man abused by a nun who was the principal of the Catholic grade school he attended on Milwaukee's south side filed a civil lawsuit Wednesday against the woman and her order, contending that the order was aware that she had abused another youth two years before she came to Milwaukee.
The nun, Sister Norma Giannini, 80, was released from the House of Correction last month after serving a one-year term. She had pleaded no contest and was found guilty of two felony counts of indecent behavior with a child. The plaintiff in the civil lawsuit, Gerald Kobs, was one of those victims.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/45504342.html 

Nun saddened by accusations

A nun accused of sexually and physically abusing needy children more than 40 years ago says the complainants have convinced themselves the incidents happened.
Sister Bernard Mary, 69, who now lives in Christchurch, says she feels saddened rather than angry about her accusers. She says she first heard of the complaints stemming from her time at the Sisters of Nazareth's home in Brisbane when she was the congregation's worldwide head in England three years ago. 

Religious Fanatics are amoung the most vicioius child abusers in the world

A Belgian foster home asked potential victims of sexual abuse to come forward on Monday after a man said nuns had abused him there as a child in the 1960s.
The anonymous Belgian, now in his fifties, told local media on Monday that he was abused by nuns for several years from the age of five while he lived at the Stella Maris home in the town of Kortrijk, western Flanders.


http://christianchildabuse.blogspot.co.nz/2011/01/abuse-by-nuns.html 

Sinead O’Connor To Publish Memoir

In 1992, O’Connor appeared as a musical guest on "Saturday Night Live." After singing Bob Marley’s “War,” a rendition in which she changed the lyrics to draw attention to child abuse in the Catholic church, she ripped in half a photo of Pope John Paul II, a move the show’s producers claimed was unplanned. 
The audience reacted in shocked silence. The act elicited support from pornographer Bob Guccione, praise for creating "a moment of truly great television" by the Chicago Sun-Times' Richard Roeper, and criticism from Madonna, who was quoted as saying there were other ways of criticizing the church than by ripping up a symbol that meant something to so many people.

http://www.ibtimes.com/sinead-oconnor-publish-memoir-denies-earlier-claim-sexual-conquests-will-be-detailed-1701179

8 October 2014

Woman appeals for help to trace medical records

A witness at the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry has appealed for help to trace her Irish family's medical records.
The woman was shipped from Nazareth House in Belfast to Australia when she was four. Now in her 60s, she said she wanted to see her records because two of her children had died at a young age. 

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-29134873 

Sisters of Nazareth 'put hands up' over child migrants

The Congregation of the Sisters of Nazareth has told an inquiry it has to "put its hands up" over its involvement in a child migrant scheme to Australia.
The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) is examining child abuse in religious and state-run institutions in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 1995.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-29159760 

Abuse at Rubane House was 'as bad as Kincora'

Sexual abuse at a children's home in County Down was equal to, if not worse, than abuse at Kincora Boys Home, an inquiry has been told.
The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry is examining allegations of abuse at Rubane House, Kircubbin. The inquiry estimates that 200 of Rubane's 1,050 former residents have made allegations of serious sexual or physical abuse.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-29401679 

Call for AG to order inquests for Tuam mother-and-baby home

There has been a call for the Attorney General to order inquests to be carried out into the deaths of children who died at the mother-and-baby home in Tuam, Co Galway.
This would necessitate excavations to be carried out at a site, where it is thought babies who died in the Tuam home were buried.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2014/0926/648286-babies/ 

Abuse 'rampant' at children's home

Sexual abuse was rampant at a children's home in Northern Ireland run by a Catholic order of brothers, a senior police officer has said.
Around a fifth of boys at Rubane House in Co Down were subjected to sexual or physical abuse, according to a public inquiry, equal to if not worse than that by loyalists at another home, Kincora in east Belfast.

http://www.hillingdontimes.co.uk/news/national/11502113.Abuse__rampant__at_children_s_home/ 

Sin, Sweat ... And Sorrow

ROCKHAMPTON, population 65,000, the unauthorised capital of central Queensland, 650 kilometres north of the state capital Brisbane, sits only a matter of metres north of the Tropic of Capricorn. The city almost escaped being in the tropics. A few kilometres south and it would have. 
But such was not to be. Climatically Rockhampton is firmly within what geographers call "the torrid zone" and over the years it has managed to get itself a reputation as a torridly tropical city - a reputation that even really tropical cities a thousand miles nearer the equator don't have - and would not want.

http://justiceproject.net/content/SinSweatAndSorrow.asp 

Never Touch A Nun "You'll Regret This Day Forever!"

