Nuns do it too.

[Cainkane1]

http://www.snapnetwork.org/female_victims/complaints_abuse_by_nuns.htm

[Cainkane1]

This is much more graphic.

http://www.jimgoad.net/nun****ed.html

[HansMustermann]

TBH, if we're talking catholic nuns, nothing beats the horror of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Asylum

[Drewbot]

tbh, if we're talking catholic nuns, nothing beats the horror of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/magdalene_asylum

holy schneike!
the existence of the irish asylums was of little thought of until, in 1993, an order of nuns in dublin sold part of their convent to a real estate developer. The remains of 155 inmates, which had been buried in unmarked graves on the property, were exhumed and, except for one body, cremated and reburied in a mass grave in glasnevin cemetery. This triggered a public scandal and became local and national news. In 1999 mary norris, josephine mccarthy and mary-jo mcdonagh, all asylum inmates, gave accounts of their treatment. The 1997 channel 4 documentary sex in a cold climate interviewed former inmates of magdalene asylums who testified to continued sexual, psychological and physical abuse while being isolated from the outside world for an indefinite amount of time. Allegations about the conditions of the convents and the treatment of the inmates of the irish asylums were made in the film the magdalene sisters (2002), written and directed by peter mullan - a film which has been both acclaimed and criticised.

[Schrodinger's Cat]

Um, yeah, slavery in Ireland was basically still legal until a couple decades ago so long as the Catholic Church was doing it.

Women were sentenced to the laundries for a littany of "offenses." These could range from having premarital sex to flirting with boys to being raped. They were usually young girls put in the laundries by their families. Though of course conditions in the laundries varied, in some of them, the women were locked in the laundry and not allowed to leave. Some of them spent their whole lives there. They were never charged with anything or put on trial. They were forced to work for the laundries and regularly experienced emotional, sexual, and physical abuse from the nuns and priests who ran them.

And it was legal, apparently. To just take some 15 year old you saw wink at a boy and lock her in a magdeline laundry for years or even a lifetime.


I would recommend the movie "The Magdeline Sisters" which was based on actual people and events, though the movie has actually been criticized by actual former inmates who state that the conditions in the movie, though deplorable, are actually tame compared to what life was actually like for them. But to be fair, as I said, not all laundries were the same, so the movie may still have been acurate for at least what some of them were like.

It has always bothered me that this never received widespread media attention. I mean, these women were slaves for goodness sake! In this century! For most of us, within OUR lifetimes! If some maniac in Austria kidnaps a teenage girls and locks her up for years, it (rightly) gets a ton of media buzz. But the RCC did this to scores of women, and it's not even common knowledge.

[Schrodinger's Cat]

Though I have to say despite the scandal in the RCC with child abuse, it is always important to remember the selfless work done by scores of priests and nuns around the world. I have volunteered in several orphanages...in Central/ South America, most orphanages are run by the RCC. And there I met simply some of the most selfless and gentle people I have ever met in my life. Educated people who chose to live in squallor so that they can take care of children their country lacks the infrastructure to take care of.

Despite my anger at the RCC right now, it doesn't change the fact that I have a lot of experience with Catholic Clergy and it has been overwhelmingly positive. The clergy in the parish I grew up in also I have nothing but positive things to say about.

[HansMustermann]

That's just it. Being thrown in for just winking at a boy, or just being poor and pretty so someone thought you might possibly be a prostitute when you grow up, or other such things seem to have been the crime and the standard of evidence there. No trial, no release term, no possibility of parole, none of the human rights and safeguards afforded even by a prison for hardened criminals. Physical and even sexual abuse at the discretion of whatever deranged nun was in command.

[HansMustermann]

Though I have to say despite the scandal in the RCC with child abuse, it is always important to remember the selfless work done by scores of priests and nuns around the world. I have volunteered in several orphanages...in Central/ South America, most orphanages are run by the RCC. And there I met simply some of the most selfless and gentle people I have ever met in my life. Educated people who chose to live in squallor so that they can take care of children their country lacks the infrastructure to take care of.

Despite my anger at the RCC right now, it doesn't change the fact that I have a lot of experience with Catholic Clergy and it has been overwhelmingly positive. The clergy in the parish I grew up in also I have nothing but positive things to say about.

I don't think it's even a matter of the RCC as some exception, as just a case of an institution operating parallel-to/above-the law. Eventually it will get some people who realize that they can do illegal stuff with little to no legal consequences. Be it raping minors or tormenting other women.

