Catholic Reform Schools

[MCL27]

Here is the latest on Catholic abuses.  The movie The Magdalene Sisters covers some of this:  

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090520/ap_ ... olic_abuse

[Anonymous]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090520/ap_ ... olic_abuse
Thousands beaten, raped in Irish reform schools
By SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press Writer Shawn Pogatchnik, Associated Press Writer   – 10 mins ago

DUBLIN – 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.

"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.

The leader of Ireland's 4 million Catholics, Cardinal Sean Brady, and religious orders at the center of the scandal offered immediate apologies.

"I am profoundly sorry and deeply ashamed that children suffered in such awful ways in these institutions. Children deserved better and especially from those caring for them in the name of Jesus Christ," Brady said.

The Sisters of Mercy, which ran several refuges for girls where the report documented chronic brutality, said in a statement its nuns "accept that many who spent their childhoods in our orphanages or industrial schools were hurt and damaged while in our care."

"There is a great sadness in all of our hearts at this time and our deepest desire is to continue the healing process for all involved," the Sisters of Mercy said.

And the Rev. Edmund Garvey, spokesman for the Christian Brothers order that once ran dozens of boys' schools, said that reading the report's "presentation of the history of our institutions, it is hard to avoid feeling shame."

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 church-run facilities shut in the 1990s.

The report, unveiled by High Court Justice Sean Ryan, found that molestation and rape were "endemic" in boys' facilities, chiefly run by the Christian Brothers, 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 frequent assaults and humiliation designed to make them feel worthless.

"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."

Victims of the system have long demanded that the truth of their experiences be documented and made public.

But several victims — who were prevented from attending Wednesday's report launch and scuffled with police outside a central Dublin hotel — said the report didn't go far enough and rejected the church leaders' apologies as insincere.

"Victims will feel a small degree of comfort that they've been vindicated. But the findings do not go far enough," said John Kelly, a former inmate of a Dublin industial school who fled to London and today leads a pressure group called Irish Survivors of Child Abuse.

Kelly said the report should have examined how children like himself were taken away from parents without just cause, and demanded more answers from Irish governments that ceded control over their lives to the church. He said any apologies offered now were "hollow, shallow and have no substance or merit at all. We feel betrayed and cheated today."

The report proposed 21 ways the government could recognize past wrongs, including building a permanent memorial, providing counseling and education to victims and improving Ireland's current child protection services.

But its findings will not be used for criminal prosecutions — in part because the Christian Brothers successfully sued the commission in 2004 to keep the identities of all of its members, dead or alive, unnamed in the report. No real names, whether of victims or perpetrators, appear in the final document.

Irish church leaders and religious orders all declined to comment Wednesday, citing the need to read the massive document first. The Vatican also declined to comment.

The Irish government already has funded a parallel compensation system that has paid 12,000 abuse victims an average of euro65,000 ($90,000). About 2,000 claims remain outstanding.

Victims receive the payouts only if they waive their rights to sue the state and the church. Hundreds have rejected that condition and taken their abusers and those church employers to court.

Wednesday's report said children had no safe way to tell authorities about the assaults they were suffering, particularly the sexual aggression from church officials and older inmates in boys' institutions.

"The management did not listen to or believe children when they complained of the activities of some of the men who had responsibility for their care," the commission found. "At best, the abusers were moved, but nothing was done about the harm done to the child. At worst, the child was blamed and seen as corrupted by the sexual activity, and was punished severely."

The commission dismissed as implausible a central defense of the religious orders — that, in bygone days, people did not recognize the sexual abuse of a child as a criminal offense, but rather as a sin that required repentance.

In their testimony, religious orders typically cited this as the principal reason why sex-predator priests and brothers were sheltered within the system and moved to new posts where they could still maintain daily contact with children.

But the commission said its fact-finding — which included unearthing decades-old church files, chiefly stored in the Vatican, on scores of unreported abuse cases from Ireland's industrial schools — demonstrated that officials understood exactly what was at stake: their own reputations.

It cited numerous examples where school managers told police about child abusers who were not church officials — but never did when one of their own had committed the crime.

"Contrary to the congregations' claims that the recidivist nature of sexual offending was not understood, it is clear from the documented cases that they were aware of the propensity for abusers to re-abuse," it said.