Stories of terrible beatings and bashings at Neerkol abound. "Sid" remembers the day he did the unthinkable. He touched a nun. There was an unwritten rule at Neerkol. Never touch a nun … never.
We used to sluice the veran-dahs of the dormitories each Saturday morning. The sluicing involved washing down the verandahs by either hosing or throwing water from a bucket and then sweeping or mopping the water off.

http://justiceproject.net/content/NeverTouchANun.asp 

Sins Of The Father The Failings of Fr Anderson

MANTELPIECES are great places for stickybeaks. What people put on their mantelpieces often says as much about them as can be gleaned from an hour of conversation.
Mantelpieces are where treasures and achievements and awards reside -- along with the photographs, frozen in time, of the proud or precious moments of the lives of those whose mantelpiece it is.

Bitter Memories experiences in the orphanage

In late 1997 and earely 1998, scores of former residents of Neerkol responded to a questionnaire seeking information about their experiences in the orphanage.
Numerous letters and face-to-face interviews and endless hours of heart-wrenching and tearful conversations on the telephone followed and revealed, despite the passage of the years, there are many badly damaged people in our community as a result of the Neerkol experience. Here are some of the things they recalled about their lives in and after the orphanage.

http://justiceproject.net/content/SurvivorsTellTheirStories.asp 

The Cat And The Whip God's Enforcers

THE punishment system we thought was abolished when the convict system in this country was abolished, was not. It persisted at Neerkol for almost another hundred years. A version of the cat-o'-nine-tails was used there at least until World War II.
There was, however, one concession to the march of civilisation. The cat used on the girls was unknotted. 

http://justiceproject.net/content/TheCatAndTheWhip.asp 

7 October 2014

Guilty: verdict on cruel nun - SISTER OF NO MERCY.

THROUGHOUT her six-week trial, she sat passively, her blue nun's garb covering a tiny frame, and listened to terrible stories told about her by children she once cared for.
On the one hand, she was described as "the devil", an evil, bitter woman - on the other, the most gentle of individuals, capable of great love.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/GUILTY%3A+VERDICT+ON+CRUEL+NUN+-+SISTER+OF+NO+MERCY.-a065315998

DISGRACE; 2000; Lawyer helps child abuser nun to dodge prison

LAWYER who helped a nun guilty of child cruelty walk free from court has been nominated for a top award by the Catholic Church. 
Gerald Cunningham has been put forward by Scotland's top Catholic, Archbishop Mario Conti, to pick up the Papal Knighthood for his legal services to the Church. 

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/DISGRACE%3b+2000%3b+Lawyer+helps+child+abuser+nun+to+dodge+prison%3b+2003%3b...-a099370198 

pounds 8.5M Queues to Sue Over Crue Nun.

THE conviction of a Catholic nun on child cruelty charges yesterday sent shockwaves to the very top of the church. The Roman Catholic Church face damages claims that could top pounds 8.5 million.
The nun, her supporters and family claim those making the accusations were driven solely by money. But a jury of nine women and six men did not agree. Now up to 420 people are waiting to hear if they'll be compensated for abuse. 


http://www.thefreelibrary.com/pounds+8.5M+QUEUES+TO+SUE+OVER+CRUEL+NUN.-a065317039 

Guilty as sin verdict on brutal nun.

EVIL nun Sister Alphonso was found guilty yesterday of a catalogue of abuse against girls she was meant to be looking after. The 58-year-old, who terrorised girls in children's homes run by the Catholic Church, showed no emtion as the four guilty verdicts were read out.
But last night there was fury. Victim Helen Cusiter, 43, said: "As far as I'm concerned she can burn in hell. She's not fit to wear a nun's habit. She should be thrown out of her convent to find out what real life's like on the street."


http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Guilty+as+sin+verdict+on+brutal+nun.-a065316030

Sister Cruelty; Nun, 58, is convicted of hitting children in her care during 1960s.