The dark irony of it all is that the Magdalene Asylums themselves were started as a charitable organization. They were supposed to be a temporary and voluntary shelter for prostitutes trying to move on. It was supposed to give them a shelter and a means of supporting themselves by other means, if they actually choose to remain there.

But there were basically no checks other than trusting the Church to do no wrong. They're a bunch of nuns doing charitable work, after all. What harm are they going to do?

And that's where things went south. The organization gradually became more and more penal in character, and actually worse than the actual prisons. And at each step, there was nobody to check on them and tell them to stop.

Then they started just basically doing their own arrests and expanding their scope, from prostitutes (and I'd see abducting those to a slave labour camp as wrong too) to anyone who might possibly be one day unchaste. Flirty girls. Single mothers. Poor and pretty girls.

And that downwards slope triggered no checks either.

I would guess that eventually it just became natural that it attracted the kind of psychopaths and fanatics that thrived on that kind of unchecked power over others, while the nice nuns just got themselves transferred somewhere else.

That's what I see as the real failure. That an organization, _any_ organization really, was essentially never checked and left to operate by their own law.

[fuelair]

I don't think it's even a matter of the RCC as some exception, as just a case of an institution operating parallel-to/above-the law. Eventually it will get some people who realize that they can do illegal stuff with little to no legal consequences. Be it raping minors or tormenting other women.

The dark irony of it all is that the Magdalene Asylums themselves were started as a charitable organization. They were supposed to be a temporary and voluntary shelter for prostitutes trying to move on. It was supposed to give them a shelter and a means of supporting themselves by other means, if they actually choose to remain there.

But there were basically no checks other than trusting the Church to do no wrong. They're a bunch of nuns doing charitable work, after all. What harm are they going to do?

And that's where things went south. The organization gradually became more and more penal in character, and actually worse than the actual prisons. And at each step, there was nobody to check on them and tell them to stop.

Then they started just basically doing their own arrests and expanding their scope, from prostitutes (and I'd see abducting those to a slave labour camp as wrong too) to anyone who might possibly be one day unchaste. Flirty girls. Single mothers. Poor and pretty girls.

And that downwards slope triggered no checks either.

I would guess that eventually it just became natural that it attracted the kind of psychopaths and fanatics that thrived on that kind of unchecked power over others, while the nice nuns just got themselves transferred somewhere else.

That's what I see as the real failure. That an organization, _any_ organization really, was essentially never checked and left to operate by their own law.Locate the bad ones, kill them. Handling these things should be so easy.:mad:

[JWideman]

This is much more graphic.

http://www.jimgoad.net/nun****ed.html

URL contains a censored word so you have to put it in a tinyurl.
http://tinyurl.com/68qx7s

[Aitch]

URL contains a censored word so you have to put it in a tinyurl.
http://tinyurl.com/68qx7s

Or have a wild guess at what four-letter word it might be; hmmm...

[Darat]

For anyone interested in this topic I suggest you read the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (http://www.childabusecommission.ie/rpt/pdfs/) report.

[Bob Klase]

TBH, if we're talking catholic nuns

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Asylum

If we're talking about catholic nuns, why would you bring up article that says in the 2nd sentence:

Although popularly associated with Ireland, there is nothing distinctly Irish or Roman Catholic about them.

(All bolding mine)

[HansMustermann]

Because the Irish ones were run by Catholic nuns, and were worse than any equivalent institution short of a Sharia court?

[Skeptical Greg]

From the linked article:
Accusers interviewed for this story say they've come forward only recently because it took them years to fully remember or process the abuse and decide how to deal with it.I'm sure hefty settlements have nothing to do with it .... :rolleyes:


( Not saying it didn't happen, or that it was in any way justified, just that money has a way of jarring people's memory ..)

[Schrodinger's Cat]

From the linked article:
I'm sure hefty settlements have nothing to do with it .... :rolleyes:


( Not saying it didn't happen, or that it was in any way justified, just that money has a way of jarring people's memory ..)

I disagree. I volunteer with at risk kids and my parents did foster care. Taking years to really remember and process abuse and come forward is actually extremely common. And I've never worked with kids seeking money.

Also, the Irish government does not deny what happened in the laundries, or the extent of the abuses there, from what I have read about them. It's more that they deny that the government is responsible for what happened.