___

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

[Oscar]

Unfortunately it was country number 26 in the Wiki database.

[Ursus]

The report proposed 21 ways the government could recognize past wrongs, including building a permanent memorial, providing counseling and education to victims and improving Ireland's current child protection services.

But its findings will not be used for criminal prosecutions — in part because the Christian Brothers successfully sued the commission in 2004 to keep the identities of all of its members, dead or alive, unnamed in the report. No real names, whether of victims or perpetrators, appear in the final document.

This @#$##@$% really S-U-C-K-S !!

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.

Perhaps ironically, perhaps not, many pedophile priests got away with as much as they did due to ... the Human Potential movement. So-called Jesuit scholars such as John Powell of Loyola University (Chicago) gleaned great "pick-up lines" and other rationalizing arguments from the LGAT forerunner 'Mind Dynamics', among other sources... In fact, Powell made millions for the Jesuits with his two to two and a half dozen syrupy self-help best-sellers. It wasn't until 'bout 6 years ago that the sexual abuse cases finally started to hit the press. Of course, by now, he is in his 80's, in a nursing home, and too indisposed to come to the phone for comment.

"The management did not listen to or believe children when they complained of the activities of some of the men who had responsibility for their care," the commission found. "At best, the abusers were moved, but nothing was done about the harm done to the child. At worst, the child was blamed and seen as corrupted by the sexual activity, and was punished severely."

The commission dismissed as implausible a central defense of the religious orders — that, in bygone days, people did not recognize the sexual abuse of a child as a criminal offense, but rather as a sin that required repentance.

Hate to say it, but seeing stuff like this in print, really makes you almost sympathize with the church-burning movements of bygone days...

[Ursus]

The report, unveiled by High Court Justice Sean Ryan, found that molestation and rape were "endemic" in boys' facilities, chiefly run by the Christian Brothers, 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 frequent assaults and humiliation designed to make them feel worthless.

Apparently this is now known as the "Ryan Report." And it is contributing to higher than usual "defection" rates amongst Catholics in Ireland. From the article following:

Since 2006, Catholics have been able to officially "defect", but numbers in Ireland didn't rise above a handful every year until Countmeout.ie was launched in August, in reaction to the Ryan report on child abuse within Catholic institutions.[/list]

-------------- • -------------- • -------------- • --------------

The Irish Times - Wednesday, November 18, 2009
The (officially) lapsed Catholics

Thanks to a website, it has never been easier to defect from the Catholic church, and people are beginning to take up the option. Some of those who have opted out speak to KATE HOLMQUIST


Turning away: since Countmeout.ie was launched in August in reaction to the Ryan report on child abuse within Catholic institutions, 72 people have defected in the Dublin diocese and 99 in Dublin are in the process of doing so.
Photograph: Grant Faint/Photographers Choice/Getty

FOR ORLAITH FINNEGAN, a 29-year-old atheist from Cork, defecting from the Catholic church took only a week. She used the website Countmeout.ie to apply and sent her letter on August 25th to the Cork diocese, providing the parish and year of her baptism, and received confirmation of her defection on August 31st. A note was made on her baptismal record stating that she had officially left the church.

"That was very fast when you think of how they used bureaucracy to explain the length of time it took them to respond to the child-abuse scandals," she says.

When her family heard the news, one of her sisters feared that Orlaith would no longer be considered godmother to her child, while another sister feared Orlaith would be barred from her new baby's baptism. "I told them that the defection is symbolic. Of course I will continue to be godmother and I will be at the next Christening – I won't be standing outside the church or going up in a puff of smoke," she says.

Defecting has given her "a feeling of satisfaction". She was "disgusted" by the church's response to the Ryan report. "I have a feeling of having asserted my own voice in my own way." When she posted on Twitter that she had defected, some friends said they would do the same only for the need to remain Catholic and baptise their children to get places in schools. Others said their parents' hearts would be broken if they found out.

But perhaps devout parents wouldn't be quite so upset if they knew that officially defecting from the Catholic church does not mean going to hell, and you may even find yourself in an afterlife that encompasses you. "From the perspective of world religions, we are part of a bigger picture . . . I don't presume to play God. We would not categorise or condemn people. God is so big and so great that it is beyond our capacity to understand," says Fr Fintan Gavin of the Dublin Archdiocese.