A NUN was yesterday found guilty of being cruel to children in her care after a trial lasting six weeks. Marie Docherty, 58, known as Sister Alphonso, sat in the dock wearing her blue habit and with her head bowed as the jury returned majority guilty verdicts on four charges.
Another nun in the court's public gallery wept quietly and clutched rosary beads as the verdicts were delivered. Earlier, the court heard that police launched an investigation after one of Docherty's victims, Helen Cusiter, now 43, went back to Nazareth House in Aberdeen, the children's home where she had lived in the 1960s.


http://www.thefreelibrary.com/SISTER+CRUELTY%3b+Nun%2c+58%2c+is+convicted+of+hitting+children+in+her+care...-a065315889

Nun, vagrant found guilty of child rape.

A FORMER nun and a homeless man have been found guilty of raping a young girl at a children's home while another child looked on. 
Nora Wall, 51, and Paul McCabe were found guilty of raping the now 21-year-old victim in a child care centre in the south of Ireland from 1987 to 1990. 

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Nun%2c+vagrant+found+guilty+of+child+rape.-a060451013 

Boy allegedly locked in ‘cattle crusher’ and raped

The North’s Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry heard today how one boy was allegedly locked in a “cattle crusher” by a De La Salle brother and raped.
The witness, now aged 70, and his 77-year-old step-brother described how they were allegedly sexually and physically abused when separately they were in the care of the De La Salle brothers at Rubane House in Kircubbin, Co Down. 

Churchgoers hear a shocking tale of childhood abuse

A WIVENHOE woman has spoken of the torture and torment she suffered at the hands of “sadistic” nuns as a child.
Churchgoers in the town listened in horror as Frances Reilly recounted tales of the institutional abuse she suffered in an orphanage run by the Poor Sisters of Nazareth, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. 

http://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/8671599.Churchgoers_hear_a_shocking_tale_of_childhood_abuse/ 

Suffer the Little Children

Clutching their eight-week-old sister in their arms, three-year-old Frances and six-year-old Loretta Reilly were abandoned by their mother outside the gates of the Poor Sisters of Nazareth convent in Belfast. It was 1956.
 Little did the children know these walls were to imprison them for the next thirteen years. In the charge of the sisters, Frances lived with daily brutal and bloody beatings, treated as a slave to be abused, raped and molested. She fought a decade-long court case against the Poor Sisters of Nazareth order to bring to account the nuns who so viciously stole her childhood. She is a survivor.

 http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Suffer_the_Little_Children.html?id=pbRoygAACAAJ&redir_esc=y

6 October 2014

Nun at centre of sex abuse storm told 'no case to answer'

A Catholic nun accused of abusing children in a Brisbane orphanage had been told she had no case to answer, her order said today.
Sister Bernard Mary and other nuns who served at Nazareth House, operated by the Sisters of Nazareth in Brisbane in the 1940s and 1950s, have been accused of sexually and physically abusing children at the orphanage.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/09/23/1032734101631.html 

Nuns accused of torture, sex assaults

The Catholic Church has distanced itself from allegations that children were sexually and physically abused over three decades at one of Queensland's best known church institutions.
A former student at Nazareth House in the Brisbane bayside suburb of Wynnum claimed yesterday that two nuns at the former church orphanage had sexually interfered with several girls on many occasions.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/08/28/1030508071883.html 

Irish woman who was adopted as a child by paedophile says nuns condemned her to years of sexual abuse

When Mary Monaghan, now 64, was sent to live in America aged two, the Irish Catholic nuns who put her on the boat thought they were sending her to a better life.
Tragically, nothing could have been further from the truth for not only was her adoptive father William O'Brien violent, he was a predatory paedophile as well.

