The revelations contained in the 2,600-page report by Ireland’s Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse are shocking, to say the least. The report details the terror and abuse inflicted by Catholic clergy and nuns on thousands of boys and girls in Catholic educational institutions, making the conclusion that ‘rape, sexual violence, and physical abuse were ‘endemic’ in more than 250 Irish Catholic care institutions from the 1930s to the 1990s.’
What is more disturbing is the disclosure that the Catholic church in Ireland hid the secrets as it protected the pedophiles from legal punishment. The terror by the religious members went on for 60 years, and the victims have not been able to seek justice.
The ‘systematic clerical abuse’ also included accounts of beatings inside the institutions run by both priests and nuns. “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,” according to the report. The young wards in industrial schools and reformatories were regarded as convicts and slaves. Rape was prevalent in boys’ homes.
Most importantly, the report indicts the failure of the Irish government itself, especially its Education department, in addressing the decades-long abuses and sexual exploitation of minors. The report further criticizes the department of education for condoning such culture “through infrequent, toothless inspectors that always deferred to the Catholic’s church’s authority. The inspections even failed to ensure that children were adequately fed, clothed and educated.”
Via guardian.co.uk
