'Endemic' abuse of Irish children in Catholic care, Cheit/Piper
childadvocate
describes crimes
'Endemic' rape and abuse of Irish children in Catholic care, inquiry
finds - Beatings and humiliation by nuns and priests were common at
institutions that held up to 30,000 children, Ryan report states -
Henry McDonald, Ireland correspondent - guardian.co.uk, 5/20/09 Rape
and sexual molestation were "endemic" in Irish Catholic church-run
industrial schools and orphanages, a report revealed today. The nine-
year investigation found that Catholic priests and nuns for decades
terrorised thousands of boys and girls in the Irish Republic, while
government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rape and
humiliation. The high court judge Sean Ryan today unveiled the 2,600-
page final report of Ireland's commission into child abuse, which drew
on testimony from thousands of former inmates and officials from more
than 250 church-run institutions. Police were called to the news
conference amid angry scenes as victims were prevented from attending.
More than 30,000 children deemed to be petty thieves, truants or from
dysfunctional families - a category that often included unmarried
mothers - were sent to Ireland's austere network of industrial
schools, reformatories, orphanages and hostels from the 1930s until
the last facilities shut in the 1990s....The report found that
molestation and rape were "endemic" in boys' facilities, chiefly run
by the Christian Brothers order, and supervisors pursued policies that
increased the danger. Girls supervised by orders of nuns, chiefly the
Sisters of Mercy, suffered much less sexual abuse but instead endured
frequent assaults and humiliation designed to make them feel
worthless....The report concluded that when confronted with evidence
of sex abuse, religious authorities responded by transferring
offenders to another location, where in many instances they were free
to abuse again. "There was evidence that such men took up teaching
positions sometimes within days of receiving dispensations because of
serious allegations or admissions of sexual abuse," the report said.
"The safety of children in general was not a consideration."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/20/irish-catholic-schools-child-abuse-claims
The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse http://www.childabusecommission.ie/index.html
Executive Summary - Conclusions - 1. Physical and emotional abuse and
neglect were features of the institutions. Sexual abuse occurred in
many of them, particularly boys' institutions. Schools were run in a
severe, regimented manner that imposed unreasonable and oppressive
discipline on children and even on staff. http://www.childabusecommission.com/rpt/ExecSummary.php
Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse - Volume I - Volume V
http://www.childabusecommission.com/rpt/
Abuse Tracker - http://www.bishop-accountability.org/AbuseTracker/
Junk Skepticism and Recovered Memory: A Reply to Piper - Ross E. Cheit
- Ethics and Behavior,9(4) 295-318 (1999)"Piper purports to challenges
the facts in seven cases. As detailed later in virtually every
instance his argument is undocumented and inaccurate."
http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Taubman_Center/Recovmem/pdf/piper.pdf
Ross Cheit Response to Critics (Replies to Piper and McNally)
http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Taubman_Center/Recovmem/critics.html