Church Exposed Young Aboriginals to Abuse

The Brisbane Catholic authorities had known for 25 years that Father Leo Wright was committing sex crimes against children but they retained him in the ministry and he continued to offend, Brisbane District Court was told in September 1997.
Wright, 59, who was already in jail for child-abuse, was charged with one count of rape, four counts of indecent assault and four of indecent dealings involving an Aboriginal girl ("Sally"), from 1970 to 1976, when she was aged from 12 to 18. The offences began at an Aboriginal community, where Wright was ministering. Some of the offences occurred immediately after Wright conducted Mass. After Sally turned 18, Wright continued a sexual relationship with her but this did not involve criminal charges.

http://www.brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/13 

Nun accused of abuse has risen from the dead

A nun accused last year of child abuse in Australia has apparently risen from the dead and is living in Christchurch. Sister Bernard Mary was a central figure in a Queensland court case last year alleging abuse at a Brisbane orphanage in the 1950s and 1960s.
Trustees for her order, the Sisters of Nazareth, claimed in documents filed in the Queensland Supreme Court last July that she was dead.  But the Catholic Church said Sister Bernard, in her 60s, lived in Christchurch, where she leads the New Zealand order. 


http://www.peterellis.org.nz/church/2002/2002-0907_DominionPost_NunAccused.htm 

John Boyne: ‘The Catholic priesthood blighted my youth and the youth of people like me’

Over the course of my writing life, I’ve often been asked why I don’t set my novels in Ireland. To this question, I had a stock reply: that I didn’t want to write about my own country until I had a story to tell. Now, having written a book that takes the subject of child abuse in the Irish Catholic church as its theme, I wonder if that answer was entirely honest.
I’ve spent the past two years recalling experiences from my childhood and teenage years that I would rather forget, reliving events that should never have taken place and recreating through fiction, moments that seemed small at the time but that I’ve come to realise caused me great damage. Which makes me think that the real reason I never wrote about Ireland until now is explained in the opening sentence of my novel:

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/oct/03/john-boyne-novelist-catholic-church-abuse-priesthood-boy-in-striped-pyjamas 

Victim horrified to learn alleged abuser continues to preach in Papua New Guinea

When David McNamara first complained to the Catholic Church in the 1990s that he had been sexually abused in a church-run home, he believed his abuser would face justice.
And as the years passed and he received a settlement for the abuse at the Kendall Grange home for intellectually disabled boys in NSW, he thought that at the very least his alleged attacker would have left the church and been kept away from children.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/victim-horrified-to-learn-alleged-abuser-continues-to-preach-in-papua-new-guinea-20141005-10ppae.html 

Inaction on priest's alleged sex abuse of orphans at issue

It began one day in 2009 with a fight among a group of boys — orphans, all of them — from the toughest, poorest streets of Honduras.
They argued about a priest, a pudgy, bespectacled older man from America who showed up now and then with gifts — offerings of cash and candy that carried a hefty price, according to Department of Homeland Security records.

Darwin home residents march on police station after child abuse hearings

The royal commission has wrapped up after almost two weeks of hearings in Darwin about the Retta Dixon home, which housed children from 1946 until 1980.
Nine former residents gave harrowing evidence of physical, emotional and sexual abuse suffered at the hands of carers. This included being raped and molested, belted until they bled, force-fed until they vomited, and chained to their beds.

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/01/darwin-home-residents-march-police-station-child-abuse-hearings 

5 October 2014

Bringing the Vatican to Justice

I confess that, as a critic of religion, I have paid too little attention to the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. Frankly, it always felt unsportsmanlike to shoot so large and languorous a fish in so tiny a barrel. This scandal was one of the most spectacular "own goals" in the history of religion, and there seemed to be no need to deride faith at its most vulnerable and self-abased. Even in retrospect, it is easy to understand the impulse to avert one's eyes: 
Just imagine a pious mother and father sending their beloved child to the Church of a Thousand Hands for spiritual instruction, only to have him raped and terrified into silence by threats of hell. And then imagine this occurring to tens of thousands of children in our own time -- and to children beyond reckoning for over a thousand years. The spectacle of faith so utterly misplaced, and so fully betrayed, is simply too depressing to think about.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/bringing-the-vatican-to-j_b_571088.html 

Nine-year probe says child beatings, molestation, rape were endemic

Eleven-year-old Tom Sweeney kept skipping school. Eight-year-old Mannix Flynn got caught stealing a box of chocolates. And Christine Buckley, barely a month old, was found guilty of being the child of an unwed mother.
In the morally rigid Roman Catholic Ireland of old, such sins were sufficient to land all three children — and more than 30,000 others throughout the 20th century — in Dickensian workhouses for girls and boys run with an iron fist by Catholic religious orders. 

