PRIESTS, NUNS BEAT AND RAPED THOUSANDS IN IRISH REFORM SCHOOLS

"In some schools a high level of ritualized beating
was routine. ... Girls were struck with implements
designed to maximize pain and were struck on all
parts of the body," the report said. "Personal and
family denigration was widespread."

AP reports:

"A fiercely debated, long-delayed investigation into Ireland's Roman
Catholic-run institutions says priests and nuns terrorized thousands of boys
and girls in workhouse-style schools for decades - and government inspectors
failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation.

"Nine years in the making, Wednesday's 2,600-page report sides almost
completely with the horrific reports of abuse from former students sent to
more than 250 church-run, mostly residential institutions. But victims'
leaders said it didn't go far enough - particularly because none of their
abusers were identified by name.







"The report concluded that church officials always shielded their orders'
pedophiles from arrest to protect their own reputations and, according to
documents uncovered in the Vatican, knew that many pedophiles were serial
attackers.

"The investigators 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.




This Dublin building used to house the
Artane Industrial School, run by the Christian
Brothers between 1871 and 1966




"'A climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary
punishment, permeated most of the institutions and all those run for boys.
Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating
was coming from,' the final report of Ireland's Commission to Inquire Into
Child Abuse concluded."

On the Net: http://www.childabusecommission.ie/




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