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.
CHAOS: Iranians took to the streets playing celebratory music after reports of Khamenei’s death on Saturday, while mourners also gathered in Tehran yesterday Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a major attack on Iran launched by Israel and the US, throwing the future of the Islamic republic into doubt and raising the risk of regional instability. Iranian state television and the state-run IRNA news agency announced the 86-year-old’s death early yesterday. US President Donald Trump said it gave Iranians their “greatest chance” to “take back” their country. The announcements came after a joint US and Israeli aerial bombardment that targeted Iranian military and governmental sites. Trump said the “heavy and pinpoint bombing” would continue through the week or as long
TRUST: The KMT said it respected the US’ timing and considerations, and hoped it would continue to honor its commitments to helping Taiwan bolster its defenses and deterrence US President Donald Trump is delaying a multibillion-dollar arms sale to Taiwan to ensure his visit to Beijing is successful, a New York Times report said. The weapons sales package has stalled in the US Department of State, the report said, citing US officials it did not identify. The White House has told agencies not to push forward ahead of Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), it said. The two last month held a phone call to discuss trade and geopolitical flashpoints ahead of the summit. Xi raised the Taiwan issue and urged the US to handle arms sales to
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday said that it had confirmed on Saturday night with its liquefied natural gas (LNG) and crude oil suppliers that shipments are proceeding as scheduled and that domestic supplies remain unaffected. The CPC yesterday announced the gasoline and diesel prices will rise by NT$0.2 and NT$0.4 per liter, respectively, starting Monday, citing Middle East tensions and blizzards in the eastern United States. CPC also iterated it has been reducing the proportion of crude oil imports from the Middle East and diversifying its supply sources in the past few years in response to geopolitical risks, expanding
Pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai’s (黎智英) fraud conviction and prison sentence were yesterday overturned by a Hong Kong court, in a surprise legal decision that comes soon after Lai was jailed for 20 years on a separate national security charge. Judges Jeremy Poon (潘兆初), Anthea Pang (彭寶琴) and Derek Pang (彭偉昌) said in the judgement that they allowed the appeal from Lai, and another defendant in the case, to proceed, as a lower court judge had “erred.” “The Court of Appeal gave them leave to appeal against their conviction, allowed their appeals, quashed the convictions and set aside the sentences,” the judges
RSS