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/30838320/ns/world_news-europe/t/catholic-church-shamed-irish-abuse-report/#.VDCHZBYpeUk 

County priest charged with child sexual exploitation involving orphanages

For a decade, a Western Pennsylvania priest traveled to orphanages in Central and South America under the guise of doing relief work.
But on Thursday, federal officials arrested the priest, the Rev. Joseph D. Maurizio, 69, alleging that he promised candy and cash to orphaned boys to watch them shower, have sex or fondle them, court records show.

Northern Ireland to probe stifled history of institutional child abuse

Even as it continues to struggle with deep sectarian divisions, Northern Ireland is launching a probe into another dark corner of its history.
A government commission is set to bring to light the long-suppressed history of abuse at orphanages and children’s homes that included forced confinements, canings, beatings, bullying and sexual assaults. The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry will hold months of public hearings next year with hundreds of witnesses expected to detail horrific accounts of brutality. Victims were inspired to demand the probe after a similar review in Ireland uncovered decades of child abuse at more than 250 church-run institutions.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/northern-ireland-to-probe-stifled-history-of-orphanage-child-abuse/article13827227/ 

Unto Us a Child: Abuse and Deception in the Catholic Church

The Alberts, a Kansas family beset by hard times and too many challenges lost seven of their nine children to the state in the late 1940's; the other two died as toddlers. The Catholic Church convinced the family and the state that the best place for the children was in the local orphanage run by the church. 
Once there, the children were exploited and subjected to sexual, physical, emotional, and mental abuse by both the nuns and priests. Darlene, the youngest daughter died tragically at age 47. After her death, her brothers discovered the secret life that she led during her time at the home, and later as a young, beautiful woman when she gave birth to the illegitimate child of a priest.

http://www.amazon.com/Unto-Us-Child-Deception-Catholic/dp/1930819226

For Ireland's Catholic Schools, a Catalog of Horrors

James Quinn and his classmates called it the blackjack — five layers and 18 in. (46 cm) of leather, studded with coins and other metal objects. The priests at the school Quinn attended in rural Ireland in the 1950s each carried a blackjack and used it, along with bamboo rods and other objects, to dole out almost daily beatings to hundreds of children. 
"Whatever class you went to, you got a beating from whoever was in charge," says Quinn, now 70. "But knowing what other people went through, I know I was one of the lucky ones." 

http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1900120,00.html 

Sean McCann Speaks Out on Sexual Abuse Suffered as a Child

A well known local public figure is coming out about sexual abuse he suffered as a child. VOCM's Linda Swain reports.
Sean McCann of Great Big Sea has announced that he was the victim of sexual assault at the hands of his former priest when he was 16-years-old. He says after denying the abuse to himself for over 30 years, and resorting to alcohol to numb his pain, he has decided to speak out.

http://www.vocm.com/newsarticle.asp?mn=2&id=49708&latest=1 

Disappearing boys

The sexual abuse of boys is a topic that is all too often overlooked inside and outside of the Church.  I am so grateful for my dear friend, Mike Reagan, who is working to bring about a greater public dialogue on this issue.  As a survivor of child sexual abuse, Mike understands the unique dynamics and devastating stigmas associated with the sexual abuse of boys.  
With the assistance of writer and sexual abuse survivor, Jerome Elam, Mike contributes a guest post this week that will prayerfully help begin to empower the public and the Church to understand the issues related to the epidemic of male trafficking.  It is only then that we are able to take effective steps to bring this nightmare to an end.

http://boz.religionnews.com/2014/10/03/disappearing-boys/ 

Raped by his supervisor then convicted of buggery

Peter Solway was repeatedly abused as a teenager and then forced to admit to what was then the crime of homosexuality. He tells his story as NSW politicians prepare to consider a bill that would annul such convictions and begin to address a lifetime of abuse and stigma.
In 1972 a 16-year-old resident of a Sydney boys’ home was charged with buggery after he tried to report to his carers that he had been raped by a supervisor at work.

