Nuns Killed Children, Say Former Residents Of St. Joseph’s Catholic Orphanage

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I’m still reading the piece.

I’m completely and utterly heartbroken.

🌷

ETA: Many will dispute Buzzfeed as a source, however their investigative journalism is quite good and when reading the article it is backed up by other journalistic sources, news clippings, survivor reports, and court documents.
 
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When my grandmother died in 1914, Dad and his youngest sister were placed with a foster family. My grandfather sent the two other girls to the convent across the bay from their home.

The oldest, in the 1970s, told me of her sister, who was a pickier eater, vomiting in her plate at breakfast and being served the vomit for lunch because it was a sin to waste food.

I also know another family who sent their children off to boarding school at the convent near my home as soon as they started school. Because the grandfather had helped build the convent their education was free. One of the boys was abused, physically, by the sister who supervised the dorm, because he was a bed-wetter. My parents didn’t believe him when he first told the story as an adult but his brothers corroborated his story and my aunt, who was an adult boarding student in their secretarial training program, also remembered how pitiful he looked made to stand there draped in his soiled sheets for all to see and mock. He told of being locked in the cupboard and sometimes in the cold room.
 
I’m so sorry to hear that this happened.

It’s really tough to come to terms with.
 
This story made me so mad when I read it. I dont care how old they are, these nuns are the equivalent of Nazi prison guards (actually worse since they committed their crimes in the name of Christ) and should be held accountable.
 
I was reading in another forum and I read 2 people say words to the effect that “I’m not Catholic, but the Catholic Church has done so much good in charity, etc.” and one of them was saying how this was one orphanage. I know there have been problems in Ireland too. I just hope in the “big picture”, this is a rare incident.
 
Unfortunately, not so rare.

See if you can find the movie “Oranges and Sunshine.”
It tells the all true story of British children sent to Australia, abused by staff and personnel of the orphanages they were sent to, to include the Christian Brothers.
 
What i notice in all of these secular accounts is that not once is there any serious investigation into why the people alleged to have done such horrible things never took their Catholic faith seriously enough to have it shape their lives which would prevent such abuse.

The conflict of interest which i see with many of these secular journalists is that they also would seek to persuade people not to take the Catholic church seriously.
 
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Why has there been a history of such horrible abuse by Catholics in authority in the Catholic Church? Priests, Bishops, nuns…when will it stop?
 
7_Sorrows the past horrors of abuse are all over society. Inside the Catholic church it stops, i would argue, when people are rigidly Catholic in their lives and not led to believe a Catholic life of virtue is an optional extra for a representative of the church.
 
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abucs said:
What i notice in all of these secular accounts is that not once is there any serious investigation into why the people alleged to have done such horrible things never took their Catholic faith seriously enough to have it shape their lives which would prevent such abuse.

The conflict of interest which i see with many of these secular journalists is that they also would seek to persuade people not to take the Catholic church seriously.
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How would they investigate that? Ask a priest or nun why they never took their Catholic faith seriously? I don’t understand who you are directing that toward. The journalist?

There was no conflict of interest in the article the OP linked. There was no persuasion of any sort going on by the author, just reporting.
 
My comment was a balance of all such reporting.

The obvious question is why were people whose life is supposed to revolve around Catholicism acting in a very unCatholic manner?

That question is never asked.

The further question is why such an obvious question is never asked.
 
Who should ask it? Who should they ask it of?

You know the answer. Those involved are faithless. No one is going to say they are holy people. They are people that have lost their faith, plain and simple. They have given in to unspeakable, selfish evil.
 
Well they can ask it about those charged with the formation of religious.

They can ask it of all of us who create the culture that allows people who are ‘faithless’ to act as representatives of the church. That question would especially be asked to bishops who are responsible for their Diocese.

I believe if we are going to move forward then some analysis of what failed in Catholic culture needs to be done and communicated. Secular writers by and large are not going to do this out of the conflicted issue i expressed.

What is causing further frustration is that too few Catholics also want to discuss this.

Something went very wrong with Catholic culture for at least a 40 year span from the 1950’s. We need to work out what that was.
 
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There are so many issues with the abuse and it’s coverup. To summarise a few:
  • When Arch/diocese do not give provide information which would corroborate survivor reports. Like in this article, it was only years later when they were forced to, that it became apparent that many—at least male—religious of the orphanage were being moved around and one filed noted that the male religious should have never been admitted/ordained.
  • When the Church treats survivors and victims as an opponent. This goes hand in hand with them above. Instead of believing them, and helping them—in the past the leadership of the Church has tried to discredit them.
  • The NDAs and lack of transparency of those who have transgressed. This gives perpetrators the ability to go unnoticed in the wider world.
  • Questionable formation of religious candidates, male and female. This issue has been addressed, albeit slowly.
Secular writes and secular courts are the only ones actually airing the dirty laundry. The Catholic Press rarely addressed the issue before the whole thing fully blew up. The Church has not been able to rely on themselves to hold themselves accountable, as a collective.

If you are asking yourself why the secular press keeps running the story, it is because there are so many stories of abuse and failings to be told. This isn’t just one story, it’s thousands of accounts from many different people.

Many of the Catholic Press we enjoy is Arch/diocesan, and/or get’s funding from Catholic affiliated companies and organisations from donations and/or advertising money. Many of these publications in the past and many to this date do not do investigative journalism.

Do you think the Archdiocesan newspaper in Boston would have written the same investigative story or at all as the Boston Globe?

Clearly, the Church has failed to maintain its own standards—its leadership failed, its clergy failed, its religious failed, and laity also failed in cases of those complicit in the coverup.
 
LittleFlower said:
If you are asking yourself why the secular press keeps running the story, it is because there are so many stories of abuse and failings to be told .
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In Australia this is not true.

Some people’s faulty logic then think this means nothing should be said.

What is the case here is that the secular press have a hatred for the institutional church and see their role as evangelically promoting the alternative of the politically correct religion. Because of this there is no interest in having a faithful, strong and ethically sound Catholic church.

Reporting is often done to bring the church down, not to make it better.

Again, some people’s faulty logic then think this means nothing should be said. The two issues are separate.
 
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abucs said:
What is the case here is that the secular press have a hatred for the institutional church and see their role as evangelically promoting the alternative of the politically correct religion. Because of this there is no interest in having a faithful, strong and ethically sound Catholic church.

Reporting is often done to bring the church down, not to make it bett
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I disagree with this. It is an easy way out to say that the secular media wants to bring down the Church.

The religious media did not report on it. Without public reports, nothing would have changed and survivors and victims would not be receiving help and justice.
 
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