The shocking scale of sexual and physical abuse in educational institutions in Ireland run by the Catholic Church was revealed on Wednesday in a report describing how thousands of children were raped, abused and exploited by the religious brothers and nuns who were supposed to look after them.
The 2,600-page report by Ireland’s Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse found that rape was “endemic” for decades at more than 250 Irish Catholic care institutions from the 1930s to the 1990s, and that the Church in Ireland had protected pedophiles in its ranks from arrest.
“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,” it said.
Children in industrial schools and reformatories were treated like convicts and slaves, it said. Rape was particularly common in boys homes and industrial schools run by the Christian Brothers.
John Kelly of the group the Irish Survivors of Child Abuse (SOCA) described the failure of the report to recommend criminal prosecutions as a complete whitewash.
The report confirmed allegations from thousands of former students at the institutions. The Ryan Commission said that beatings in institutions run by both priests and nuns were commonplace.
It also criticized the failure of the Irish state, most notably the Department of Education, over allowing the abuse and exploitation to continue for decades.
The department aided this culture “through infrequent, toothless inspectors” that always deferred to the Church’s authority, the report said.
The commission proposed 21 ways the Irish government could recognize past wrongs, including building a permanent memorial, providing counseling and education to victims and improving child protection services.
Meanwhile, the new leader of Catholics in England and Wales provoked outrage after describing members of the clergy who admitted to abusing children as courageous for facing up to their past.
In an interview broadcast on Wednesday night, the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols said of the report: “It’s very distressing and very disturbing and my heart goes out today first of all to those people who will find that their stories are now told in public.”
“Secondly, I think of those in religious orders and some of the clergy in Dublin who have to face these facts from their past, which instinctively and quite naturally they’d rather not look at. That takes courage, and also we shouldn’t forget that this account today will also overshadow all of the good that they also did,” he said.
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot
Taiwanese Olympic badminton men’s doubles gold medalist Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) and his new partner, Chiu Hsiang-chieh (邱相榤), clinched the men’s doubles title at the Yonex Taipei Open yesterday, becoming the second Taiwanese team to win a title in the tournament. Ranked 19th in the world, the Taiwanese duo defeated Kang Min-hyuk and Ki Dong-ju of South Korea 21-18, 21-15 in a pulsating 43-minute final to clinch their first doubles title after teaming up last year. Wang, the men’s doubles gold medalist at the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, partnered with Chiu in August last year after the retirement of his teammate Lee Yang
The Philippines yesterday criticized a “high-risk” maneuver by a Chinese vessel near the disputed Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) in a rare incident involving warships from the two navies. The Scarborough Shoal — a triangular chain of reefs and rocks in the contested South China Sea — has been a flash point between the countries since China seized it from the Philippines in 2012. Taiwan also claims the shoal. Monday’s encounter took place approximately 11.8 nautical miles (22km) southeast” of the Scarborough Shoal, the Philippine military said, during ongoing US-Philippine military exercises that Beijing has criticized as destabilizing. “The Chinese frigate BN 554 was
US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer began talks with high-ranking Chinese officials in Switzerland yesterday aiming to de-escalate a dispute that threatens to cut off trade between the world’s two biggest economies and damage the global economy. The US delegation has begun meetings in Geneva with a Chinese delegation led by Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰), Xinhua News Agency said. Diplomats from both sides also confirmed that the talks have begun, but spoke anonymously and the exact location of the talks was not made public. Prospects for a major breakthrough appear dim, but there is
RSS