I also read something interesting after reading Hans' very informative post and wanting to research further. Apparently these women CANNOT be considered slaves because the European Human Rights Commission states that in order to be an actual slave, the person has to actually OWN you. "Depriving someone of personal autonomy" is NOT considered slavery so long as the person is not claiming to actually own you. So locking someone up and forcing them to work for you for no pay is not slavery so long as they don't actually CALL you a slave. That seems like semantics to me, and I'm rather surprised that this is the human rights commission's guidelines. I mean, slavery is illegal, of course no one's going to have paperwork stating "so and so is my slave." Maybe I am missing something and someone could shed some more light on this distinction.

Of course there always will be people looking for either fame or money. There have been women who have come forward whose claims were found to be fraudulent. But (from what I have read) fraudulent reports of abuse were only found in a handful of cases.

Also, if it's the case that many women did not come forward until lawyers started trying to seek compensation..I mean, isn't that to be expected? These women were put in the laundries often by people like state social workers or their parents, and they lived in a society where the laundries were accepted. It makes sense they wouldn't come forward until action was being taken seeking compensation because up until that point, they probably just didn't think coming forward would do any good. It's not like the molestation cases where this was all hushed up. People knew the laundries existed and that the girls weren't allowed to leave and that they were often put there for no reason other than "potential for impropriety." So what would be the point of coming forward when everyone already knew what was happening and didn't care then? It's not a stretch to say that if they didn't care about locking you up forever with no pay, they wouldn't care if you got beaten or raped or whatever either. Up until victims rights groups and lawyers started petitioning for these women, they probably just had no one they felt they could tell their stories to who would care. Just speculation of course, but it seems sensible to me.

[HansMustermann]

A lot were simply never released. Remember that the whole thing started over a lot of skeletons in unmarked graves being found at a site. Some women simply lived there until their death. Life with no parole, worse than some murderers get. I'd love to add "women who hadn't even actually done any sexual impropriety", but, as I was saying, I don't consider prostitution to be deserving that either.

By the end of it, without someone from outside to vouch for you, there simply was _no_ way to be released. Ever.

You also have to remember that these women had had it drilled into their heads, day after day, that it's for their own fault. They were told how even their breath is the very pestilence of hell. They were told they'll never be forgiven even by God until they accept it and repent. They were told they're "children" (actual official designation and title once inside) in need of guidance from their nun "mothers" (again, the nuns actually had to be addressed that way.) The implication about one's capacity to make decisions for oneself or exercise sound judgment is pretty explicit.

Do you find it hard to believe that some would just start believing it, even if just as a way to cope with reality?

Those who tried to resist were beaten or ignored. They had explicit rules that any hunger strike or passive-aggressive resistance is to be simply ignored. It was actually in one of their manuals. Again, worse than in any actual prison: these merciful nuns actually didn't give a **** if you starve yourself to death.

You also have to remember that

A) the church in Ireland was waay too strong for anyone to realistically hope to take on alone. They were that far above the law that apparently even in their orphanages or even normal schools -- you know, the kind where children would then go home to their parents -- reports of physical and sexual abuse simply exploded once the government actually started investigating.

And going against them would not only make a pariah of the poor girl they abused, but also of the family member who had vouched for her to get her out of there. I'd imagine not many people would take that lightly.

B) in the ultra-catholic morals of the time and place, all those had been accused of and imprisoned for a grievous offense. There were precious few ways to go against them without basically confessing "oh yeah, and I was a whore too." Or at the very least, "the almighty church says I was one, but please believe me, not them."

I would assume that not many people would want to incur that kind of stigma and probably without gaining anything for it. They'd more likely just thank God they're among the few that got out at all, and not seek to get any more damage out of it.

[Skeptical Greg]

I disagree. I volunteer with at risk kids and my parents did foster care. Taking years to really remember and process abuse and come forward is actually extremely common. And I've never worked with kids seeking money.30 - 50 Year old kids ?

[AaronAlexander]

I disagree. I volunteer with at risk kids and my parents did foster care. Taking years to really remember and process abuse and come forward is actually extremely common. And I've never worked with kids seeking money.


I agree with a lot of what you said, but this is a pretty risky assertion. My understanding is that the whole repression idea is kind of a remnant of Freudian psychology, and that the problem that people who experience have is the inability to stop remembering. Memories are extremely easily distorted.

My concern with the priest thing is that it creates a clear and widespread abuse story, like Satanic Ritual Abuse. The problem is that unlike SRA, the stuff with clergy actually happens. But as we saw with the SRA scandal in the '80s and '90s, once the idea is established, people all over start 'remembering' (I've heard this process called ostension). It puts all the good priests that people have mentioned in a dangerous situation.