Recently a Chinese woman, one of 32 Irish and "new Irish" who have met with him this year in the process of joining the church, expressed fears that her non-Christian parents back home in China would be condemned to eternal suffering. Fr Gavin replied that the God he knows is more loving than that.

If you change your mind you can reapply with a "profession of faith". On your deathbed, if you have second thoughts and want the last rites, you will get them. When you die and your family ask for a funeral Mass from a priest who doesn't know you have defected, since he'd have to look at the records of your original parish to find out, your family's wishes may prevail. Or if an atheist falls madly in love with a practising Catholic who wants a church wedding and wants your children together to be baptised, you and your partner will be treated in the same way as any "mixed" couple.

So while the word "defection" seems definitive, the church keeps the door open. Once you have been baptised a Catholic, you remain baptised, even if you defect, Fr Gavin explains.

So why bother to defect at all? Since 2006, Catholics have been able to officially "defect", but numbers in Ireland didn't rise above a handful every year until Countmeout.ie was launched in August, in reaction to the Ryan report on child abuse within Catholic institutions.

There has been a flurry of defections since, with 72 people defecting in the Dublin diocese and 99 in Dublin in the process of doing so. Additional defectors have applied to other dioceses, but figures for all dioceses combined are not available.

Fr Gavin has met many of the new defectors, most of whom are in the 20-40 age group. "These people are not drifters. They are very conscientious about their lives," he says. "There are huge implications. People are putting themselves outside a belief system and a community, and there's a loneliness to this. You are on your own. If you are a lapsed Catholic, there is the security of moving in and out," he says.

ONE 34-YEAR-OLD defector, an atheist who wanted to remain anonymous for fear of stigma affecting his business, says that his main motivation was that he does not want to be counted as a statistic among the 1.3 billion members that the Catholic church uses to justify its power.

Self-employed musician and atheist defector Dave Flynn (30), from Wexford, says: "It's something I felt quite strongly about. I don't consider myself a militant atheist. What I do have a problem with is where religious organisations exert a lot of influence in social and political life. The fact that my baptism meant that I was being counted as a Catholic meant that I was one of those statistics used to maintain that power. I was saying: 'I don't want you guys thinking I'm a member of your club'."

Most of his family are "not very religious" and have been accepting, but "my dad is extremely upset. He is quite devout and he is concerned for my eternal soul. Aside from that, the response has been more: 'What will the neighbours think? This is not the done thing'." Flynn has told his family that should he predecease them, there are crematoriums in Dublin and Cork, "but when I'm dead, I'm dead. I'm not going to haunt somebody if they don't respect my wishes."

Fr Gavin advises potential defectors who take up the invitation of a meeting to talk to their families about their funeral arrangements. There could be awkward situations where families want a Catholic Mass despite the defector's wishes, "with a priest stuck in the middle", he says.

Defector Adam Dinan (20), who is studying microbiology at UCC, says his family baptised him and sent him to Catholic schools due to social convention. "They respect [my decision]. They might think I'm being a bit awkward purely to take a stand."

His reasons for defecting include the prohibition on contraceptives, which he believes has contributed to the spread of Aids among Catholics in Africa; the condemnation of homosexuality; and the baptism of children at an age when they are not capable of choosing. He has no fear of living the rest of his life outside the "loving community" of the Catholic church, because he sees secular organisations doing good works.

Marriage and children are so far in his future that he hasn't really thought about the implications, but when he marries, he thinks it couldn't be to a woman who was devoutly Catholic.

He won't baptise his children, he says, but will send them to Educate Together schools. As for his funeral arrangements, he doesn't mind. "I'll be dead at that stage."

"The church has been brainwashing me since I was six days old"

Defecting from the Catholic Church was "remarkably simple", says Jonathan Hession (55) a photographer from Dublin. "I felt there was a weight off my shoulders. I was liberated." He learned that official defection was possible when he heard about the Countmeout.ie website. "The church has been brainwashing me since I was six days old."

In primary school, his doubts began "with the nuns describing the heathens in Africa", and he would ask, "how do you know we are right and they are wrong?" The nuns would reply "because we're right", he recalls.