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/03/-sp-raped-by-his-supervisor-then-convicted-of-buggery-life-in-a-70s-boys-home

Residential School Survivors Society celebrates 20th

First Nations from surrounding communities and as far away as Bella Bella and Kitimat gathered Thursday at Sugar Cane to mark the 20th anniversary of the Residential School Survivors Society.
It was Williams Lake Indian Band's turn to host the society's AGM, which they marked with an elders' tour, a community dinner, drumming and presentations.

http://www.wltribune.com/news/277955551.html 

4 October 2014

Authorities to probe Derry children's homes as part of abuse inquiry


Two children’s homes run by the Catholic Church will be investigated first as part of a major inquiry into institutional abuse in the North, it has been revealed.
St Joseph’s Home, Termonbacca and Nazareth House Children’s Home in Bishop Street, both of which were run by the Sisters of Nazareth in Derry, are among 13 residential facilities currently under investigation.

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/authorities-to-probe-derry-childrens-homes-as-part-of-abuse-inquiry-605875.html 

Forgotten Australians reveal abuse

Forgotten Australians have revealed their stories of sexual abuse, teen pregnancies and brutal punishment. As young girls, some of them had their faces rubbed until the blood flowed for wetting the bed.
On other occasions, they had their feet placed in boiling water as punishment. Sometimes when they were locked under the stairs, they had food thrown to them like they were animals.

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/forgotten-australians-reveal-abuse-20091116-ihul.html 

'Regret' over Nazareth House abuse compensation

The former Scottish First Minister Lord McConnell has told of his regret that almost ten years on since he made a landmark apology to historic child abuse victims in Scotland, they have yet to see redress.
In an interview with BBC Scotland, Lord McConnell said there had been "absolutely no progress" on compensation for victims, and called on the government to "do the right thing". 

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-21645028 

Brenda’s Story Abuse at Goodwood Orphanage, Adelaide, South Australia 1950s

I was shipped from England on the S S Ormonde with a group of 28 British ‘orphan’ girls, arriving on January 19 1949, at Goodwood Orphanage. I was 15yrs old. We were told that we would have a better life and we would be cared for in a loving and understanding way with regard to our well-being in a strange country. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
On the day we arrived we were lined up and the considerable amount of money collected by the crew of the S S Ormonde and given to us was taken from us. We never saw that money again.

http://netk.net.au/AbuseCases/GoodwoodBrenda.asp 

Priest dies as police swoop

The Brisbane Courier Mail (15 October 1998) has exposed the sexual abuse of orphan girls which occurred in the 1950s and '60s at Nazareth House, a Catholic home for the aged, in Wynnum North, Brisbane, conducted by the Sisters of Nazareth. The nuns kept teenage girls at the home as unpaid workers.
One of the sex offenders was Father John O'Regan, a priest of the "Oblates of Mary Immaculate" order, who was based at Iona College, Lindum. He and other priests gave "counselling" to girls at Nazareth House.

http://www.brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/35 

Abuse 'rampant' at children's home

Sexual abuse was rampant at a children's home in Northern Ireland run by a Catholic order of brothers, a senior police officer has said.
Around a fifth of boys at Rubane House in Co Down were subjected to sexual or physical abuse, according to a public inquiry, equal to if not worse than that by loyalists at another home, Kincora in east Belfast.

http://www.hillingdontimes.co.uk/news/national/11502113.Abuse__rampant__at_children_s_home/ 

Children 'were made to eat their own vomit and bathed in disinfectant'

The largest ever public inquiry into child abuse at residential care homes in Northern Ireland has heard harrowing details of victim's experiences Children at residential homes run by Catholic nuns in Northern Ireland were made to eat their own vomit, a lawyer said.
Others who wet their beds were forced to put soiled sheets on their heads by members of a harsh regime devoid of love, the largest ever public inquiry into child abuse at residential homes was told.
Young people at Sisters of Nazareth properties in Londonderry were known by their numbers rather than names and many allegedly subjected to humiliation, threats and physical abuse, counsel to the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry Christine Smith QC said.

