Yahzi
17th April 2003, 11:44 AM
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,934110,00.html
Sleep was routinely interrupted by their constant checks for children wetting their beds and the beating that followed. One bed-wetter was held out of the window by her ankles as punishment. "You woke up to this thrashing. Nuns with leather straps hanging from their waist beside their rosary beads. The strap was socially acceptable. The excuse is that it was normal in those days."
Mealtimes, predictably, were the occasion of routine power struggles between nuns and children. Cusiter says she was force-fed: "She'd be pulling your head back, then she'd hold your nose so you couldn't breathe, until your mouth opened, and she'd shove food in. Then you'd choke and the food would end up on your plate again and she would force-feed you your own vomit. That started from the moment I went in there."
None the less, there have been scandals and debates within the church about the ill-treatment of children for decades. Eoin O'Sullivan, the Irish historian of Catholic orphanages and schools, cites a very public challenge to the church by Father Flanagan, the priest whose humane childcare was the model for Spencer Tracy in the film, Men Of Boys Town. This embarrassed both church and state in the 1940s. "Violence was an intrinsic part of the culture of these institutions," O'Sullivan says; they were committed to the "destruction of will". He has unearthed state archives revealing many complaints about cruelty and inspectors' concerns about "dangerous and undesirable punishment". Violent discipline, he says, was not uncontested.
Not uncontested, just not stopped. The Catholic Church had Catholic priests telling it what was going on and why it was wrong; it just didn't care as an instituition.
But no doubt somebody will respond to this by asking how religion harms me.
:mad:
EDIT: Doh, fixed the link.
Sleep was routinely interrupted by their constant checks for children wetting their beds and the beating that followed. One bed-wetter was held out of the window by her ankles as punishment. "You woke up to this thrashing. Nuns with leather straps hanging from their waist beside their rosary beads. The strap was socially acceptable. The excuse is that it was normal in those days."
Mealtimes, predictably, were the occasion of routine power struggles between nuns and children. Cusiter says she was force-fed: "She'd be pulling your head back, then she'd hold your nose so you couldn't breathe, until your mouth opened, and she'd shove food in. Then you'd choke and the food would end up on your plate again and she would force-feed you your own vomit. That started from the moment I went in there."
None the less, there have been scandals and debates within the church about the ill-treatment of children for decades. Eoin O'Sullivan, the Irish historian of Catholic orphanages and schools, cites a very public challenge to the church by Father Flanagan, the priest whose humane childcare was the model for Spencer Tracy in the film, Men Of Boys Town. This embarrassed both church and state in the 1940s. "Violence was an intrinsic part of the culture of these institutions," O'Sullivan says; they were committed to the "destruction of will". He has unearthed state archives revealing many complaints about cruelty and inspectors' concerns about "dangerous and undesirable punishment". Violent discipline, he says, was not uncontested.
Not uncontested, just not stopped. The Catholic Church had Catholic priests telling it what was going on and why it was wrong; it just didn't care as an instituition.
But no doubt somebody will respond to this by asking how religion harms me.
:mad:
EDIT: Doh, fixed the link.