He "deeply resented" and still feels angry about his education in Catholic boarding school from the age of 13, which involved going to Mass in the dark six nights a week and worshipping "plaster saints". He formed the opinion that "from a religious point of view this is rubbish". His own experience of living in a Catholic institution did not include abuse, "but I did not like the puerile levels they descended to to look after us. I hated the iconography and saw no sense in worshipping in front of plaster statues.

"The idea of the Holy Eucharist and transubstantiation was illogical rubbish, as was their conceit that they were the only true religion." He says he would have happily gone on being a lapsed Catholic and that a lot of his friends think he's "humouring" the church and "giving them credibility" in making the effort to defect, but the publication of the Ryan Report confirmed his desire to take a stand. "I didn't want to be counted among that number." He wrote a brief polite letter stating that he did not share the church's beliefs to the Archbishop, Dr Martin, and the reaction he received was "understanding". He was offered a meeting to discuss his decision, but felt that "if they did not ask me why I wanted to join them when I was baptised, then I should not have to explain why I wanted to leave".

He next had to find out where he was baptised and in what year so the church could amend the parish records. He then received a copy of his baptismal certificate stating in the margins, "officially defected from the Church". Dr Martin wrote a final letter stating: "While I fully respect your decision I am always personally saddened when somebody chooses to leave the Church. It causes us to reflect on the reasons and motivations and to wonder if there is something we as a church can learn from it. If there is anything I can do for you in the future please do not hesitate to contact me." His wife's reaction was, "what will I do about the funeral?" Hession has decided he wants a ceremony conducted by the Humanist Association, which he describes as "being nice for the sake of being nice without wanting payback in the next world. Humanism, I think, is a better motivation for moral behaviour."


© 2009 irishtimes.com

[Ursus]

BBC News
Irish church knew abuse 'endemic'
Page last updated at 17:46 GMT, Wednesday, 20 May 2009 18:46 UK

An inquiry into child abuse at Catholic institutions in Ireland has found church leaders knew that sexual abuse was "endemic" in boys' institutions.

It also found physical and emotional abuse and neglect were features of institutions.

Schools were run "in a severe, regimented manner that imposed unreasonable and oppressive discipline on children and even on staff".

The nine-year inquiry investigated a 60-year period.

About 35,000 children were placed in a network of reformatories, industrial schools and workhouses up to the 1980s.

More than 2,000 told the Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse they suffered physical and sexual abuse while there.

The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, said he was "profoundly sorry and deeply ashamed that children suffered in such awful ways in these institutions".

"This report makes it clear that great wrong and hurt were caused to some of the most vulnerable children in our society," he said.

"It documents a shameful catalogue of cruelty: neglect, physical, sexual and emotional abuse, perpetrated against children."

The five-volume study concluded that church officials encouraged ritual beatings and consistently shielded their orders' paedophiles from arrest amid a "culture of self-serving secrecy".

It also found that government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation.

The findings will not be used for criminal prosecutions - in part because the Christian Brothers successfully sued the commission in 2004 to keep the identities of all of its members, dead or alive, unnamed in the report.

No real names, whether of victims or perpetrators, appear in the final document.

Police were called to the commission's news conference amid angry scenes as victims were prevented from attending.

One of the many victims, John Walsh of Irish Survivors of Child Abuse, said the absence of prosecutions had left him feeling "cheated and deceived".

"I would have never opened my wounds if I'd known this was going to be the end result," he said.

"It has devastated me and will devastate most victims because there are no criminal proceedings and no accountability whatsoever."


Victims campaigners protested at being excluded from the news conference

More allegations were made against the Christian Brothers than the other male orders combined.

The report found child safety was not a priority for the Christian Brothers who ran the institutions, the order was defensive in its response to complaints and failed to accept any congregational responsibility for abuse.

Ritual beatings

The report said that girls supervised by orders of nuns, chiefly the Sisters of Mercy, suffered much less sexual abuse but frequent assaults and humiliation designed to make them feel worthless.

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, said those who perpetrated violence and abuse should be held to account, "no matter how long ago it happened".