Northern Ireland child abuse inquiry: 'We were child slaves from a young age

Hundreds come forward to tell Northern Ireland inquiry about historical institutional abuse in the country.
Amid blanket coverage of high-profile child sex abuse investigations in the wake of revelations involving Jimmy Savile and other celebrities, one child abuse inquiry has remained below the public's radar. But the Northern Ireland Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry is slowly emerging from relative obscurity.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/25/northern-ireland-child-abuse-inquiry

UK child abuse inquiry to hear from 61 Australians

THE biggest public inquiry into child abuse ever held in the UK has opened with at least 60 Australians listed as witnesses.
Such has been the outpouring of complaints from former child migrants sent to Australia in the 1940s and 1950s, an investigative team from Northern Ireland will be dispatched to interview them personally later this year as the inquiry proceeds.

http://www.news.com.au/world/uk-child-abuse-inquiry-to-hear-from-61-australians/story-fndir2ev-1226801094130 

Extend child abuse inquiry to England and Wales say campaigners

The inquiry investigating institutional child abuse by members of the clergy in Northern Ireland needs to be extended to England and Wales, say campaigners.
Stop Church Child Abuse welcomed the opening on Monday of the investigation into 13 orphanages and children's homes but said it was now time for the government to roll the inquiry out across Britain.

http://www.theguardian.com/global/2014/jan/13/child-abuse-inquiry-northern-ireland-extend-england-wales 

Thoundands of children were abused, neglected, classified and treated as mentally ill patients.

Quebec writer and journalist Daniel Tremblay is mired in a lengthy battle with the Quebec government to discover how it decided to compensate a generation of abused orphans.
Nearly three years after he first filed access to information requests that were mostly denied, Tremblay is in court this week to contest the refusal and get his hands on thousands of pages of documentation.

http://www2.canada.com/story.html?id=6619543 

3 October 2014

Torture orphans by placing in cells for years, straitjacketed, electroshocks, murder

The world is discovering the alarming details of the organized crime scheme conducted by the Catholic Church and the Quebec government against over 20,000 children in Montreal, Quebec (Canada) who were tortured and used in human experiments. These children are now referred to as the DUPLESSIS ORPHANS.
The types of crimes committed along with the catholic institutions were they were conducted include: (1.) Saint-Jean-de-Dieu Psychiatric Hospital  Run by the Sisters of Providence

Northern Ireland shines a light on dark past

It's holding an Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry into child abuse in children's homes and other residential institutions between 1922 and 1995.
For nearly ten years during that period, nearly 110 children in care were sent to live in Western Australia. Now the inquiry wants them to come home and testify about what those years in care were like.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/07/17/northern-ireland-shines-light-dark-past 

Empty cradles: apology at last to child 'migrants'

In the quiet, sterilized room that would occupy her final days, Mary Kenny looked to the door. Walking towards her with both trepidation and excitement was a man. 
The flush of youth had been and gone from his face and instead the lines of life and emotion had made their mark. “You look just like your father,” Mary said.

http://www.maitlandmercury.com.au/story/406810/empty-cradles-apology-at-last-to-child-migrants/ 

Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse Third Interim Report December 2003

Just short of two years ago, a witness who was giving evidence to the Investigation Committee was asked by my colleague, Dr. Imelda Ryan, why she had chosen to come to the Commission. She replied as follows:
‘‘The reason why I came before the Commission is that I read an article to sort of say that the Government were very, very sorry and that there was going to be an inquiry into it and I felt that’s fine, but is this inquiry going to be amongst the politicians or will it involve the actual people who went through what we’ve gone through. And I was given the opportunity of going either for the [Investigation Committee or the Confidential Committee]. And I thought, well I need to face up. I need to move on. I need to tell it how it was because no one believed me when I was younger. Will they believe me now? It is my opportunity to sort of say how it was. Also, the anger I feel because the Government who was in charge of my care failed me miserably. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I hadn’t committed a crime. So why? Why did they subject me to such degradation and humiliation? What’s done is done. It must never, ever, ever, ever be allowed to happen again’’.