"Every time there is a single incident of abuse in the Catholic Church, it is a scandal. I would be very worried if it wasn't a scandal... I hope these things don't happen again, but I hope they're never a matter of indifference," he said.

The commission 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.

"The reformatory and industrial schools depended on rigid control by means of severe corporal punishment and the fear of such punishment," it said.

"The harshness of the regime was inculcated into the culture of the schools by successive generations of brothers, priests and nuns.

"It was systemic and not the result of individual breaches by persons who operated outside lawful and acceptable boundaries.

"Excesses of punishment generated the fear that the school authorities believed to be essential for the maintenance of order."

The report proposed 21 ways the government could recognise past wrongs, including building a permanent memorial, providing counselling and education to victims, and improving Ireland's current child protection services.


READ THE INQUIRY'S SUMMARY
Summary of findings from the Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse (pdf; 30pp, 105Kb)


BBC © MMX

[Ursus]

BBC News
Abuse report - at a glance
Page last updated at 14:52 GMT, Wednesday, 20 May 2009 15:52 UK

The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse was established in 2000 to investigate allegations of abuse at Catholic-run children's institutions in Ireland.

The main findings were:

• 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.

• Children were frequently hungry and food was inadequate, inedible and badly prepared in many schools.

• Many witnesses spoke of being constantly fearful or terrified, which impeded their emotional development and impacted on every aspect of their life in the institution.

• Prolonged, excessive beatings with implements intended to cause maximum pain occurred with the knowledge of senior staff.

• There was constant criticism and verbal abuse and children were told they were worthless.

• Some children lost their sense of identity and kinship, which was never recovered.

• Absconders were severely beaten, at times publicly. Some had their heads shaved and were humiliated.

• Inspectors, on their occasional visits, rarely spoke to the children in the institutions.

READ THE INQUIRY'S SUMMARY
Summary of findings from the Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse (pdf; 30pp, 105Kb)


BBC © MMX

[Ursus]

BBC News
Reaction to Irish abuse report
Page last updated at 16:10 GMT, Wednesday, 20 May 2009 17:10 UK


The extent of abuse at Catholic institutions has been revealed in a report

Sexual abuse was endemic in boys' institutions and a chronic problem in some residential institutions run by the Catholic Church in Ireland, a report has said. Here is some of the reaction to the publication of the report.

• JOHN WALSH, IRISH SURVIVORS OF CHILD ABUSE

"The little comfort we have is the knowledge that it vindicated the victims who were raped and sexually abused.

"I'm very angry, very bitter, and feel cheated and deceived.

"I would have never opened my wounds if I'd known this was going to be the end result.

"It has devastated me and will devastate most victims because there is no criminal proceedings and no accountability whatsoever."

• CARDINAL SEAN BRADY, LEADER OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN IRELAND

"This report makes it clear that great wrong and hurt were caused to some of the most vulnerable children in our society. It documents a shameful catalogue of cruelty: neglect, physical, sexual and emotional abuse, perpetrated against children.

"I am profoundly sorry and deeply ashamed that children suffered in such awful ways in these institutions. Children deserved better and especially from those caring for them in the name of Jesus Christ.

"I hope the publication of today's report will help to heal the hurts of victims and to address the wrongs of the past.

"The Catholic Church remains determined to do all that is necessary to make the Church a safe, life-giving and joyful place for children."

• MOST REVEREND VINCENT NICHOLS, LEADER OF CATHOLICS IN ENGLAND AND WALES

"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."

• JOHN KELLY, ABUSE VICTIM

"This document, this inquiry vindicates what victims have said. It mentions where children were raped and brutally abused.

"And victims will feel vindicated by that, that will give them some comfort.

"However, this report's conclusions go very, very, very short of the expectations of the victims. What they wanted was that the courts who sent them, detained them unlawfully in the institutions that were investigated, these courts that violated their constitutional rights weren't even inquired into.

"And because of that this inquiry is deeply flawed, it's incomplete and many might call it a whitewash."

• EAMON GILMORE, IRISH LABOUR PARTY LEADER

"The Dail will have to debate the role of the Department of Education both then in respect of its responsibilities and more recently in respect of the agreement which was made with the congregations on the redress and the cost of that to the taxpayer."

• FATHER MICHAEL MERNAGH, AUGUSTINIAN ORDER

"I am appalled at the extent and, I would call it, the longevity of the abuse that has gone on in these institutions - not just sexual abuse, physical abuse, psychological abuse and other abuse.

"And really I am appalled particularly at the role of the state and the government that seem to have colluded in actually encouraging children to be brought into these institutions to keep up the numbers."

• BRIAN COWEN, IRISH PRIME MINISTER

"While the government can put in place procedures and measures for the protection of our children, we all in society must be alert to the dangers that exist and be vigilant to what is going on in our communities and have the courage to intervene when the welfare of a child is put at risk."

BBC © MMX

[Ursus]

BBC News
Child abuse victims seek justice
Page last updated at 05:57 GMT, Wednesday, 20 May 2009 06:57 UK


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

BBC NI's Dublin correspondent Shane Harrison speaks to three people abused at institutions run by the Catholic Church in the Republic of Ireland.

The report, by Mr Justice Sean Ryan, looks at how children were physically, sexually and emotionally abused in industrial schools or reform schools run by religious orders.

An estimated 35,000 children went through the schools that only closed in the late 1980s.

Two men in their 60s and a woman in her 70s sit around a long table in a wood panelled room discussing their experiences.

They are an unlikely-looking group of victims of the Catholic religious orders.

Thomas Wall, an orphan from Limerick, was sent by the criminal courts to a Christian Brothers run reform school when he was just three.

"From eight years of age I was sexually abused by a Christian brother at Glin," he said.

"If they took a liking to a person then you became a danger, then you became a target. And there was no way of avoiding it... I mean they had access to you 24 hours a day."


Thomas Wall said the abuse had left him physically and emotionally scarred

Tom Hayes, another Limerick orphan but now living in Richhill in County Armagh, was also sent to the same County Limerick school.

He said he too was sexually abused, not by the Christian Brothers but by the older boys who supervised or monitored the dormitories at night.

"It was common during the night to be woken by individuals interfering with you sexually," said Mr Hayes.

"When you informed the Christian Brothers yourself you were beaten up as a result of it and threatened by the very people, such as the monitors and such people, who perpetrated these acts."

Sadie O'Meara, a 15-year-old Tipperary girl working in Dublin, was brought to one of the Magdalene Laundries by the Legion of Mary.

There she worked long hours washing and ironing customers laundry.

The daughter of an unmarried mother she says she never found out why she ended up there and for four years suffered physical and emotional abuse in an institution run by the Sisters of Charity.

"You'd be up at 6am and you had to go to two Masses," she said.

"Your cell door was locked every night when you went in and you had a bucket and an iron bed and you couldn't look out the window. It was all bars.

"The food was absolutely brutal. And my mam died but they never told me she died. She died on Christmas Day but they never told me.

"I didn't know that until they let me out four years later. That's something that really upsets me."

Thomas Wall said he only has to look at the mirror to see evidence of the physical abuse he received at the hands of the Christian Brothers.

"I will carry a scar on my forehead which I got from a Brother in the classroom. Got my head banged off the desk," he said.

"It spouted blood and I went to the infirmary block, met the Superior, who was also a brother who was over the institution.

"I was questioned about what had happened to upset the Brother to this standard and I told him that I had done absolutely nothing and he did absolutely nothing about it."


Tom Hayes said he was beaten when he tried to report the abuse

Those at the industrial schools have said the abuse they suffered stays with them all their lives.

All three agree they have lost their belief in the Catholic Church.

"I have absolutely no faith in the Catholic Church. I am a Christian but I am not a Catholic. I left my Catholic religion at the industrial school gates," said Mr Hayes.

Thomas Wall, a single man, said he is not just physically scarred by the reform schools, he is also emotionally scarred.

"I found it impossible to mix with people, to trust people, to form any type of relationship with the opposite sex," he said.

"It damaged me totally, I think, for life. I'm convinced of that."

As for the report being published on Wednesday, all three, members of the Alliance Victims Support Group, say they want something simple - the truth.

And that means the religious orders admitting there was physical, sexual and emotional abuse at their institutions.

They also want the state to acknowledge that they were not criminals and to admit that it should have fulfilled its legal obligations and protected the most innocent of those it was tasked to care for.


BBC © MMX